I am posting this because I often find myself telling people that helminthic therapy, though it very likely could make you completely well, cannot cure you. The issue is semantics, but it is important we adhere to strict definitions, even if they cause trouble for some, in the interest of accuracy.
A cure is when a disease or illness is treated and then goes away completely. An example of this is when antibiotics are used to clear up an infection such as tonsillitis.
Remission is associated with incurable diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s Disease, ulcerative colitis, and others. All of those diseases are very hard to treat with modern medicine, and, at the moment, modern medicine offers no cure. In fact, because of their nature, arising at least in part out of the interplay of genetics and environment, there can be no cure. These autoimmune diseases can be characterised by periods of sickness, usually referred to as “relapse”, and periods of wellness, when the disease symptoms are not apparent at all, referred to as “remission”.
Helminthic therapy helps the body to achieve and sustain remission, and it does so in part by changing the environment in a sense. It is not a cure, because the remission is dependent upon continuing to host the helminths, so far as we know. If you lose your helminth population, you will get sick again. Think of it in terms of antibiotics, if you had to take them for the rest of your life you would not think of them as a cure.
This is why AIT guarantees infection and provides reinfection for just $150 USD during the period of your engagement with us, usually three years for hookworm, or eighteen months for whipworm.
There is however a lot of circumstantial evidence that hookworm and whipworm do bring about changes to our immune systems that outlast infection by at least six months. So it is possible that remission may also outlast the death of the infection, strictly the infestation, for some diseases, in some individuals.