A couple of years ago, I read a very interesting article that introduced me to an old folk remedy common to many older African Americans, as well as Caribbean islanders. It was written by an American doctor who had heard of the ingestion of small amounts of pure gum spirits of turpentine through some of her clients. No one could tell her what she wanted to know of this peculiar remedy from personal experience, so she used herself as a guinea pig and then wrote the article contained in the link below.
In the late '90s, I was treated for parasites by my chiropractor twice in a 5 year period when I was a dog owner. I drank Corsican seaweed tea which was most unpleasant, but my doctor felt the condition had improved as evidenced through muscle testing, also known as applied kinesiology. Fast forward to 2012 - I had spent 4 months on Maui, doing an organic farming internship. We were told not to drink unfiltered water there because of possible parasite contamination, and I gladly complied. Additionally, I took grapefruit seed extract almost daily to help prevent GI problems brought on by impure water. The water we used to bathe and to wash our produce wasn't filtered.
Previous muscle testing by that same chiropractor also indicated a leaky gut, essentially intestinal permeability, caused by a thinning of the lining of the intestines. I have learned through my own research on digestive health that leaky gut is quite common across America, and is quite possibly the common denominator in many disease processes. The intestinal lining is weakened through repeated ingestion of inflammatory foods, such as refined grains (cereal, pasta, bread) and sugar. Candida albicans, a common yeast which lives in all of us, thrives on these processed carbohydrates. Heavy consumption of these faux foods along with exposure to antibiotics allows Candida populations to grow out of control, forming large fungal colonies that burrow into the lining of the small intestine, causing the thinning of the walls and allowing toxins to be absorbed directly into the bloodstream. It can be very difficult to eliminate these yeast colonies, one reason being that we keep feeding them. They love sugar and get it from countless sources in the standard American diet. I tell my clients that they often crave processed foods because their unbalanced microbial populations are driving the cravings.
I decided to try the turpentine remedy suggested in the link below, thinking at the time that I could eliminate any Candida hold-outs - the yeast cells that hadn't succumbed to earlier attempts to uproot them. The remedy calls for taking up to 1 teaspoon of turpentine on a slightly rounded teaspoon of sugar. The sugar acts as bait - the microbes that thrive on sugar latch on and are poisoned by the turpentine. Simple enough - turpentine comes from pine trees and tasted okay; "just a teaspoon of sugar helps the medicine go down". I had a teaspoon of turpentine about 2 hours before bed for 4 nights in a row. The doctor's article stated that the bowel should move at least twice/day while using the turpentine so that whatever is killed off can be whisked out of the body quickly. To ensure this, I gave myself a 2 quart enema each morning following the turpentine dose. Four days went by and I felt nothing. No better, no worse, no symptoms at all. I called my dear friend who is a gifted healer and very psychically aware to tell her what I'd been doing. She said "I get that you should take the turpentine for 2 weeks". I thought, " you must be kidding" but she had never steered my wrong before and I decided to go for it. This is where being a colonic therapist comes in handy. I took the teaspoon each of sugar and turpentine nightly for the next 10 days, and every morning did a 2 quart enema to wash out the "casualties". Home enemas aren't as revealing as professional colonics, as one can't see most of what is expelled in a toilet. A colonic machine has a visualization tube, so after my 2 weeks of turpentine and daily enemas, I performed a colonic on myself. I was stunned to see what I thought were tiny white eggs in the waste water. After learning that parasite eggs are microscopic, I feel they must have been the actual parasites. I know that what I saw was not something I ate.
I felt good, although interestingly, not very different from my usual state of good health. Mostly, I was just happy to have eliminated parasites that were stealing my energy and which could have created future problems, had I not been willing to experiment on myself with this very safe process. Please read the doctor's link in its entirety before being your own science experiment. I think it's vitally important that a person be in pretty good health with excellent bowel eliminations before proceeding with the suggestions in this informative link.
http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/11136827/2098715122/name/Turpentine-The_Candida_Cleaner
For those with gut Candida infections who would not feel comfortable eating sugared turpentine, rotating through several natural antimicrobials over several weeks, in addition to adding a strong probiotic daily can provide improved comfort and new balance for one's gut microbiome. Some effective antimicrobial agents are raw garlic with olive oil, grapefruit seed extract, berberine, essential oils like oregano, thyme, basil or rosemary and olive leaf extract. I would also suggest reading The Yeast Connection by
Dr. William Crook, or researching Candida overgrowth on the internet.
