The scoop on the, well, Poop. (test that is)

So, most of you remember that after 5 doses of the DMPS chelation dose in July we cried "Uncle" and stopped. Dr K ordered a stool sample to try to figure out what was going on, and we sent it off.

Today, we got our copy of the results. And when compared to the stool sample done last Feb, they are FASCINATING. In not a good way.

I guess positive differences first: Dominic has only one flora out of balance now compared to 5 that were out of balance in Feb. Go probiotics! But he's still low (as in had ZERO) one one of the varieties of beneficial flora, which is just weird because he's on an adult dose of 2 different probiotics. There were no red blood cells this time, compared to some last time. Total short chain fatty acids are now in the normal range, whereas they were under normal last time.

And now for the negative changes

Unsuprisingly, yeast was "many" this time verses "rare" last time. (and, i didn't take him off the antifungal for the test - he stayed on GSE and MCT liquid)

Suprisingly for me, inflammatory markers Lysozyme and Lactoferrin which had been in the normal range last time were elevated this time. (the former should be under 600ng/ml and his was 1070, the latter should be under 7.3 ug/ml and his was 33.9. So to my untrained eye, those look distinctly elevated) Lysozyme is an enzyme secreted at the site of inflammation in the GI tract and elevated levels have been identified in IBD patients. Lactoferrin is a quantitative GI specific marker of inflammation used to diagnose and differentiate IBD from IBS and to monitor patient inflammation levels during active and remission phases of IBD.

We do not see the doc for about another month. But this sure explains why his behaviors went so far out of whack - he had a gut ache and was drunk from yeast.

I don't know yet what this will mean in the grand scheme of things. I'm not going to be terribly suprised to be encouraged to go on the Specific Carb. Diet, and have in fact already bought and read the book. But i'm not looking forward to that - he's already so restricted, taking away everything else would really be difficult for all parties involved. However, we've talked about it and if push comes to shove we'd rather do diet than yet more supplements.