I founded Autoimmune Therapies, the first company to provide helminths with humans as their definitive host for sale, after going to Africa, Cameroon, in January of 2006 and infecting myself with hookworm. This self-infection with hookworm resulted in complete remission of my asthma and severe seasonal allergies. Something modern medicine had not been able to accomplish in a lifetime of trying.
I decided based on my reading of the available scientific literature, various parasitology texts, and information provided by the Centers for Disease Control in the United States, who recommend US doctors not treat light infections of hookworm, that what was obviously a safe and effective therapy should be made available to those like me for whom modern medicine had nothing to offer.
Autoimmune Therapies was the result.
This blog is an outlet for my thoughts and experiences providing helminths to the sick.
I love reading these blogs. I am a 29 year old female with Crohn’s Disease. I was diagnosed when I was 17. I have spent the last 12 years on Remicade, Humira, Pentasa, Asacol, Prednisone, Imuran, antibiotics, and numerous other medications! I have struggled through to accomplish two Bachelor Degrees and now I am returning to Medical School in the fall. My reasoning for this is to find other alternatives for this disease. Research, Research, and Research. I am a huge supporter of helminthic therapy! I myself am eager to try this therapy. I also am returning to med school to be that doctor who actually knows what her patient’s go through on a daily basis!
Wow, I feel, actually I must be, dumb. Just found all these comments on my about page which until now I had never noticed.
My apologies to all of you who left comments here without reply.
To you Heather, good for you! The world needs doctors with open minds like yours, I wish you the best, medical school sounds like a gruelling process. I have heard it said that for a new idea to take root the current generation devoted to the old ideas have to die off. In which case you represent one of the first in a new vanguard of doctors, I hope, that recognise the importance of changes in our environment, behaviours, diet, etc, on health. That these effects are profound and can have enormous consequences for their patient’s health.
Good luck, and thank you for the kind words.
Jasper
Hi Jasper,
I was wondering if Helminthic therapy might have the potential to help in a case of IGA Nephropathy (Berger’s Disease), an autoimmune disease of the kidneys. Have you seen anything encouraging when it comes to this condition or something similar? Thank you in advance!
- Ricky
Hi Ricky, again, I apologise for taking so long to notice that this area had comments.
For everyone with questions like this the best way to get an answer is to email us at enquiries@autoimmunetherapies.com, having visited our contact page at http://autoimmunetherapies.com/helminthic_therapy_contact.html and downloaded a questionnaire. By completing a questionnaire and submitting it you allow us to provide fully informed answers to your questions, usually by telephone, at no cost and with no obligation to you.
Helminthic therapy is not a one-size-fits-all therapy, and many factors effect how it has to be applied to get the best results and to avoid a strong initial immune response on first exposure to whichever organism, hookworm or whipworm, is appropriate.
As to Berger’s disease I do not believe we have treated it. But a good rule of thumb for determining if your disease may have the potential to respond to helminthic therapy is if involves chronic inflammation and if steroids like prednisone/prednisilone are used to treat it then there is the potential to see benefits from helminthic therapy.
Another good resource to learn if your disease has responded to helminthic therapy is the Yahoo forum I founded but no longer administer, http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/helminthictherapy/. There are lots of stories there and folks posting, and the new admin, actually I think they have been running it for a couple of years now, has posted a file which he updates regularly that contains stories with links from around the web, organised by disease. Using that you will likely be able to quickly locate a few people at least with your disease and read their accounts first hand.
The link is called *HELMINTHIC THERAPY SUCCESS STORIES* at http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/helminthictherapy/files/
I believe he or they update it at least occasionally because it says below the descriptor “Over 200 successes with 60 different medical conditions.” and the last time I looked at it there were only just over 100.
Sorry for the late reply, Jasper
Hi Jasper,
I listened to your interview on Radio Lab years ago and admire your work. I thought you might be interested in this BBC documentary which (briefly) backs up your assertions about the effectiveness of parasites in treating allergies. It deals with modern causes of allergies and attempts to treat them.
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/allergy-planet/
Thanks for all you do!
Lauren
Thanks for the kind words, and I will watch that video now.
Jasper
Hi there
My husband has been diagnosed with Coeliac Disease and Ankylosing Spondylitis. I was wondering if there was any information on the treatment of Ankylosing Spondylitis
(also an Auto Immune Disease) with Helminthic Therapy? I know that Coeliac Disease responds really well to the therapy. Also do you know of any practitioners in Australia?
Many thanks If you are able to respond.
Cat
I do not believe we have had any, or very many, subjects with AS and off the top of my head do not know what the response rate is, if any, for that condition. Sorry.
On the subject of practitioners, since this is an experimental therapy any doctor or licensed medical practitioner who recommended it would be putting their license at risk. It has not been approved by any regulatory agency around the world.
We have had good results with RA I know, and we are working on a new CRM system, a database of clients, that will allow me to answer questions like this in the future easily. Right now, with over 500 clients having tried therapy, for a wide variety of diseases, we are past the point where I am able to answer these types of questions easily. Hence our move to this CRM system.
Thanks, and good luck to your husband. AS is a painful and nasty condition, I hope his case is mild and he is able to find relief by whatever means.
Jasper
Hello Jasper. My 10-year old son was diagnosed with Chron’s disease in 2006. He has been put on Imuran, Prednisone and now an option is Remicade. He is very little and in pain daily. The hospital also recommended an elimination liquid diet of Boost and Ensure, yet these drinks give my son stomach craps also. I have been doing some research and hoped I may get in contact with you regarding Helminthic Therapy. I would do anything if my son could have no pain.
Again, very sorry to have taken so long to notice all the comments in this area, in this case I feel shame given the circumstances.
We have had some remarkable successes in young children with Crohn’s, witness the stories on this blog here:
http://blog.autoimmunetherapies.com/blog/2011/01/21/why-we-keep-doing-what-we-do-this-makes-all-the-sacrifices-worthwhile-2-2/
There are three posts on this child’s experience, I believe from memory that she was about 2 when we started her on therapy. Her response was so good we wrote it up and presented it at the Autoimmunity Congress in Granada, Spain in May of this year, 2012. We are working on making the presentation, and the others we gave, one on RR MS, available in some format.
If having read these stories you would like to speak to the parents I can arrange that. Just email us via the contact page on our main site, http://autoimmunetherapies.com/contact.html
Thanks, and again my abject apologies for the delay.
Jasper
I have allergies and asthma and i am unable to take allergy shots at least i was as a child because it made both worse. I also have fibromyalgia and i was wondering if you have had seen any benefits in fibromyalgia with this type of therapy. I am from the USA and I will bring this up to my physician when i see him next but I think there is a strong probability that he will not consider this type of therapy. I am wondering if you know of any physicans that you could recommend in Michigan or really anywhere in the US that I could talk to about this type of treatment. Any information that you could give would be wonderful and very helpful for me! at this point i am willing to try anything!!
Asthma and allergies respond well to helminthic therapy in approximately 80% of cases, but people with fibromyalgia are extremely sensitive to hookworm, so need to introduce these very gradually. If you read our FAQ (http://autoimmunetherapies.com/documents/FAQ.pdf), this will give you a good basic understanding of the therapy and then you can contact us (http://autoimmunetherapies.com/helminthic_therapy_contact.html) to discuss your particular case. You may also find this document of interest: http://tiny.cc/i74ld.
Hi Jasper,
I also heard your story on Radiolab, and was fascinated, as I have been on medication for rheumatoid arthritis for several years, but am not happy with my doctors’ suggestion that I just remain on medication for the rest of my life. I am curious as to whether anyone with rheumatoid arthritis or lupus (which my sister has) has had success with the treatment, or whether it seems to be effective primarily for asthma, allergies, and autoimmune disorders that affect the digestive tract? Would greatly appreciate any information/advice you may have.
Hey Krystina
As I was just telling Lisa, very few people have tried helminthic therapy for RA, so you would need to talk to Jasper about this if you want to know more – enquiries@autoimmunetherapies.com and be sure to make the subject line “Regarding helminthic therapy” to ensure you get past his spam filter.
These links may also be of interest to you.
http://tiny.cc/x128d
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/helminthictherapy/message/4411
and you’ll find more general info on the website (http://autoimmunetherapies.com/) and in the FAQ (http://autoimmunetherapies.com/documents/FAQ.pdf)
Hi Krystina,
Since your post we have heard back from the handful of subjects with RA who have tried therapy and their accounts are very encouraging. I cannot say more here, there are laws governing what I can and cannot say on such things in public, but I would get in touch if I were you.
Jasper
Hi Jasper,
I have a 3 year old who is suffering from food allergy related eczema after a vaccine administered one month prior to onset. There are many triggers including fructose, sugar, diary, gluten and soy. My question is, could pin worms help to “reset” her immune system?
Thank you.
Hi Terezka
We don’t sell pinworms (Enterobius vermicularis: http://dpd.cdc.gov/dpdx/HTML/Enterobiasis.htm) because their numbers aren’t controllable, they spread to other people, they cause uncomfortable itching and they may not be particularly effective anyway (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21983081), though there have been a few reports of them delivering some therapeutic benefits (http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/helminthictherapy/message/7616).
If you want to get Jasper’s advice about the possibility of reseting your daughter’s immune system, you can email him at customer_service@autoimmunetherapies.com
Fran
I have become fascinated by the hygiene hypothesis. I was recently hired by a company called Coronado Biosciences which is working on treatments for autoimmune diseases based on the hygiene hypothesis.
Are you still actively involved in the field? I am eager to learn more
Thank you
Hi Jeff, Jasper couldn’t really be more involved in Helminthic Therapy than he is – managing Autoimmune Therapies (http://autoimmunetherapies.com/) to make the treatment available to all those who need it.
His mission is to change the practice of medicine to include the use of benign infectious organisms to prevent and treat immunological disorders, or diseases that involve chronic inflammation.
What exactly do you have in mind when you say that you’re eager to learn more? I can provide links if you can tell me what you’re particularly interested in.
Hello,
Just beginning to learn about helminth therapy. My daughter has dangerous food allergies. (Shellfish) We live in the Boston area and are wondering about treatment.
Can you advise ?
Thank you
Barbara
Hi Barbara
If you call Ross, our Customer Service Manager, using the following contact details, he’ll explain everything for you:
https://www.facebook.com/autoimmunetherapies/info
It would help if you could read our FAQ before getting in touch with Ross:
http://autoimmunetherapies.com/documents/FAQ.pdf
and, if you want to understanding the therapy in even more detail, you could also read the links listed here:
http://blog.autoimmunetherapies.com/helminthic-therapy-basics/
Fran