How to cure your Asthma or hay-fever using hookworm.

"I became infested almost immediately, it must have been either the first or second day I spent walking barefoot through the latrines. When one thinks of it this was an enormous piece of luck"<p>Wow - what a glass half-full outlook :-)

The guy wrote a follow-up piece last year: <a href="http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/3/16/3408/66053" rel="nofollow">http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/3/16/3408/66053</a>

Ok, i'm thoroughly disgusted. How bad does your asthma have to be in order to resort to parasitic infection as a cure? I hate my hayfever, but you can count me out for this remedy.

Here's the Wikipedia link on the general subject:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy</a><p>I don't have any of those diseases, so I've had no occasion to try it.

The "Parasites" episode of Radio Lab discusses the story of another person who did the same thing. <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2009/09/25" rel="nofollow">http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2009/09/25</a>

There are a couple of factual errors in the story. The worms live in the small intestine. (Think about the name, <i>Ancylostoma duodenale</i>) The third-stage larva is infective, not the first or second.<p>Hookworm infestation causes anemia, lethargy, and malabsorption, so definitely use with caution. It is probably best to use some sort of defined protocol so that you have a small number of worms without the risk of massive infestation.

I'd love to do this (I get super-bad hay fever), but dude's charging $3000 bucks, which seems pretty steep to pay for a disgusting worm with an uncertain outcome. Anyone know a cheaper source? (I was thinking a farm, but apparently the hookworms animals get and the hookworms humans get aren't the same.)

For a few years, I had some pretty severe hayfever in the early springtime, but this year there's been almost nothing. I attribute the difference to diet changes reducing the inflammatory reactions.<p>Of course, that's probably not enough for all sufferers.

As someone with really bad asthma, who coughs constantly when speaking to clients and thankfully works from home and uses a mute during coughs on Skype, this study is fascinating and I hope something comes of it for a vaccine.

I don't even want to read past the intro. I'll stick with cleaning up my diet and home environment and using alternative remedies to get better, thanks.<p>(No, I don't have asthma, though I was misdiagnosed with it at one point. I do have "atypical cystic fibrosis" and there is a lot of overlap in treatments between the two things.)<p>EDIT: Since I have been downvoted, let me clarify: I frequently get strong negative reactions on health discussion lists for the "extremes" to which I have gone to get well, extremes which freak out a lot of other people. To my mind, my choices have been pretty conservative compared to this. I don't keep my health situation a secret here but there is no real reason most folks here would have much context. &#60;shrug&#62;<p>Carry on.