A Time to Regroup

I received the results of my pill cam procedure a couple of weeks ago, but am only now sharing them because I've been doing a mental regroup.  I've mentioned before that one of the hardest parts of dealing with Crohn's Disease is enduring the defeats that always seem to chase away the hard-won victories.  It's as if the campfire you've finally gotten started is suddenly snuffed out by an icy blast of air, leaving you shivering and in the dark.

I suppose the good news in all of this is that I can't say definitively that the hookworms aren't still there.  The pill cam battery died before it ever reached the end of my small intestines, where the hookworms likely would have been.  Unfortunately, what the camera did show was lots of ulcers throughout my small intestines which means my immune system is back in overdrive and reeking havoc on my body.  The amount of inflammation in my gut was enough to make the pill cam take longer to digest than normal, leading to the battery dying too soon.

I still believe in helminthic therapy.  There was enough proof before I started using hookworms to convince me and in the past two years, the research done by others a whole lot smarter than me has continued to pile up.  If you placed those who have tried helminthic therapy on a spectrum, I think that it would be safe to say that I'm no where near the middle.  While I know people who have had excellent and quick results using hookworms, I have only found short-lived relief.  So rather than say I am unresponsive to the positive effects of hookworms, I believe at this time it's more accurate to say I have not yet achieved a therapeutic dose with hookworms.

But before I can consider making any adjustments to my hookworm population, I have to contain the ulcers and small strictures that are forming in my gut.  From the pill camera images that I saw, I know that if I don't do something quickly, I'll be back in the hospital for another small bowel resection.  I'm willing to do anything to avoid that again.