8 replies to this topic

[charliec]

Anyone ever contracted Giardia? To be perfectly honest with you I was about to say the heck with the little critter, I don't know of anyone who's actually come down with this little bug any ways. I was doing a little light reading on another backbacking site, trying to gleen some useful information. I came across this link to the short video clip from the New England Journal of Med. After I saw this I RAN to my local REI and bought a water filtration system. Wanna risk it? ...hmmm!

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/354/13/e12

don't need no worms in me!!!!!!


Charlie

[SandyM]

Okay..what I'm about to say is gross....but, here goes. We never gave much thought to the parasite either, although we never did drink straight from a stream. However, a couple of years ago we were in RMNP and watched a deer relieve himself while standing in the middle of a stream. Honestly we laughed...and then understood the warning about drinking non filtered water.

SandyM

[Malok]

I haven't watched the video yet, but I've had giardia. It's a great way to loose a lot of weight. I had it in Albania and it made life a bit interesting. When we finally had it diagnosed after a couple months and got on the drugs then it didn't take too long to get my system back in order.

[Rhonda]

Hey, I've been wanting to drop some weight quickly. Hmmmmmm.

On second thought, I would never be able to get that deer Sandy mentioned out of my head.


Rhonda

P.S. Gross, I just watched the video. I'll stick to losing weight the old-fashioned slow way.

[melli2779]

WOW!!! That video was absolutely disgusting!! I don't know if I'll ever even be able to splash my face with unfiltered stream or lake water after seeing that!!

[John]

They need to catch some of the worms and use them in next season's Fear Factor.

[randyman]

My brothers dog had it a couple of times...EEWWWW!! He made a nasty mess all over the house. Glad I didn't have to clean it up.
USE A FILTRATION SYSTEM! Okay, I'm done. Please.

Randyman

[ButterflySis]

EWWWWWWW!!! That is soooo gross!!

[bpv_UW]

Like Malok, I've had giardia (got it from drinking unfiltered water in Fiji), and can tell you that it's worth it to filter/treat the water to avoid the chance of getting this bug. It was not a pleasant few weeks, but once I got meds for it I was fine in a few days.

-Brandon