How I've (hopefully) overcome chronic health issues

Before we dig in: I have quite a number of links to various supplements and products below. NONE of these are affiliate links.

If you have followed my work/story you might know that I’ve had ups and downs with various health issues for the past, holy cats, nearly 30 years. Back in 1998/99 I developed a case of ulcerative colitis that damn near killed me. I got down to 125 lbs due to mal absorption issues. For reference the photo near the end of this piece I’m about 175, when I competed in powerlifting I was about 181.

I was a hot mess.

Although I’ve talked about various precipitating factors for that event (vegan diet, living in Seattle, terrible sleep, high stress). The thing that kicked it all off however was to be my first of now three brushes with the gut pathogen, Giardia.

I was snorkeling in an estuary in the Yucatan of Mexico. The salt water area was spectacular but was crawling with people. There was a bit of rope with floats separating another area…it was wacky as there was a clear demarcation in the water, you could see where apparently the ocean water and fresh water from cenotes intermingled. The cenote side had tons of critters and was devoid of people! I was over in that area for a good 15 minutes before one of the park employees caught my attention saying “NO! Señor, mal agua!” Bad water? Pish-posh! This water was great!

About three days later I developed my first symptoms of that mal agua: high fever, terrible gut pains and diarrhea of a smell and volume that would make Satan himself uncomfortable to witness the effects. I struggled with this situation for a few weeks, feeling awful, losing weight and then one night my subconscious gave me the answer. I had a dream of a little face-like critter that could pass for an alien. It looked like this:

Somewhere in my subconscious, the parasitology class I took bubbled to the surface and I awoke realizing I’d likely contracted giardia. Some fairly basic microscopy (this will be important later) confirmed my suspicion and I started on a round of Metronidazole (which itself was not fun) and although I began to feel somewhat better immediately, I’d be forever changed from my brush with this little bastard. I gained back some weight but my guts were still a wreck. Things tended to just blast through me. I was getting ridges in my finger nails, my hair was falling out…I had all the signs and symptoms of mal absorption, but I had no idea what was happening.

Oddly, it was at this time that my mom reached out to me to say she’d been diagnosed with celiac. I’d heard of the condition but was not super familiar with it. Turns out, this is an autoimmune condition triggered by various proteins found in grains like wheat, barley and the like. I read up on the subject, learned you have to be almost neurotically fastidious to avoid issues with gluten (cross contamination on a grill, soy sauce etc). Upon removal of gluten (good bye forever dark beer!) I started feeling significantly better, but things were still not as they were before. I eventually discovered I had ulcerative colitis and in figuring out how to deal with that is what led me down the path of ancestral health, paleo/keto diets etc. Y’all have likely heard that story elsewhere but for folks who might be new to my work here is a REALLY abbreviated flow of how things played ou:

-Pretty good athlete, state powerlifting champ eating mixed diet

-Started tinkering with veganism, started grad program, terrible sleep, low vit-D, lots of stress

-Caught giardia, this LIKELY precipitated both by celiac and ulcerative colitis*

-Giardia treatment helped, but did not fix everything

-Discovery of active celiac led to gluten free diet, which further helped, but again, not 100%

-Adoption of a low carb, gluten free diet, addressing of circadian biology etc, really made a huge difference

*It’s worth noting I ate gluten as a kid and looking back I likely had some mild reaction to it, but it was not full blown celiac. It’s worth mentioning that one can have the genetic predisposition for celiac but not manifest the disease as if one has the right gut biome (critters with the prolyl-endopeptidases to break down gliadin/gluten) therefore, one with the genetics for celiac may not phenotypically express the ccondition.

BUT

Alter the gut biome in a way that these helpful critters are removed (like catching giardia, antimicrobials, shite luck…) and one can manifest full blown celiac. I’m pretty sure this is my story. There ARE case reports of folks with active celiac fixing their guts and celiac going into remission (folks can eat gluten containing foods with no overt issues) but that’s never been my experience.

That was already a lot, and I’ve barely gotten started, but there are a few things to unpack on all this before I move forward. The first is that giardia is often super gnarly in its symptomology. Terrible, foul smelling diarrhea, weight loss, fever. But it’s not always like this. Giardia can go into a lower level state in which it just grinds the person to death over a 20 year period, largely due to mal absorption issues. Another thing to think about with giardia is it can precipitate a host of awful gut responses. Lactose intolerance and celiac are just a few of the results of a giardia infection one might experience.

This is a rehash of what I detailed above, but it is worth repeating:

I think I had some very mild gluten issues before all of this. I absolutely have the genes consistent with celiac. Not infrequently however, a bout of food poisoning or similar stress can alter the gut biome in such a way that the propensity for celiac is not realized, then, BOOM! One finds themself with full blown celiac.

Genetics load the gun, epigenetics pull the trigger.

So, a low carb, gluten-free, “paleo” type diet arguably saved my life, particularly when I layered in an awareness of circadian biology, photo-period, the gut microbiome and most of what folks might now be familiar with regarding “Ancestral Health.”

Although far from perfect gut and general health (from my perspective) I motored along fairly well for a number of years. Circa 2006 I managed to catch another round of giardia, this time swimming in a creek near Chico, CA. When the gut ache and sulphur smelling disaster pants started up, I knew exactly what I was likely facing and managed to get treatment immediately, so I did not spiral down that far, but in thinking back this was to be just another in a long series of gut issues precipitated by occasional gluten cross contamination or food poisoning. I spent the better part of 6 years traveling 25-30 weeks per year and as most of you will know, the ability to fully control one’s chow while traveling is nigh impossible. If I think about my gut like a prize fighter, I had years of taking head-shots from either gluten or other gut bugs from food poisoning. Not every day, or even every week, but enough to likely add up over the long haul.

In 2010 I participated in the Discovery Channel show “I-Cave-Man.” Some of you might recall both that show and some of my recollections of how that experience absolutely smashed me. Ironically, I did not catch any gut bugs during the show, but it was physically exhausting. I had two weeks of terrible sleep, and looking back I THINK the tetanus booster I received prior to the show reacted very poorly for me. My lymph nodes blew up, after the show I had really weird white blood cell numbers (my docs were talking about possible lymphoma). Things eventually improved but in looking back I do think that was another one of these events that represented a major hit to my system. I know half the folks reading this will likely check out and black-list me for even suggesting this was a factor, but my goal is to help folks unpack their own health issues, so if folks write me off for this, I guess so be it.

Fast forward to the time between ~2020-2025. Despite eating as well as possible (by that, most might think I ate neurotically clean in a keto/carnivore approach), prioritizing sleep, much less traveling, I was slowly getting sicker and sicker. I reacted to everything. A green salad would blow through my innards. Tomatoes and any type of dairy protein made my hands ache terribly. I’ve never been great with carbs, but my carb tolerance was “zero.” Not only would I get blood sugar swings with fairly modest amounts of carbs (an apple???), it would screw with my guts as well (gas, bloating, “whoosh”). I used a vitamin-d lamp religiously (my levels were consistently in the 65-80 range). I kept removing more and more food options until I was down to fatty meat from pastured animals. That’s it. And I was still on a down-hill slide. I lifted, I did jiujitsu, I gutted out my zone-2 cardio, but getting through each day was an absolute slog.

I’ll do my best to list all the symptoms I had going on, but this is a short list, I’ve honestly forgotten some of the things I was struggling with:

-Tendonitis, particularly in the shoulders and hips.I thought it was from training in jiu-jitsu etc.

-Brain fog and terrible memory. I could operate with what was in my noggin. If I needed to input new material, good luck.

-Prostate issues. Constant need to pee, particularly before bed. I’m at the age where issues like this are “normal” for men, but it was a constant grind and made sleeping tough.

-Wracking, crushing depression. I have a great wife, awesome kids, an amazing life. On some level I knew and appreciated that, but my affect was so low, my sense of moment to moment impending doom so profound, I was at once afraid of dying and also secretly kinda hoping I’d just roll over and croak. Really.

-Constant gut issues. Formed stools were a distant memory and things “other people” experienced.

-Crushing fatigue. As I mentioned above, getting through a day was just about all I could do.

There was more but I think you get the idea. I was in rough shape. But I kept looking, I kept doing the things I’m fairly confident do provide some benefit: whatever food I could handle, prioritizing my circadian biology (sleep, sun exposure, UV lamp) exercise as I could tolerate it.

In early july of 2024 I finished a workout and did a selfie. I did not look half bad. Although I’d lost significant weight, I still had some muscle and if there is an upside to having totally wrecked guts, it’s easy to stay lean! I posted a picture as a bit of self accountability but also to mention to folks that even if someone looks pretty good, they may have huge challenges. I had an interesting mix of responses, but the one that likely saved my life was my dear friend Dr.Gabrielle Lyon reaching out to me to try and figure out WTF was going on. We got on the phone and I explained my situation, all the gory details. I explained I’d done the standard testing for gut bugs (O&P-Ova and Parasite…which has anywhere from a 50%-70% error rate). I’d done the premiere “functional medicine” screens, and although my gut biome was clearly a mess (low diversity, high shift towards “bad” bacteria) there was nothing obvious going on there. Dr. Lyon suspected I might have something totally run of the mill going on, a parasitic infection. She is married to a retired SEAL and has done a lot of work in that community. These guys will get deployed to pretty austere environments. They have to eat dodgy food, drink questionable water and many of these guys leave home functioning like Wolverine, only to return after deployment with all manner of gut, autoimmune and health issues. Dr. Lyon suspected all of the standard and functional medicine testing I’d done was simply missing some kind of microbes that were causing me to slowly be ground down to dust. We set up stool testing that was remarkably expensive because the sample had to make it from my house to AFRICA in less than 48 hours! What Dr. Lyon had found is that some of the universities and testing labs outside the US do a much better job of finding these critters than the conventional methods used in the US.

What we found was pretty interesting: giardia (for a third time in my life!), a round worm (Trichostrongylus colubriformis) normally found in sheep and goats, and a colony of candida partying in my guts like a fraternity at spring break. Here is the lab report I got back from that stool testing:

How on earth did I end up with all this?! I’m not 100% sure, but I think I caught giardia swimming in the Guadalupe river when we moved to Texas. I remember getting sick not long after we moved, pretty bad gut stuff, but not nearly as severe as my previous giardia brushes. IDK if this was a milder strain or if my gut mediated immune response was so hammered at this point that it did not reach the normal severity. I was pretty bad for a month or so, I did the O&P testing to no avail, so I just thought it was my wacky, faltering guts.

About six months after that event I attended a farm to table dinner and I got really sick after that. I think this is where I picked up the round worm. This paper details a case report from France in which folks got the same bug, likely in the same way I did:

“Specific questioning of the 6 persons indicated that the source of infection most likely was a meal eaten in April 2009, which included strawberries picked in the vegetable garden of the patient’s mother. The patient’s father and brother did not eat any strawberries and did not have any symptoms. The garden was fertilized yearly with dried manure from a local sheep farm. Lack of dried manure in 2009 led to use of fresh sheep manure from the same farm. Sheep manure from breeding stock on the farm was examined. Trichostrongylus spp. third-stage larvae were found despite prophylactic treatment of sheep on the farm against helminths.”

Manure needs to be composted (brought up to 140* F) and dried to prevent exactly what occurred here. Many organic farms do NOT treat for parasites, and this can be a good thing as dung beetles play a remarkable role in a biodynamic system like this. But the hazard is if manure is still active with spores, it’s fairly easy to catch something. It’s also possible that the giardia or generally poor state of my gut made me more susceptible…perhaps Nicki for example might have fought this off?

As to the candida, I’m pretty sure this was a case of opportunism. Despite eating a very low carb diet, my guts were crushed and the candida likely just found a way to set up shop. And although low carb diets are likely a smart way to mitigate candida, the little bastards are remarkably metabolically flexible and they can and do use ketones as a primary energy substrate. Ketosis and carnivore are fantastic, but they cannot and do not address every ill. I’ll circle back to that near the end of this piece.

Treatment

It was a long road to get to a diagnosis, but once we had some things to pursue, the proposed treatment was pretty straight forward:

Phase 1: Giardia Round 1)

1. Tinidazole (Tindamax) 2 gm orally, single dose—no alcohol with noted RX

Phase 2: Trichostrongylus colubriformis (Roundworm)

1. Albendazole 400mg a day for 10 days on an empty stomach

Phase 3: Candida—30 days (Diflucan- Day 1 - 200mg (2 pills) per day

Day 2-30--100mg (1 pill) per day.

NO ALCOHOL WHILE ON THIS MEDICATION

Phase 4: Repair/Rebuild protocol for 90 days.

1. DFH NAC 900mg one per day

2. Armra Colostrum3. Ultimate Gut Repair one capsule twice daily away from food

Consider Thymosin alpha, BPC 157 injectable (My note: These are peptides and I took 1200mg NAC and a milk thistle extract during the diflucan phase to help support liver function.

Just to clarify: these rolled out one after the other: giardia, then round worm, then candida.

I want to pause here and address a few things that come up when I’ve talked about all of this:

-What about ivermectin? I think ivermectin is incredible, but it’s NOT the preferred front line treatment for any of these critters. It has many applications, these are likely not among them.

-As much as I want to help folks, I know this post is going to feed the “parasite cleanse/heavy metal detox” craze. There is a remarkable amount of bunk circulating the interwebz on these topics…I’ve been working on a number of pieces regarding heavy metals and you will see those in the coming months. 99.999% of what I see on that topic is devoid of reality, toxicology or any semblance of logic or reasoning. On the parasite front, folks are selling various “parasite cleanse” protocols that although many herbal remedies do have some efficacy, there is no screening to establish what (if anything) is actually there, and to the ivermectin point above, what’s being offered is generally not remotely the optimal treatment option.

Ok, back to this story:

The treatments for giardia and the roundworm were fairly easy in that I did not feel noticeably worse while on those meds. The treatment for candida was awful and I felt much, much worse during this time. This was likely due to both the gnarly nature of the antifungal (diflucan in this case) but was also likely due to die-off effects of candida. To that end, I added the Allergy Research Group “Herximer Support.” The Herximer reaction is a well characterised phenomena that occurs when folks begin various antimicrobials. Again, this may be due in part to the drugs themselves, but is also likely due to microbial die-off.

The net-net is I felt “mo-awful.”

So, the candida treatment phase was gnarly, I felt terrible, had to be in proximity to a privy lest I face Disaster Pants, and that did not improve in the least until I was totally done with the protocol. Once I finished the whole candida treatment, I started some of the “rebuild” process which included some colostrum, a bit of fiber (Thorn Fibermend) and just seeing how I did with things. Pretty quickly I felt much better. Energy improved, all of my aforementioned issues improved, and I started gaining weight.

This lasted about a month, and then things just fell apart. I’d immediately get a gut reaction from fiber, all of my symptoms came back with a vengeance, and if anything, I was sicker than I was before the whole process. Not to be overly dramatic, but at this point I was seriously losing hope. I had a brief window of feeling better, and then not only was the rug pulled, I was arguably worse off than before.

We’d planned on retesting to verify we got everything on the first treatment go-around, but we suspected something was seriously amiss. Retesting showed I had absolutely off the scales levels of candida. Most folks are hospitalized at these levels, and I understand why as I was a deadman walking.

As we put together a plan for the next round of treatment we thought through what could have happened and the most likely explanation was that the candida had formed a biofilm. Biofilms are both fascinating and nasty as they tend to protect the organism from both immune attack and potential antimicrobials. It’s essentially a little microclimate for critters like candida and their presence can make thighs devilishly hard to treat.

Treatment, Round 2

Because we’d used Diflucan (fluconazole) the first time it was possible I now had a strain of diflucan resistant candida residing in me. As such we decided to go with:

-Itraconazol 400 mg day 1, 200mg for 30 additional days.

Itraconazole can be rough on the liver so I again did the 1200MG NAC+ Silimarian (milk thistle)

To hopefully address not only the biofilm but also all the systemic damage I’d likely sustained over the years, I also rolled out the following:

-LL-37 Peptide start at 50mcg and SLOWLY increase to 100-300mcg. 4 weeks on and 1 week off.

-Monolaurin: 1800mg, 30-60min before anti-fungal. Monolauric acid is derived from coconuts and has non-trivial antifungal activity.

-Biocidin: start at 1 drop and slowly increase to 5 drops 2x per day-When I first tried this I thought “wow, not half bad!” that quickly turned into a gag reflex and watering mouth every time I took this product. It. Was. Awful. I also think it was key to getting on top of things. (I still have the bottle…looking at it can make me want to toss my paleo cookies.)

-Microdefense w/ Oregano:(1 capsule, 2x daily before meals) – this has direct antifungal & antibacterial effects and needs to be separated by 2-3 hours from the itracconazole.

-ARG Herxheimer Support:2 capsules per day with a meal to reduce inflammation.

-LVLUP Zinc Carnosine:1 capsule per day.

I ran with this for a bit over 30 days and it was awful every step of the way. I would have to hit the loo about every 20-30 min, just about around the clock. I felt AWFUL. If I did not have my family to support me AND want to get through it, I’m honestly not sure I’d have done it. I live in Montana, the idea of wrapping steaks to myself, coating myself in honey and walking through Grizzly country was appealing. I don’t want to freak folks out, but if you have problems like I had, getting through it all may absolutely suck. You will need support, you will absolutely need a “why” that is iron clad.

But, I got through it, and ironically, this main push ended about 10 days before a 2 week trip to Italy. In the months leading up to the trip I was not sure If I was even going to be able to go as I was so sick. But, the long and short of that story is I did not just fine, but quite well. I shook off the jet lag (with some help from Grok…just lay out your travel itinerary and Grok can help with anything from rec’s to sleep schedule, supplements and even some helpful pharmaceuticals) had no problems avoiding gluten (Sono Celiaco!) and I just think the food quality in Italy is somehow better. I did not go carb crazy, but I ate with far more latitude than I do at home and I felt great.

Upon returning home I did have a bit of a protocol to follow:

-Microbiome Labs RestorFlora: 1 capsule per day

-Microbiome Labs Megaspore: 1 capsule per day for a week, then 2 capsules per day thereaft

-Pure Encapsulations PureGG: 1 capsule per day

-Bioclinic Probiotic-Pro BB536: 1 capsule per day

Normally, any type of probiotic just wrecks me, but I did fine with these. I’m honestly not sure they did anything for me, but maybe? At minimum they did not make me worse, which is what just about every other probiotic has done in the past.

Over the past 6+ months things have generally continued to improve. My energy is better, all the symptoms I had (tremor, prostatitis etc) have dramatically improved, I’ve gained about 10 lbs, some decent strength and my work capacity has improved. I’ll be honest, I was so sick for so long, I kinda expect to wake up and find myself sliding backwards, but so far, that has not been the case.

I’ve added back a LOT more variety to my diet as I do not get painful hands and joints from dairy and tomatoes. Harder training days I’ll get 100g of carbs per day. I still mainly stick to “paleo” stuff like fruit, but after Italy I will have some Gf bread and not only do I love it, I feel pretty damn good. Just as a frame of reference, my maintenance calories are about 2400 cals/day. A hard training session (jits, VO2 max intervals) might produce up to 1,000cals of output, so my top end calorie needs on a hard training day will be in the 3.400 calorie range. I get 150-190g of protein most days. Let’s say 100g of carbs those days. That’s about 1,160 calories which leaves about 2,2400 I need to get from fat which ends up being about 250g. I am by no means eating a low-fat diet, but I DO have much more breadth in what I’m eating and absolutely love it. Some folks may wonder why I don’t just go back to carnivore or something and all I can say is it’s so boring and monotonous, It’s a serious fucking bummer to my life.

If y’all have followed me you likely know that I’m a big fan of elimination diets, ranging from paleo to keto to carnivore. I recommend “Do it for 30 days, see how you look, feel and perform, track biomarkers of health, then assess if the change is worth the effort.” You might also recall I’ve said “eat with as much latitude as you can such that you can achieve your health and bodycomp goals.”

I am NOT the guy who wears dietary restrictions as a badge of honor. Want to tinker in some way? Great. Need to eat in a particular way to manage YOUR situation? Awesome, glad you found an option. But if you need a North Star that thrives on as little variety as humanly possible, I’m not your person.

I see interactions online where folks may do carnivore for a time and then regain some health, introduce other foods and folks are harassed for getting healthier and not succumbing to the neurosis of the dietary restriction olympics! Folks are clearly welcome to do whatever they want, but personally: fuck that. Get healthy, then poke at the edges.

There was a time when I had to eat an incredibly restrictive diet, or I think I’d have literally died. I know there are many out there like that, I feel for you. Perhaps that’s what you need to do permanently. Or, perhaps with some tinkering, you can introduce more latitude. More latitude means you are RESILIENT. Am I suggesting you go pressure test how much ultra processed foods you can handle? No, I think that’s kinda playing with fire, but some kind of paleo/mediterranean approach to eating 90% of the time offers a lot of options while likely keeping folks within highly defensible lane lines.

Wrap and closing thoughts

This is the X post that launched this whole adventure. This is the photo from that post:

For a 52.5 YO guy, I look pretty good. Yet, I was hanging on by a thread and thank god I have friends like Dr. Lyon who took an interest in my situation, as IDK if I’d have made it another cycle around the sun. It’s interesting that I’m just a bit over a year down range from that…holy smokes has a lot happened. Aesthetics aside, the reason I made it that far is because I DID do just about everything I could:

-I used a vit-d lamp and supplemented vit-d, keeping me in the 65-75 range.

-I used the morpheus training platform to track HRV and training. This afforded me an objective means of looking at volume, intensity and recovery status.

-As per the above, I lifted, did Zone 2 cardio and jiujitsu within my fairly constrained recovery abilities. I did not push too hard, ever, but I did something. Everyone I worked with is convinced all of this is likely why I made it through.

-I did tinker with diet and I made adjustments where I had to. I grew to detest beef short ribs, but they also likely kept me alive.

I had a super supportive wife and family. I likely should have shared more of what I had going on, but It’s hard to burden loved ones. BUT, they also need to know what’s up with us. All I can say is that Nicki is a Saint. 99 people out of 100 would have likely bailed on me during all of this…I can never adequately describe what a gift and joy it is to have Nicki in my life, nor the incredible care and support she provided me AND our family. Nicki is the behind the scenes person who does not get much of the accolades. Nothing I’ve accomplished would have seen the light of day were it not for her.

This is a pic from about a week ago:

I’m about 10 lbs heavier, and although a quick glance might not unveil much of a difference, man I can see it. The first photo is a man hanging on by a thread. The bottom is someone who just got after it and who still has lots of gas in the tank.

I don’t want to beat this to death but this is a message for the religious Diet Tribe folks.

I am now:

-Stronger

-Have more muscle

-Better cardio

-Better cognition

-Happier

-Better libido

-I can now eat a far wider variety of food

I am, in every imaginable way, more resilient. I thank God, family and friends for that, and although I try not to be too prescriptive in what I offer the world, I think THE goal for everyone should be to increase resilience. Resilience is weathering a stress and coming back stronger as a consequence. So much of the “majoring in the minors” I see in the online world is making folks brittle, not resilient.

I’ve tried to be as thorough as possible, but I suspect there will be a fair number of questions. I’ll do my best to tackle those. Top of this list (I’d suspect) is “who can do work like this for you?” I do not know a lot of folks (yet) who can do this type of screening and work. As I alluded above, I am wholly disappointed in the state of Functional Medicine gut screening. For some situations that approach may be helpful, but I think it misses a lot. The conventional route of O&P is not particularly helpful either. Finally, there are a lot of folks who make up all manner of nonsense around cleanses, detoxes and the like. As I alluded above, I’m cringing at what type of gas this post will pour on those fires, but all I’d suggest is do your diligence.

There are some folks I do feel totally comfortable recommending:

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. Dr. Lyon is awesome and the person who sorted out much of this for me.

Dr. Michael Ruscio. Dr. Ruscio has been a dear friend for 15 years and he and I have had conversations of late about the limitations of both traditional and functional screening.

Dr. Kirk Parsley. Kirk and his wife Brandy are well steeped in these topics as well as a host of other important health areas such as sleep and hormonal optimization.

My friend Vasco Névoa mentioned Nordic Labs Parasitology screen. I do not have experience with these folks but Vasco is brilliant, and I think folks are going to need as many options as possible to get on top of these complex issues. This might be a good start for you if you suspect problems similar to mine.

I hope this is helpful to folks. If this info helps one person, it was worth the effort.