I'm one of those weird people who refuses to join FB.

I did the 23andme test for the same reason. Their health reporting is not so good/detailed. But the mthfrsupport.com reporting was excellent. It will import your 23andme data right into their system and spit out a report for $20.

Edit: I have 20 methylation related mutations not mthfr.

I know a lot of people here are just getting started with parasite cleansing, but this is not new to me. I spent a good 6 years or more dong parasite cleansing. I'm not sure if they are all out yet, but I haven't seen any in quite a while, even though I still have symptoms. Also the herbs that used to cause really bad die-off reactions don't cause anything to happen now, whatever that means.

I am suspecting protozoa now and not helminths, but it's just a feeling I have no proof yet.

I'm skeptical like you with the gene tests, but I feel like it's something I have to at least try just in case it does work out. I always wondered whether the heavy metals could trigger these mutations to happen and whether these things were not in fact genetic but environmental mutations, or like you said maybe parasites cause the mutations, who knows.

I have parasite horror stories to rival the best ones here.

Also my situation is more complicated because of massive small intestine congestion/plaque that has been going on for 2 decades now.

The gene mutations are not possible, they are actual, I just got the results back and had 20 defects related to methylation and wondering if this is excessive.

sd2345 wow really interesting information!

Can you provide a source for this... that parasites can lead to false DNA testing.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, just curious. I know that with parasite testing they test for parasite DNA and these can be very inaccurate, but with human DNA tests????

Also there was a CDC report some years ago that upward of 90% or more of Americans were infected with parasites as most people here know, so you can't correlate parasites with gene mutations. Well, you could but it would be like correlating parasites with people that breathe, i.e. not very significant.

From the very basic reading I did so far they say that mutations can be caused by environment (parasites, toxins, etc) but that is not the most common or likely cause of mutations.

How do u take care of the parasites?

Dave,
I'm just curious:
Do you think methylation issues or MTHFR can be "cured" or fixed?
And how did you find out about your infections - how did you know?
Thanks for this!

I agree with what you said and I'm game for anything that will work. When I first got sick I had high EBV titers, but they said that it wasn't an active infection, just indicative of an old infection. EBV is something that has been on the back of my mind for a while. There was a youtube video somewhere of a girl who used a homeopathic remedy to cure it but I could never find the remedy name.

My experiences with intestinal flora have turned into an odyssey. It started out when I went off dairy and gluten two decades ago and started passing intestinal plaque every day. Hard stool that constipated me and got stuck on the way out. This has been going on for 2 decades now and never ending. Very few people believe me, they think I'm some kind of idiot who can't differentiate normal stool from detoxing. Then after afer about 8 years of that I began passing worms, flukes, ascaris, strongyloides, rope worms, probably others too. It's pretty interesting that we all seem to have the same things when we dig deep enough, like the heavy metals and parasite infections.

Now I don't have any of those things coming out of me and I don't react to worming herbs, but anything is possible. It seems impossible to accurately identify infections. Lyme and coinfections are a strong possibility too, but I really don't want to get caught up in the standard medical maze of Lyme with all of the inaccuracies of diagnosis.

Actually I do react to worming herbs as of late. Figs, cinnamon, cayenne, cocoa powder all cause hemorrhoid-type bleeding, but no other symptoms. I'm almost positive this is a parasite problem.Maye the pinworm medications will help.

I am going to buy some otc meds and veterinary meds for parasites next as per advice from the parasite meds forum just to test these things out. I used to be scared of these things due to potential toxic reactions but I'm more scared now of languishing forever and not making any more progress with health. I had a cyst show up in my liver ultrasound twice and then twice it didn't show up, very frustrating. I don't know if there is an actual cyst there or it was perhaps just some kind of stone that came out in one of the liver flushes.

Aside from all this I keep improving, but never getting down to the root of the problem. Summertime is a nightmare for me, my body just shuts off completely and then when the cold weather comes around it's like someone turned the 'on' switch and I'm back to functioning well.

Anyway I have no doubts that addressing gut issues will improve everything including methylation problems. I'm not a methylation evangelist or anything, just going through all of the possible solutions to see what feels like might get me somewhere. This whole gene testing thing might turn out to be b.s. too compared to just doing the cleansing work.

I have a question for you, how are you feeling now that you have addressed some specific infections?

Against my better judgement I did the metametrix complete stool diagnostic and it got me nowhere but $500 poorer.

Right now the things that are working best for me are stupidly simple and cheap like drinking tea 3x a day, I swear this has been better than 100 things I have tried for gut problems.