Giardia and Safe Water Sources

(Photo: bioweb.uwlax.edu )

Parasitic giardia is found in contaminated drinking water, soil, food. Giardia parasitic contaminated drinking water, soil, food.

My family has been on quite the journey with this and we have learned a lot. We have never had intestinal parasites before, but in early summer we took a class in a wilderness area for 4 days. While there, almost everyone was exposed to giardia without anyone's knowledge - about 80% of those came down with diarrhea after the class (that's the estimate after I spoke with most of them). The water was supposed to be potable, the food was supposedly well cooked but no rubber gloves were used, and there were two meals that weren't fully cooked (to us). They also did not change their dishwashing water even with almost 40 people there and the water getting cold and gross before all the dishes were done.

The area was very damp and it rained while we were there, so the soil and grass was very damp.

The whole thing was a perfect setup for Giardia to hit - and it did. Giardia takes 1-3 weeks to show itself. You can't get it from animals, zoonotic Giardia is different from human Giardia (thankfully!).

(Image from lecturio . com)

I have since found out Giardia is one of the world's top three most infectious parasitic infections out there - over 1 billion people a year have it, and there are about 7 billion people in the world. So 1 in 7 have Giardia at any given time, even in 1st world countries but it's heaviest in 3rd world countries. Giardia is found all over the world.

Giardia often goes undetected, people have it without knowing. They can have several days of diarrhea that may or may not go away. If it goes away, people assume they 'caught a bug' and got over it. But they could have Giardia and be passing it to others without knowing. If it doesn't go away, as in our case, you start taking antidiarrheal medications - only it doesn't work even when you max out how much you can take per day...so you realize something is wrong.

So you go to the doctor's office, they order blood labs with a stool sample (never a fun thing to do). You wait up to 7 days for results, with diarrhea and feeling nauseated and just sick... You get the results, they put you on meds that make your mouth taste like you've swallowed liquid metal - and that tastes lasts 3 days. That doesn't work, so they give you another medication for 5-7 days, same nasty taste but for 8-10 days instead of 3, and that doesn't work. By now you've lost a lot of weight and can't be far from a toilet...or you can't eat, because then you have to go non-stop. You're also feeling weak and can't do half the things you did before. You may have pain, some get pain worse than others. You have no appetite, drinking fluids is low.

Giardia causes damage to the small intestine, so nutrition is slow to absorb if it absorbs at all. It also causes dehydration because of the diarrhea and decreased interest in drinking and eating. It can also damage the intestinal wall causing long term damage that results in life-long issues like milk intolerance, malabsorption issues, fatigue that is chronic, IBS, even long term cognitive issues that can be lifelong especially in children (due to malnutrition).

There are only 3 main medications used to treat it - Flagyl, Tindamx, Alinia (Alinia is often given to children because it is a liquid). Most Giardia is now resistant to these medications. There are others that can 'help' but don't get rid of the parasite, some of these include cancer medications... You can get all 3 on All Day Chemist, but - it didn't work for us and then I was told by doctors and lots of research that most Giardia now is resistant...not good.

My family went through 2 of the 3 commonly used meds, didn't work. It is scary to see someone you love lose strength, struggle to just get to the kitchen for something to eat and then stay in bed for hours recovering. No drinks are temping and they drink only because you tell them too - makes me wonder if the pioneers dealt with Giardia as well as Cholera...similar symptoms in some ways. My family really suffered with this - the face gets thin, their hands get boney, you can tell something is really wrong. Nothing worked and that was really hard to accept.

I have a nursing background, and I am also an herbalist. I switched to herbal medicine instead - saw results within a week, and after 2 months it was gone. I am so thankful I have spent decades learning herbal medicine - you never know when you will need it! The past 2 months' stool samples are showing negative for it now.

Some info I've gleaned over the past year researching this like a crazy woman...

1) Giardia is prevalent in water, soil and raw food or undercooked food. If you think of Giardia like e coli, you get a sense of how easily it can be spread... Think of all the foods recalled because of e coli concerns. Giardia isn't something even monitored in the food industry. Doctors DO NOT test for this, but instead test for salmonella and e coli, etc...if lucky, a stool sample will show Giardia but they aren't looking for it. Our NP ordered a 'diarrhea panel' which tested for numerous things with Giardia being one of them - most doctors order a stool sample for e coli or salmonella and when it comes back negative, they never think of Giardia. Be proactive - if you are giving a stool sample, demand that it be tested for V.

2) You can help prevent Giardia by handwashing for 30 seconds, and using dry paper towels to open public restroom doors and disposing in a trash can.

3) You can get it from restaurants that serve raw food (even salad buffets) if someone has touched anything and they have Giardia on their hands...you can't see it, so you can't avoid it visually. Kitchen staff and cooks can also infect foods...you will never know.

4) Camping in wet conditions in an area that has Giardia = you will be exposed. You can't not be exposed. Anything your clothing touches, your shoes, any surface your hands touch...all contaminated. Primitive conditions (like survival) means you are at a lower level of handwashing and dishwashing, prepping meals and clean drinking water. It doesn't take much for something to become contaminated and you sick.

5) Giardia can live 1-3 months in cold, wet areas down to 35 degrees - shade and moisture is enough to keep it going in warm areas. It can live in warm, dry temps for a week. (More info here - this is for dogs with Giardia but the same info goes for the human kind too: https://mrdogpoop.com/bvp_giardia.html).

6) You can get it - most people do - from water sources that have been contaminated by Giardia. Boiling is great in a survival situation - but think about the dishes you'll eat and drink from. Soap and water don't kill Giardia (they wash it off into the water but it isn't killed, so it can cling to wet dishes and harbor there even as dishes become dry) - it is very difficult to kill, adding bleach to your wash water (1/2 cup or more per gallon) will help kill it - but that's a lot of bleach to use. Hot water you can wash in is not hot enough to kill Giardia and wash water cools down quickly - so consider all your dishes contaminated if you are in a contaminated area. Boiling dishes for 1 minute at a full boil will kill Giardia, over 6000' elevation you need to boil for 3 minutes.

7) If the wind is blowing and there is any solid matter in the air (leaves, dust, even pollen) it can be infected with Giardia and get inside your food, your dishes, your drinking water, even your mouth.

8) Water is generally the main source of infection. An enclosed filtration system and sterilized drinking containers will help prevent getting Giardia.

9) If possible, always have medications or herbal meds on hand to treat unknown diarrhea and stop Giardia before it has a chance to get a strong hold inside your gut.

10) Giardia has 3 stages, adult-larvae-egg. You have to treat long enough to kill all 3 stages. You can kill the adults and even the larvae, but the eggs/cysts have to break open and let the larvae out - which means you can get recurrent infections because the cycle was never truly broken. You need to treat the problem for months (some people stay on it for a full year)...and use a biofilm buster to break down the cyst walls forcing or cracking open the outer shell so the inside is killed off before Giardia babies can spread out.

11) You should never use biofilm busters if you have had parasites, Lyme disease or any tick disease. Biofilm busters will break down dormant sleeping cysts and re-infect you over and over again. Biofilm busters should only be used if you are also taking something to treat/kill the resulting 'babies' that are broken out of the cysts... Biofilm busters can be medications, but many things we ingest daily are biofilm busters including: cranberry, stevia, curcumin, gingko, tannins, glycol, saccharides, lipopeptides, surfactants, monkey leukocytes (in va xx* ines), and many many more... Too much to list.

I could go on and on and on...not something I wanted to become an expert on but here I am!

One thing I worried about at home, and in a survival situation, is recontamination. Think about your water faucet in the kitchen and all the splashing that goes on at the sink. Touching the handles and faucet, washing potentially contaminated dishes and never truly killing the Giardia...and then drinking out of that same faucet.

So besides having meds and herbal meds on hand to treat Giardia or another parasitic infection - also look at where your water comes from.

We are on a well, and in a survival situation most people would be getting water wherever they could - which could be contaminated with a lot of different things. We had a Berkey, the biggest one, for years because even with a filtration system and a UV light, our water often comes in looking yellowish brown and with a film on the top after a heavy rain. It just is what it is - our area in the PNW has heavy rain, and as the well fills up color is added from the soil. So we always used our Berkey until 4 years ago when it was just way too expensive to purchase new filters - and then the company closed. (Our well does not have Giardia, had water tested, negative.)

I was looking at alternatives for a while, but never happy with any of them – everything is so pricey too! And then Giardia hit my family and I had to figure out something. After a lot of research and study I went ahead with the LifeStraw Community water filter - I was hoping it would work, it did. Perfect for homesteaders like me, or survival situations, or primitive areas.

One filter can filter 26,000 gallons, or 100 people for 3-5 years - the Berkey can't do that. It's called a 'community' water filter because it is used in 3rd world countries to provide safe drinking water to small communities there (Giardia is often highly prevalent in those areas). I have 8 adults here, so that was something I considered. We can go through 20-30 gallons per day with drinking, cooking and giving our numerous (!!!) pets water... The livestock get what they get and often drink from puddles anyway, so I just deal with that separately.

The LifeStraw is also well known and trusted - don't we all have our little backpack versions of it?

It also filters out Giardia, salmonella, e coli and others - that was what I was looking for too. Good price, long lasting filter, and it can filter out the diseases I worry about.

This is really long but hopefully if you got this far you've learned about Giardia a little bit...it is just one of numerous infectious diseases that water can give you. Cut down that one source and you only have to worry about soil and food contamination...

We've been using our LifeStraw for 4 months now and love it. SO much easier than the Berkey, it also rinses gunk out of the filter so the filter lasts longer than the Berkey filters. With each filling of the 5 gallon storage area, when the water on top starts to filter and trickle into the bottom storage area for clean water, you pull down on that red handle making sure the red container under it is over the opening - it reverses the water flow as the handle slowly moves upward. Once up, it reverses back again and water starts trickling into the bottom again.

This holds 5 gallons at a time and it refills 5 gallons in about 30 minutes. It has 4 faucets to use (we only use 2) and it is very stable on a flat surface. The replacement filter is about $90 (instead of Berkey filters that were costing me $100-150 each and I needed 8 of them!!!).

I do have a backup filter and will probably get another 1-2 over the next year - just in case...that's how I think and plan ;) But with this filtration system, my water filter worries are basically non-existent now, forever :) VERY happy and one less thing I need to worry about. Because you can lift the faucet level and you place your cup under the faucet, the faucet opening isn't touched.

We do wash the bottom reservoir monthly as directed and we use 1/2 cup of bleach with the water to sanitize it. I also spray the inside of the faucet with a mild bleach spray from a homemade solution, I do this about 2 times a week simply because of the outbreak in our house - now I'm on the warpath for any way Giardia could re-emerge here.

Otherwise, it's super simple to use and we always have a lot of water on hand at any given time - far more than when we had the Berkey and had about 2 gallons at a time and had to wait for hours to have it refill again :(

Anyway - this was an area of prepping I knew about from nursing and research, but never EVER thought we would be dealing with. We aren't 'dirty people' which is what the general population thinks of when you mention intestinal parasites... But my research shows A LOT of people have this and don't know it, or get it and their body handles it over weeks or turns it into a chronic disease they are unaware of - which means they are passing it on and causing damage to their intestinal lining. If you eat raw food, go outdoors, use public restrooms (even your own family could bring it home to your bathroom and kitchen), live on a well with a filtration system (no chlorine), etc you are at risk. That I wasn't aware of...

As a prepper I had meds on hand for this, but didn't realize they wouldn't work... Now I'm stocking up on herbal meds instead that have shown me in person, they work...

Here is a photo of our LifeStraw system, and you can see how big it is (the size surprised me, but I'm okay with it now) - we love it. If you have any questions, just let me know, I'll try to answer what I can. If our story can help anyone else prep for this, all this writing was worth it :)

I bought mine on Amazon: https://amzn.to/49fcZGq