Bye bye GIARDIA

Just wanted to share a little update on how we finally got rid of the giardia. If you are unfamiliar with giardia...talk to anyone who has done third world country and you will realize it is just part of the package. One of the reasons you don't drink the water (lovely little parasites that you can pick up from the water). But of course, we figured it would be just one of the medical issues we would deal with (remember our list???).

Well, four months and four rounds of antibiotic treatments and LOTS of natural remedies...and BYE BYE GIARDIA. We started with Alinia (3 day treatment - did NOTHING), moved to one round of Metronidazole (10 day treatment - worked a little but the big D was back as soon as the treatment was done), then moved to Tinidazole (has to be special ordered and only found at our local children's hospital - worked a little but again...signs that it wasn't gone for good). THEN...I started doing some research on what else we could do.

Marched myself into the health food store and picked up some really good probiotics and Grapefruit Seed Extract (pictured on the right). GSE - 2 drops per 10 pounds of their weight, 3 times a day (we put it in a medicine spoon of orange juice). And we did that for about 2 and a half months before we saw good results. Consistency with the probiotics (which helps build up their gut - which after ALL those antibiotics was pretty bad) makes a big difference. I wanted to show the picture of the yellow box of probiotics. Got them at Target, chewable for kids...not great probiotics, but better than none. We also used Danactive yogurt drink and stayed off of sugar (which just makes it worse). And good vitamins help too. Trying to get these boys healthy.

Then we did one more round of Metronidazole and that seemed to finally take care of it. Giardia can be persistent. It can take months to take care of. It can get frustrating when you little one has horrible diarrhea every day. Lots of adopted kids struggle with it and it helps to talk to other adoptive moms that have been there before. Most docs aren't used to it and aren't sure why the antibiotics don't work. I found the natural route to be a big help for us.

And now...I can take them to the pool and not fear we will contaminate the whole neighborhood.