42: Are Parasites Causing Your Crohn's or Colitis?

I see parasites in 80% or more of our clients. So how do you know if they're causing your IBD?


TOPICS DISCUSSED:

• The basics you need to know about parasites
• How they make you sick
• The different types of parasites 
• Misconceptions about parasites 
• What parasites do to your immune system 
• Symptoms of parasites
• How to get rid of them safely
  
  

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Transcript

Josh Dech:

After helping reverse nearly 400 cases of Crohn's and Colitis, I can confidently say that upwards of 80% of these cases have parasites as a contributing factor to their disease. Some, it seems to be like it's the sole cause. It’s the reason you have IBD.

So on this live, you're going to be learning what parasites are and of course, how you get them. We're going to talk about the symptoms that you need to be looking for and most importantly, how to test for them and how to get rid of them. But ultimately, get rid of them safely.

Contrary to what your doctors told you, Crohn’s and Colitis are reversible.

Now, I’ve helped hundreds of people reverse their bowel disease, and I’m here to help you do it too — because inflammation always has a root cause. We just have to find it.

This is the Reversing Crohn’s and Colitis Naturally podcast.

I do these live trainings in my Facebook group every single week and put the audios here for you to listen to. If you want to watch the video versions of these episodes, just click the links in the show notes to get access to our Facebook group and YouTube channel.

And for weekly updates, information, tips and tricks, you can sign up for our email list by clicking the link in the show notes below.

If you don’t know me, my name is Josh Dech. I’m an IBD specialist, medical lecturer and physicians’ consultant, as well as a scientific strategist and education director for the Root Cause for Crohn’s & Colitis organization.

And today, I’m showing you how parasites are causing your IBD.

Josh Dech (continued):
I want to talk about parasites.

Parasites can make you sick for a few different reasons, but I want to anchor this back to the conversation I often have — which is the three primary reasons we get sick.

What are the three primary reasons we get sick?
 We get sick due to:

1. Toxins of some kind
2. Some kind of deficiency
3. Some kind of microbe

Now, toxins can be everything from heavy metals to noxious gas to VOCs to mold to whatever kind of toxin. Stress. Blood sugar can be toxic.

Microbes are going to be bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi, etc.

Deficiencies are going to be your main nutrient deficiencies — what your body needs to basically keep alive.

Well, here’s what parasites do:
 Parasites — they’re microbial organisms. So they’re microbes, okay? And they actually live in or on a host — that’s you. And they steal nutrients, making you deficient. They steal them at your expense. And what they do is they end up creating toxic waste — urine, defecation, all kinds of toxins they produce inside your body.

So the three reasons we get sick — parasites can cause all three.

Their very presence inside your body leads to immune responses. It’s a very reactive inflammatory response. And that theft of nutrients contributes to disease states.

So we get sick for three reasons:

• Toxins
• Infections
• Deficiencies

Parasites happen to meet all three criteria, and they can open the door for more toxins, more microbes to come in. So you really have to watch for these guys. They’re really really nasty.

There’s about a million different species of parasites understood to exist worldwide — about 1,400 of them infect humans.

Now, there’s different locations for these parasites when they create all this nastiness.

There’s what we call endoparasites, and there’s ectoparasites.
Endo means inside — so inside of your body.
Ecto — they’re on your skin or somewhere outside of your body.
And then there’s intra- or extracellular — they’re either in the cell or outside of the cell. That’s where they live.

So we have a couple of different classifications of parasites, and to understand this helps you understand what they do and the different things they’re doing inside your body.

So, we know for example one class of parasites — we call these protozoa. These are little single-cell individual guys. What they look like — Giardia, really nasty parasite. Cryptosporidium, nasty. Toxoplasma gondii — these little individual parasites which can hijack your brain.

I did a whole podcast episode on them — they’re fascinating. When they impact the brains of mice, they actually burn out the fear center of the brain, making them more likely to be eaten by a cat. Because that’s where Toxoplasma gondii lives really well — in the belly of a cat.

So they can hijack the brain of a living organism — it’s really wild stuff. These individual microbes we’ve got to watch for.

Other ones we’re going to see — worms.
The other word you might hear them called is helminths, but this is going to cover classes like:

• Tapeworms
• Roundworms
• Pinworms
• Whipworms
• Even lung and liver flukes
   …and many others.

Then of course you have your ectoparasites — the guys on the outside — like scabies and head lice. These are all types of parasites.

There’s lots of them. 1,400 that can infect humans.

Josh Dech (continued):
But here’s the thing — parasites, we know, have to eat.

And when they eat — remember the three reasons we get sick: toxins, microbes, and deficiencies.

When parasites eat — they’re active in your system. It’s a microbe.
 Your body’s like, “Dude, we gotta get these guys out.” So there’s an immune reaction.

They eat tissue.
 They can eat things like blood and iron, which will leave you anemic, for example.
So they create deficiencies.

Then they pee and poop — just like any living organism.
So they create toxins and toxic waste.

So parasites can actually:

• Create anemia by feeding on your iron
• Feed on hemoglobin, red blood cells
• Eat bile and fat, which disrupts bile flow
• Physically block your bile ducts

If you’re having trouble digesting fats, you get bloated, nauseous, vomiting, oily greasy stools, diarrhea — it could be a parasite blocking your bile ducts. Liver flukes are very very common for this.

Josh Dech:
We also see nutrient deficiencies. And your doctor might go, “Oh, you have malabsorption syndrome. Your intestines are inflamed. You’re low on nutrients.”
You just have this thing where your body can’t absorb.

But what if it’s not an absorption issue?
What if it’s a something is eating it issue?

They love things like sugar. They love amino acids.
Certain things — like tapeworms — love amino acids and proteins. They can invade muscle tissue and eat those.

If you’ve got chronic ongoing back pain, especially lower back, hips, and you’re like, “Man, every time I go to a chiropractor or an acupuncturist or a massage, I just can’t get rid of this…”
Could be a parasite actually inflaming the muscle.

They do all kinds of nasty business.

They can eat lymphatic fluid.
So if you’re someone who’s got lymphedema or swelling of lymphatics — armpits, neck, backs of knees, belly — this type of stuff.

If you have skin issues — it could be a parasite thing.

They can actually eat the tissues of your lungs — you can get lung flukes.
They can eat the liver as well.
They can eat muscle — leading to aches, pains, inflammation.

You got asthma? Could be mold — 40% of asthma cases are mold-related.
They can also cause asthma because of parasites, for example.

They can infect your brain — like that Toxoplasma gondii. It actually hijacks your dopamine.

You can feel really down and out, kind of depressed, really unmotivated, just blah — because they can hijack your brain and take care of that dopamine that you can’t access anymore.

So, you have to watch for these.

Here’s what I want you to know about parasites — these bad guys — your doctor, if you go ask them about parasites, it’s very common to get sort of shunted away.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s just parasites.”

Here’s the thing — parasites don’t exist?
 Parasites are not a third-world problem.

We hear this all the time:
 “Well, we don’t live in Southeast Asia or Africa,” or wherever you might find parasites.

Well, the truth is — they’re not a third-world problem.
 Even if we said parasites magically don’t exist on our Earth, but they exist on their Earth — for whatever reason...

Look at water — it’s everywhere.
Look at shipping and manufacturing.
Look at immigration, vacation, travel, recreation, imports and exports of food.

There’s no way that parasites are just a third-world problem anymore.
 But that’s a common misconception.

Josh Dech (continued):
Now the second thing is — your doctor might say,
“Hey, we’re not going to bother testing for parasites.”

But if they do?
 What we’ve found is most of those clinical tests — like your doctor’s going to run — a stool test — at best, 40% accurate.
Some arguments are up to 90% inaccurate.

So let’s go with the number 40%.

If you only get 40% accuracy — this explains a client of mine.

She had eight tests done over five years — all negative.
No parasites.

They do a stool test — they’re looking for O&P — ova and parasites — or eggs, or something to come out in her poop.
 But if they live in your brain, liver, lungs, bile ducts, gallbladder, appendix — everywhere but your bowels — they can live in the bowels, but you don’t always see them.

She had eight tests over five years — all negative.

Turned out she had parasites.
We had worms come out that were two feet long.

And what they’ll do — they’ll actually coat themselves in cholesterol like armor.
So they can have these weird funny shapes.
They create mucoid plaques — these dark, thick black things.
That’s a byproduct sometimes of having parasites in your system.

You have to understand — they can be a really gnarly contributor.
You’re not always going to find them on a test.

Josh Dech:
So how on earth do we get them?

We’re going to talk about how we can test for these things as well.

Next, one of the most common misconceptions is that if parasites aren’t really a thing, we assume they don’t contribute to IBD.

But in my experience — with over 400 cases now reversed over the years — we can say roughly 80% or more — okay — 80% or more of the cases we see have parasites as the main driver or a major contributing factor.

We know parasites drive up certain immune pathways — we call these like arms of an octopus.

When your immune system’s trying to juggle stuff — like TH2 — it can drive this up.
Well, this is going to be part of histamine responses.
It can weaken innate immunity, like TH1 or TH17 — it can mess with it. It can increase these responses as well.

If you have an increase in TH17, what do you have?
You’ve got extra neutrophil production, more inflammation, high levels of calprotectin — that happens a lot with this.

TH17 is elevated especially due to a parasite.

And what does this do?
 It creates ulcers, inflammation, strictures, fistulas — it breaks down tissue.

So when you have a hyperactivation of these pathways, we have to understand that your immune system is now dysregulated.

In fact, parasites can actually dysregulate or disrupt — by sort of manipulating — what we call your T-reg cells.

Now, T-reg — that stands for T-regulatory.
Remember we use words like TH — that’s T-helper — TH2, TH17, TH1, TH9 — there are different pathways.

Well these T-reg cells, regulate the T-helper cells.
So they actually regulate your immune pathways.

If your parasites come in and dysregulate your immune system, you’re going to have a bunch of messed up immune responses.
Too high, too low, not enough… infections coming in you can’t keep back…
Hyperactive infections that are inflaming you, creating ulceration — all kinds of nasty business.

Because they’re messing with the regulation of your immune system, and driving up these responses.
All the while contributing to:

• Toxins
• Microbial imbalances
• Inflammation
• Dysbiosis

Which again dysregulates your immune system.

They create deficiencies in nutrients, because they’re eating them.
And you’re inflamed, so you need to burn through more of them — which leads to your body being unable to build back and repair itself.
So you have a continued disease state.

Really nasty stuff.

Josh Dech:
So what are some of the symptoms you can actually get from parasites?

This is a really fun one because… basically everything, unfortunately, can be a symptom.

I’ve got a list of probably 50 different parasite symptoms that I run my clients through and have them review — because they can cause almost any symptom.

This is the hard part.

But I’m going to give you some of the basics, and you can tell me “check, check, check.”

Okay, here’s what I want you to do.
 I want you to keep a tally while I’m doing this.

Keep a tally — write it down on a pen and paper, or on your cell phone — just count in your head, 1-2-3-4 — on your fingers, whatever.

Because I’m going to list some symptoms.

When I’m done listing the symptoms, I want you to tell me how many you have.
So I’m going to walk you through these symptoms — tally up how many of these symptoms you have.

And when you’re done, I want you to give me the number in the box — just drop it in the comments below.

Josh Dech:
Here’s what we’re going to say.

The first one — we can actually have a fair bit of pain.

Now, obvious pain on your liver — if you palpate — so your liver, if you look at it here, from your belly button (we’ll call this one split) and then your hip — this is one quarter panel of your body underneath the rib cage here.

If you actually take your fingers and sort of dig like you’re digging under — trying to get your fingers up inside those ribs — you’re going to press on your liver.

If you’re like,
 “Ooh, it feels sharp,”
 “I feel like I want to vomit,”
 “It’s really uncomfortable,”
 That’s pain on palpation.

Because sometimes, remember we talked about, parasites can live in these bile ducts, these tubes — they can plug them up, which leads to increased pressure.

You press on it, and it hurts.

It could be a parasite issue.

Josh Dech:
If you press around your belly button or appendix — you have pain or discomfort — that whole right side? That could be parasites.

They can cause issues again with your gallbladder and bile ducts — so fatty foods might cause you upset, diarrhea, oily, greasy, or floating stools.

You might have that.

If you have pain in your back or your hips — especially lower back and hips that won’t go away with treatment — it could be a parasite.

Other things they’re going to cause issues with are allergies.

Now again — not just allergies as one point.
 All the things I’m going to tell you can be a symptom — so write them down if you have them.

So, if you have seasonal allergies,
If you have chronic sinus issues,
If you’re someone who struggles with high histamine foods — like bone broth, cured meats, canned food, probiotics, fermented foods, yogurts, kefir — all that stuff…
You might have an issue with histamines.

Well, that can be a parasite problem.
That’s that TH2 pathway we talked about.

If you experience rashes or hives,
Psoriasis, eczema — those are two huge ones.

Pain in the liver — those are big ones we look for.

If you have itching, now specifically rectal or vaginal itching — because these can be different types of worms — hookworms, roundworms — you can sometimes get them in these areas, which cause irritation and itching.

If you are someone who has SIBO — small intestinal bacterial overgrowth — parasites can actually cause SIBO,
Because they block the ducts — or these sphincters, rather — and they block up the ducts, which leads to backflow of certain microbes and toxins recirculating.

You can actually get fecal microbes backflowing from your large into your small intestine, and that can sometimes be a parasite issue.

Josh Dech:
If you’ve got a low libido,
Maybe you’re prone to eye infections — that can be parasites.

If you’re someone who has poor sleep,
You find yourself waking up 2 to 4 a.m.,
Maybe have trouble getting to sleep…

You find that you grind your teeth in your sleep,
Or drool in your sleep — classic textbook signs of parasites.

Grinding the teeth and drooling are big ones.

If you’re someone who has trouble gaining weight,
If you have issues with fertility or infertility,
If you have hormonal issues, even thyroid issues — these can be a parasite problem.

Back to the skin — I want to reiterate:
 We talked about psoriasis, eczema, rashes, hives...

But if you have dryness, especially the hands and feet,
You’re like, “I’m just dry for some reason. I’m scaly and flaky…”
Could be a parasite.

Josh Dech:
If you have mental health issues — maybe anxiety, maybe depression —
That can be a parasite issue.

Remember, these things can hijack dopamine pathways.
They can get into your brain.
They mess with your gut bacteria, which produces neurotransmitters for your brain.

Early signs of hair loss or hair thinning — can be a parasite.

If you have issues in your liver — not just the pain we talked about on palpation (that’s pressing),
But if you have something called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease — so fatty liver, elevated cholesterol or liver enzymes — these can be a sign of parasites.

For a lot of different reasons — but they can absolutely be a sign of parasites.

Josh Dech:
So here’s what I want you to do —
Drop your number below.

I just listed like 50 symptoms.

How many did you have?

Drop them in the comments.
 I’ve got my phone here. I’m going to be able to see and I’m gonna know — how many parasite symptoms you have.

We can figure out — is this what’s maybe driving your IBD?

So the question now we want to ask is:

Okay…
 “I’ve got all these symptoms, I’ve got all these parasites — what do I do?”
 What on earth do I do about it?
How do I get rid of them?

Josh Dech:
Here’s what I can say.

In a lot of cases?
 DIY project — pretty easy.

In the case of IBD?
It should not be a DIY project.

Your immune system is so dysregulated.
You have pathways that are way overdone.

If you try to do too much too fast,
You put yourself into a flare,
You put yourself in the hospital.

Ask for help.

There’s a thousand and one ways we can get you that help — just ask for it.

So if you’re somebody who stumbled on this, and you don’t have IBD?
DIY it.
Pick up something from a trusted antiparasite source.

But with Crohn’s and colitis?
You need help.

Because you can imbalance your immune system,
 Cause inflammation,
Cause a lot of reactions,
Make yourself very very sick.

And there’s a lot of prep work that needs to be done.

Josh Dech:
So for example — remember we talked about how parasites clog up your liver and bile ducts?
Those are the tubes where bile is going to flow.

It causes recirculation issues,
A lot of toxicity issues,
All kinds of problems you’re going to have.

We need to first start by supporting your drainage.

Now, there are seven main drainage pathways.
Liver and bile ducts are the big ones — but think of it this way:

Detoxing is like collecting your trash and putting it in a bag.
Drainage is like bringing it out to the curb.

It’s getting rid of it.

So, you have seven ways your body gets rid of things.
I’ll try to do this off the top of my head.

Josh Dech:
First — liver, gallbladder, and bile ducts — those are the main two that we have to focus on when we’re dealing with IBD.
So I’m just going to put liver and bile as one.

Other exit doors you have:

• Lymphatic system
• Bowels — any way that you poop
• Kidneys — filtering out through urine
• Skin
• Sinuses

That’s seven:
 Liver and bile ducts, lymphatics, bowels, kidneys, skin, sinuses.

These are how things get out of your system.

You’ve got issues inside your gut and you wonder why you’ve got skin issues?
It’s pushing out through your skin, causing inflammation.

If you’re having issues with digestion or whatever it is — guess what?

If you’re having issues with your sinuses,
Chronic runny nose, allergies,
Maybe your symptoms pop up one week a month, or seasonally you’re like,
“Oh, my bowels get really bad at this time,”
Or around your menstrual cycle — could be parasites.

Because it’s impacting your immune system and these drainage pathways.

Josh Dech:
So the first thing we have to do when we’re dealing with getting rid of parasites in IBD is:

Drainage.

We need drainage.

Oftentimes this looks like any kind of drainage support.

We can go through:

• Sweating
• Sunlight
• Exercise
• Earthing and grounding

But often we’ll use supplements as well.

One of my favorites — it’s not the be-all end-all, but it’s a great one for this — is called TUDCA.
That’s T-U-D-C-A.

Really powerful supplement to help get that bile flowing.

It actually is restorative for your liver, it’s anti-inflammatory,
It can help modulate your immune system.

It’s a staple in nearly every protocol I write up for parasites.

TUDCA — very, very important.

So we’ve got your liver and bile ducts — you have to take care of that.

Lymphatics — you can do this too.

You can actually look up on YouTube something called “The Big Six” lymphatic.
There’s a guy who walks through very simple stuff you can do with these six lymphatic points:

• The neck
• The collarbones
• The armpits
• The belly
• Around the pelvis
• And the backs of the knees

There’s six lymphatic spots you can just do on an easy basis.

Now for your bowels — if you have diarrhea, that’s not good drainage.
If you have constipation, also not good drainage.

Kidneys — as long as you’re hydrating, for the most part, you’ll be okay — unless you’re prone to stones.

Skin — that’s going to happen, not much you can do about it directly.

Sinuses — you can use sinus rinses to help clean some of that stuff.

But we need to have things moving through your body, so we can move them out of your body.

So the first step in getting rid of parasites in IBD is:

👉 Drainage.

Josh Dech:
Then we’re going to go through the process of the Five Rs.

If you’ve not heard me talk about these before, I’m going to break them down for you really fast — in the context of parasites.

So the first R is:

Remove

What does that mean?
 Remove the problem.

Remove the parasites.

Once drainage is open, oftentimes we can remove them with parasite killers.

Now there’s a lot of work to do for drainage — sometimes it takes four, six, eight weeks on a structured protocol to get that done.

But then we can move on to removing the parasites, so we can actually get them out with antiparasitic protocols.

Josh Dech:
The next thing we want to work on is:

Replenish

Your body needs tools.

Remember we talked about toxins, microbes, and deficiencies as the three reasons why you get sick?

Well, we have to remove the microbe itself — because they’re causing deficiencies,
They are the microbial issue that produces toxins.

So by removing them, you’ve taken care of the bulk of the issue.

But — you’re still deficient.

Parasites eat nutrients — muscle tissue, liver, lungs, iron, hemoglobin, fats, bile — all that stuff.

So we need to give your body what’s been stolen.
We need to replenish the stores.

Josh Dech:
The next step is:

Rebuild

Well, rebuild what?

Parasites create inflammation, which disrupts your microbiome.
So your ecosystem is all screwed up.

We have to go back and rebuild that microbiome, or rebalance it.

And then we can actually — I’m going to put this here because it kind of happens at the same time — we want to:

Repair

A lot of people are coming to see me saying,
 “I heard this thing is really good for leaky gut. Do I have leaky gut?”

Look — if you’ve got bloat, man — you’ve got leaky gut.
If you’ve got inflammation — you’ve got leaky gut.

Crohn’s? Colitis? For sure.
 The leakiest of guts.

IBS? Leaky gut.
 Acid reflux? Leaky gut.

If you have any kind of GI symptom, you’ve got leaky gut.

And in fact, if you have other body symptoms with no GI symptoms — you might still have leaky gut.

Josh Dech:
So if you’re trying to take a bunch of supplements like:

• Powders
• Slippery elm
• Aloe vera
• Marshmallow root
• All these different things to try to repair your gut lining…

To patch the leaky gut?

It’s like trying to build a house while it’s on fire.

It is currently being broken down by the microbe.
You have a lack of nutrients to support that and repair that.
Your microbiome is a mess.

So by adding something in to try to patch the leaks in your gut —
 You’re building a house that’s on fire.
 It’s going to continue to break down.

Your only hope is to try to build it back faster than it’s tearing down —
But even then, it becomes a kind of dependence — like plant-based medication.

That’s not an answer.

So we have to make sure we remove, replenish, rebuild, and repair — in a structured process.

And then lastly — this is where we come in and:

Rejuvenate

Rejuvenate the immune system.

Remember, we talk about your immune responses — they should be like this:

Nice and balanced, even keel, super cool.

What happens in IBD?
 Your responses are like this — they’re way out of whack.

And what happens when you try to boost your immune system?

You boost the width between those extremes.
You just jack one thing up, which can actually cause you to go into a flare.

So what we want to do is not just stimulate it.
 We want to rejuvenate — or rebalance — that immune system.

That’s how it gets done.

Josh Dech:
So — parasites.

A lot of nasty symptoms,
A lot of nasty deficiencies.
They create in themselves the three pillars of why humans get sick:

Toxins.
 Deficiencies.
 Microbes.

There’s a ton of nasty symptoms, and I’d love to know —
How many symptoms did you count that you’ve seen inside your body?

Drop it in the comments below.

Here’s what I want to tell you:

Over 400 cases now reversed.
People coming off medication, going back to their doctors — and their doctors are perplexed.

Because after 15 years of drugs, they no longer need them.
They no longer have symptoms.
They no longer have pain.

Their scopes and scans — perfectly clear.
Biopsies — clear.
No disease.
Gone.

Why?

Because we:

• Opened up the drainage
• Removed the problem
• Replenished the nutrients
• Rebuilt and repaired the system
• And finally, rejuvenated the immune system

That’s how your body gets healed.

Josh Dech:
Your body is trying to heal you all the time.

You are inflamed because your body is actively trying to heal you.
That’s what inflammation is. It’s a healing response.

Instead of just shutting it up and putting tape over its mouth —
We have to ask:
What is it trying to heal you from?

Imagine going to your mechanic and saying,
 “I’ve got this weird noise in my car.”

And he says,
 “Cool — here’s some earplugs.”

Does it fix the problem?

No.
It just means you don’t notice it — but it’s still going to continue to break down.

Medications mask the inflammatory responses, which make you feel better,
But it doesn’t solve the problem.

Josh Dech:
So if you want help solving the problem, to reverse this,
Leave it up to your doctor to be perplexed,
And let us fix it for you.

If you’re listening on the podcast or watching on the YouTube channel — check the links in the show notes below.

There’s a link there — you can schedule a call with me and my team.

And here’s how this goes:

It’s so easy.

We set up a quick call.
 First call is free.

All I want to know is:
 Can I help you?
 Can we identify your root causes?
Do we know what’s causing your IBD?

If we do, then we’re going to say,
 “Look — here’s what we expect. Here’s how long it should take. Here’s about how much it might cost between supplements and programming, etc.
 Is this a good fit for you or not?”

If yes — perfect.
 Let’s get you started and get you better.

If not — amazing.
 Hey, I’ve got a podcast and a YouTube channel.
 I hope it serves you well.

Josh Dech:
That’s what these calls are about.
I just want to know — can we help you?

Now I’m going to turn over to the comments section for questions.

Now’s a great time to get to them.
 I don’t just do these to tell you things I want you to know —
 I want to know what you want to know, so I can help you answer those questions.

Let’s turn over to Instagram first today.

Let’s turn over to Instagram first today. What do we got for questions over there?

Got a couple questions here — first one is:

"Do you work with UC patients?"

Great question.

Yes. Absolutely.

Ulcerative colitis is probably 60 to 70% of what we see.
The other 30 to 40% is Crohn’s.

And we don’t need to see you in person — ever.

I’m up in Canada.
 We’ve got clients in Vietnam, I’ve seen people in India, Thailand, Africa, US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Europe — everywhere.

There’s no place we can’t help you.
We don’t need to poke your belly. We don’t need to do anything like that.

If you have bloodwork — send it in.
If you have scans and scopes — send it in.

It’s just information for us to collect.

Your symptoms, your tests, your story, your history —
Tell us everything.

So yes — ulcerative colitis is the bulk of what we do.
Just because it’s more common than Crohn’s.

Josh Dech:
What was the other question?

"Can parasites be everywhere or just in the liver?"

Such a great question.

Can parasites be everywhere or just in the liver?

Anywhere.

Parasites will be where the food is.

And certain types of parasites perform different functions.

Let’s go back to one of my favorites —
 I did a podcast episode on it, Episode 6 of Reversible, I believe — and I actually talked about this parasite called Toxoplasma gondii.

What it does — it actually gets into the brain.

Josh Dech:
Here’s the long and short of it:

This parasite lives and thrives when it’s in the belly of a cat.
Whether it’s the acidity, the enzymes — I don’t know — but it loves being in the belly of a cat.

So its prime directive is to get into cats.

Here’s how it does that.

It infects mice — because that’s cat food.

But mice normally run away from cats — the smell of urine, the meow, the movement. They run.

So what does Toxoplasma do?

It gets into the brain and actually burns out the fear center.
I don’t know if it’s the amygdala — I’m not a neuroscientist — but whatever it is, it burns it out.

The mice are no longer afraid of cats.

In some cases — they’ll even seek them out.
In some really weird studies, even as sexual partners.

It’s crazy.

Josh Dech:
Then the cat eats the mouse, the parasite gets into the cat’s belly — and it lives happily ever after.

And interestingly enough — it can also get into big cats — like jungle cats, not just house cats.

So in places like Southeast Asia or India, where you have wild cats, lions, tigers, and yes — bears oh my — it can infect humans,
Because humans are prey for big cats over there.

Scary stuff.

But the point is — parasites will get wherever they need to eat.

If they like liver fats and bile — they’ll go to the liver.
If they like lung tissue — they’ll go to the lungs.
If they like brain tissue — they’ll get into your brain.

They can be anywhere.

You can pick them up through:

• Food
• Water
• Contact
• Even sexual contact

Especially if you’re in a parasite cleansing phase — you want to abstain from sex with your partner, because you can transmit parasites.

Josh Dech:
They can come out of anywhere.

We’ve had stories of them coming out of all kinds of orifices.

I’ve had people who’ve done sinus rinses and had worms come out of their nose.
It can happen.

They can really be anywhere.

Any more questions over there?

Yeah, a couple more actually.

Next one says:

"I’ve had chronic sinus infections most of my life — could parasites be part of that?"

Such a good question.
 Let’s dig in.

The follow-up says:
 They’ve also had Crohn’s for 10 years.

Okay — so let’s unpack this.

Depending on how old you are, there are two ways that people get disease:

Either:

1. It’s a rapid onset, or
2. It’s a slow wear and tear

Josh Dech:
So someone comes to me with Crohn’s or Colitis, and they say:
“It all started really fast” — well, maybe it was an acute parasite infection.

Maybe they took a trip to Mexico, or somewhere else,
Came back, and a month later — now they’ve got bowel disease.

That’s a rapid onset case.

The other version is like:
 “Hey, I had bowel issues most of my life, then one day I was diagnosed with IBS in my teens…
And a couple years later, in my twenties, I was diagnosed with Colitis,
And then 10 years after that, it turned into Crohn’s…
And on and on it goes.”

That’s a slow wear-and-tear.

It’s like wearing a pair of shoes with no socks — the heel rubs, gets red, blisters, bleeds.
Same thing can happen inside your bowels.

Josh Dech:
Worst-case scenario?
You were:

• Born C-section
• Bottle-fed strictly
• Had infections early on
• Were given antibiotics like candy
• Lived in a city, didn’t have pets
• Were hyper-sanitized, always sterilizing your hands

You had no ecosystem to protect you.

So what happens?

You get these low-grade infections — they build over time.
That leads to allergy responses, sinus infections, mast cell activation syndrome, all kinds of weird stuff that accumulates.

And over time — your body starts to break down.

And when your defenses are down, due to that huge burden,
Your body eventually allows more bad guys in.

Josh Dech:
So maybe you had a mold infection early on — that led to sinus issues, asthma, allergies, whatever.
Well now that’s a prime environment for parasites to come in.

It’s always a compounding process.

So whether it was fast — acute infection that never got resolved —
Or slow — years of wear and tear…
Either way, something happened to make you sick.

It’s never random.

It’s not “just genetic.”
 It’s not “just autoimmune.”
 It’s not “just bad luck.”

We know why.

We just have to walk back the clock — and spend more than seven minutes with you in the office.

Josh Dech:
We need a couple hours with you to figure it out.
Build a timeline — then reverse engineer the process.

Hope that makes sense.

And they actually commented:
 “Spot on. C-section birth. Bottle-fed. And given antibiotics like candy due to sinus infections.”

There you go.

You guys heard Kate in the background there —
 C-section birth. Bottle-fed. Chronic sinus infections. Tons of antibiotics.

That’s prime time real estate for fungus to overgrow.

And guess what?

Fungus invites in parasites.
Your immune system gets compromised, and…

Boom — here we go.

Now — male or female? Do we know by the username?

That’s okay — I think female.
 Most of our clients we see are female.

It’s very common to have bowel issues, and if you’ve got fungal issues, you might see:

• Nail fungus
• Vaginal yeast infections
• Even oral thrush
• Maybe you get rashes, hives, or little fungal patches

Maybe you’re someone who craves sweets like crazy —
All kinds of issues.

Brain fog,
Allergies,
Irritability,
Anxiety,
Depression,
Insomnia…

All of these things can come from fungus.

Josh Dech:
If you crave carbs, starches, sweets, sugars, alcohols — could be fungus.
Because they hijack your brain — that’s the food they love.

And again — your immune system is now compromised.

And what happens?
 Parasites get invited to the party.

And this is what the slow wear and tear leads to — your disease.

But I’m willing to bet your doctor never asked you this.

They said,
 “Well, you have this disease — here’s a drug to cover it.”

But in what — what are we?
 33 minutes now into this live?

You’ve just unpacked how you develop Crohn’s disease.

Now we just have to reverse engineer the process.

We can fix it.

Josh Dech:
And if you want help — just send me a DM with the word “solution.”
It can be that easy.

It’s just the unraveling that takes time.

In men, you’re not going to get vaginal yeast infections, obviously —
But maybe you get penile itching, or jock itch — fungal infections.
Athlete’s foot is more common.
A white film on your tongue,
Bad breath — all of those can be signs too.

Check out — like, Google candida symptoms — and see if you have any of them.

Because that can cause that problem.

Josh Dech:
And here’s the thing — it can be easy, right?

Your body doesn’t break down for no reason.
We’re not designed to make mistakes.
We’re not created to be sick.

Sickness is a byproduct of dysfunction.

Our bodies are meant to function perfectly.

You’re only ever inflamed because your body is trying to heal you.

If you have an inflammatory response — everything from a skin rash to Crohn’s disease, to sinus issues, to arthritis, whatever it is…

That is an inflammatory response that is a byproduct of a toxin,
A microbe,
A deficiency,
Or a combination of all of the above.

Josh Dech:
We reverse engineer the process,
Figure out how this happened…

Bing, bang, boom — your body gets better.

That’s all there is to it.

Guys, thanks so much for being here.
 We appreciate you so much.

We’re going to see you all next week.

Josh Dech (closing):
One of my favorite things to hear as an IBD specialist is something like,
“I learned more from you in 15 minutes than from my doctor in 15 years.”

And if this — for the first time — is really starting to click,
You’re going, “Wait a minute. This might be reversible. I think there’s more that I can do. This condition came out of nowhere. It happened to me out of the blue. I was healthy for 10, 20, 30, 40 years and suddenly I wasn’t…”

And you’re telling me there’s no cause?

If you’re finally understanding that there is a cause —
That something is driving this —

I want to invite you to check the link in the show notes below.

Send me an email,
Ask a question,
See if a program is the right fit for you —

Because I promise you, this doesn’t have to be a lifelong sentence.

You are not doomed to this.

And IBD can be reversed.