Amanda Malachesky: Today I'm going to review the parasite stool
test from parasites.org, so stay tuned. Do be sure to stay till the end, because I will be sharing a
discount code for that parasite test. Amanda Malachesky:
If you're a returning viewer, welcome back, I'm so glad to see you again. If you're new here,
my name's Amanda Malachesky. I'm a certified functional nutrition gut health coach and a
digestive and allergy detective. I'm also the host of the online program called The Calm
Digestion Method. For weekly videos on how to find your personalized diet and supplement plan
for IBS and SIBO, please consider subscribing and be sure to click the bell to be notified
when I posted new video. Amanda Malachesky:
A few months ago, someone at parasites.org reached out to me to ask if I would test drive their
parasite test kit called the Precise Parasite Home Test Kit. Now, as a gut health coach,
I definitely encourage my clients to use stool testing as a way to get more data and information
about their situation that may be affecting their IBS or SIBO symptoms, and this definitely includes
things like parasite testing. Amanda Malachesky:
Now, when I started as a health coach, I was really curious about whether or not
I had a parasite infection because I had these intermittent digestive symptoms, including
abdominal pain and cramping and sometimes diarrhea, that suggested I could have a parasite,
but really we don't know until we test. I know that you might wonder if you have some kind of
parasite and infection that might be causing your symptoms. Let's review the test kit and find out
what I learned in my most recent parasite test. Amanda Malachesky:
All right, first things first, what exactly is the kit? Well, the parasites.org Precise
Parasite Home Test Kit is a two-test sample test kit that you collect at home and then mail back to
the lab. It costs $245 and it screens for a wide variety of unicellular parasites, worms, and liver
flukes. It also includes some digestive health markers, which screen for basically evidence
of infection, things like white blood cells and red blood cells and mucus and things like that.
Amanda Malachesky: Let's take a look at what's inside the test kit.
Inside the test kit box, there are of course instructions, very helpful, there's two vials
for the two separate stool collections, also very helpful. There's a dark red line here,
and so when you're collecting your sample, there's liquid in here,
you'll add stool to make the liquid come up to the level of the red line. This is standard practice.
Amanda Malachesky: Then one thing that I love
that this company provides is these stool collection bags. These are a biodegradable
barrier that you can place over the toilet so you can poop on them and then you can flush it when
you're done. This is super valuable. Some stool kits do not include something like this and it can
be messy and gross to do your stool collection, so I love this about this kit. Just to show you
all what this looks like, I opened one of these up so you could see. It's actually a little bag
with stickers that you stick to the toilet seat or the toilet bowl, and then you put a little toilet
paper in the bottom. Then when you flush this, it dissolves on contact with the water. This is super
cool. Also, on the back of the instruction form is the requisition form, of course, that you need
to fill out, very important. Amanda Malachesky:
Taking samples a couple of days apart for parasite testing can be really valuable. Parasites have
cyclical life cycles and a single sample is just one data point and can often miss the parasites.
This multi-day collection is super helpful to try and get a better data set and hopefully
catch some parasites if they're there. I'm going to take two collections a few
days apart and then I'm going to mail this kit back to the lab. Then once I get the results,
I'll share with you what happened. Amanda Malachesky:
Well, I boxed up my sample and sent it back to the lab via the US Postal Service. In about a week,
just about a week exactly, I got my test results back, which I felt like was a little bit fast.
It's a little faster than the GI Map or some of your bigger functional medicine stool test labs.
Amanda Malachesky: This type of stool test is basically what's
called an ova and parasite test. It's looking for either parasite bodies or evidence of their eggs
to tell you that there's a parasite infection in your body. The test itself is looking for
visual evidence of those specific things. The lab director, Evan Jerkunica, told me that one of the
cool things that distinguishes their lab from some of the other labs is that they have actual
PhD parasitologists on their team and that their team is headed by this famous parasitologist who
has discovered and named something like 70 unique new parasites in his career. Like I said earlier,
the test was also looking for candida and other fungi and some other digestive health markers.
Amanda Malachesky: I previously had two
positive parasite tests. I tested positive for the unicellular parasite Blastocystis hominis
two separate times on two separate tests. I also tested positive for Dientamoeba fragilis as well
as Cyclospora species on another test. But I did have a negative parasite stool test in 2019 and I
have not done any testing since then. Amanda Malachesky:
Just so you can get a sense of what it's like to consult with Evan about your parasite results,
here are some snippets from our conversation where he was going over my test results with me.
Evan Jerkunica: Okay, so you are negative for pretty much all the
parasites. You did come up positive for a larval nematode, that's a baby roundworm, you could think
of it like that. See how there are these numbers next to the bolded thing, like a one or a two?
Amanda Malachesky: Yeah, mm-hmm.
Evan Jerkunica: In the case of the larval nematode, a one
means a light infection. Basically, the long and the short of it is that a larval nematode,
it doesn't have its sexual organs developed so we can't say what's what it's going to turn into.
Who knows if it's something that it could be the beginning of an infestation, it could be a dead
end infestation for something like a pig whipworm, I don't believe it can become an adult in a human.
I've seen these in some of our water tests that come back positive, whether they be some well
water, some city water comes back positive for it. Evan Jerkunica:
The general guidance from our lab, and you want to run this by your doctor, but we include this
just in case someone's personal doctor isn't super familiar with this sort of thing,
the general guidance is that if this were a heavy infection, then you want to treat it,
it has more likelihood to be a causative factor in negative symptoms type of situation,
but because it's a one out of four, it's a very light infection, we wouldn't necessarily guess
that this would be causing issues. These things depend on the context in the exact situation.
It's certainly lowest on the totem pole in terms of infections that I would worry about for me,
but everyone's health situation is different. It might be a big deal in your unique situation.
Amanda Malachesky: Right. Tell me a little bit about this bacteria
reading, the normal bacilli. Evan Jerkunica:
That's basically a probiotic bacteria reading. This one's a little different. Okay, so a zero
is negative, a one would be considered deficient by our scale, a two is considered adequate
but still a little on the low side, three is considered optimum, four is considered overgrown.
Evan Jerkunica: So larval nematode,
the bacteria, and then the only other thing that came up was candida. Candida comes up in
a majority of people's stool tests, best I can tell. We do this thing where we differentiate
between candida and candida dividing. The general guidance, out of context general guidance, is when
the candida is dividing that there's a really good chance it's pathogenic and causing problems and
will get worse until treated. Amanda Malachesky:
Yeah. Is there anything else that you want to say to people who may be watching? I'm just gathering
that, from your perspective, this test can shed some new light on the situation for people so that
they can have more information to work with their doctors to evaluate their digestive symptoms. Is
there anything else you want to add to that about your mission or your intentions for what this test
is doing for people? Evan Jerkunica:
Yeah, you pretty much nailed it. We're just trying to support people in their quest for greater
health. We're a small boutique lab and we're just trying to support people in our own little
unique way that isn't necessarily covered to the same degree in other testing. This test is three
tests in one to a little, to a degree. We have the parasite, we have the fungi and yeast, and then we
have the gut health markers. Some of the most valuable things are that people can see if they
have suspected yeast or candida type infections, the gut health markers, we can see heavy mucus,
red blood cells, that one's really valuable, and then a little bit of an
idea of their probiotic bacteria. Amanda Malachesky:
There you have it. I potentially have an infestation of nematodes and a little bit of
candida overgrowth, no surprise there. Amanda Malachesky:
Here are some overall observations and summaries of what I thought of this test. I really enjoyed
nerding out with Evan about parasites and I was pretty intrigued with my larval nematode
results. As you heard in the consultation, he felt like it wasn't really necessarily something that
was important to deal with, but I did have a brief conversation with my naturopath about that and she
begged to differ. Probably next time I meet with her we will talk about
what to do from there. I'm excited just to have that piece of information to work with
as I move forward with my own healthcare. Amanda Malachesky:
That said, here's a summary of what I see as the benefits and downsides of this test.
The first major benefit is that this test is really a parasite-specific lab test, and that's
unusual and really helpful. I think some of the other tests maybe fall a little short of finding
parasites very well. Alongside of that is that the lab employs these two parasitology experts to help
read the results of their test samples. Amanda Malachesky:
I really love that the test collects two separate samples and also that they
encourage you to collect near the full moon, we do know that parasites are typically more active
near the full moon. I really appreciated that guidance and really appreciated that there's
two separate samples as two separate data points to try and get better information.
Amanda Malachesky: Consultation and interpretation with Evan
is included with your sample, so I think that's another plus side, to have somebody to talk with
your results about who really knows a lot about these things and has seen a lot of test results.
I feel like the digestive health markers that they provide may just help provide
some more context clues about what's going on. I appreciate that those are on there.
Amanda Malachesky: The test costs a little bit less
than the GI Map and the Doctor's Data or the GIFX tests. The test also does offer bacterial testing
or water sample testing to go alongside with your parasite results. Especially if something parasite
wise comes up, you might be wondering is my water safe to drink, so that's a benefit, is you can
send a water sample back to the same company. Amanda Malachesky:
Downsides as I see them, there's just a couple. One is that I think the cost is
still a little bit on the high side. Functional labs are expensive, so it's always a little bit
painful to shell out that $250 or so for a test. I also felt like the results page was a little bit
hard to read. I'm an experienced test reader, so I imagine it might be a little harder for
a regular client. That said the company, again, does provide consultation and help reading that.
Amanda Malachesky: The third downside that I can see is that the
test really only looks for parasites and yeasts. If you have some other kind of problem bacteria
especially, this test is going to miss that problem. That's potentially one reason to choose a
different stool test, but beyond that, especially if you're really looking for parasites, again,
I think this is a really great value. Amanda Malachesky:
I'm curious to know if you've had any parasite testing before and what happened on it. Please
tell me about it in the comments. Amanda Malachesky:
I hope this review has helped you become more aware of the parasites.org test kit and what kind
of value it might be able to provide you as you're trying to learn more about what might be causing
your digestive symptoms. If you would like to purchase a test kit, I have left a link down below
this video in the description box that provides you with a $15 off discount. Go check that out if
you're at all interested in doing the test. Amanda Malachesky:
Now, I do want to let you know that if you have been needing support with evaluating what kinds
of underlying infections might be involved in your IBS or SIBO symptoms, this is definitely
something that I support my clients with inside my Calm Digestion Method program. The program
is really all about how to leverage the best strategy to resolve your digestive symptoms and
find your personalized plan. Amanda Malachesky:
If that's something that you've been needing help with,
I really want to encourage you to grab a free copy of my Roadmap to Gut Recovery.
This is a short little E guide that shares the exact strategy that I share with my clients
inside the Calm Digestion Method program that can help get you started thinking about your
digestive issues in a new way and hopefully make some good progress with them.
You can grab a free copy of that roadmap by going to confluencenutrition.com/roadmap.
I will leave a link for that below this video and it's here on the screen as well for you.
Amanda Malachesky: All right, let me know if
this video was helpful for you by clicking Like or leaving me a comment and don't forget to subscribe
if you haven't already. Next, you might want to check out this video I made quite a while ago
about parasite home remedies. Check that out, and I'll see you next time.