Adventures with Giardia and Other Cautionary Tales

As Wayne and I were headed towards Tellico Gap during the Nantahala Adventure Run, he told me a story about almost passing out while running one day. It turned out that he had not eaten for 24 hours and opted to go for a run before he did so.  In retrospect, of course, that was a bad decision, but at the time he didn't think too much about it.

I had a couple of those moments in April and as Willy Natureboy says, bad decisions make for good stories.  I'm not sure how good of a story this is, but it is a cautionary tale....

There's a forest road near my house that I run fairly often.  I've only seen four people on this road in years, two hunters and a couple out for a walk.  One day after school, I headed there to run, but was surprised by a man coming down the hill as I was getting out of my car.  Not only was this person number five, but he was a runner, too.  So, we talked for a couple of minutes (he is a deputy that lives nearby) and then I headed up the hill.  I was distracted by the conversation and didn't realize until a few hundred yards up the hill that I had forgotten to take my earrings out.  Not just any earrings, but ones with blue diamonds in them that Tony had given me.

In retrospect, I should have turned around and headed back to the car and put them in a safe place.  But I was wearing a little waist belt that I stick my phone and keys in, so I stuck them in there.  It zips up securely and I didn't think about them again until the next morning, when I took my phone out of the belt and an earring fell out.  An, as in one, earring.

I searched the house, car, driveway, gym bag, every place I thought it could be.  Then I remembered that I had taken pictures at three places during my run, which meant I had opened that waist belt three times.  After school, I went back to the road and searched there.  Nothing.  I dragged Tony there with a metal detector the next evening.  Nothing.  I ran there a couple more times and again, nothing. This is a fairly big earring that would be hard to miss, especially in the sunlight and I finally assumed that someone saw it and took it home.  I spent a long time kicking myself for being stupid.

Tony, being Tony, went and got me a similar pair and we planned to make necklace out of the lone earring.  Then two or three weeks later, I was running on the road again and my shoelace came untied. I crouched down to tie it, and there was my earring, in the gravel and intact.

Now I have two pairs of nice blue diamond earrings and a secure case to put them in when I take them off to go run.  Lesson learned. Unfortunately, the weekend before, I had unknowingly made another bad, bad decision.

April is thru-hiker season here on the Appalachain Trail.  I go all winter, rarely seeing anyone, to suddenly seeing dozens of people on a short run.  The hikers hit the 100 mile mark here and many are still unversed in wilderness etiquette and procedures.  Which brings me to my bad decision.

I decided to run a 20 mile loop, a majority of which was on the AT.  On a long run, where there are several water sources, I carry a handheld bottle instead of a bladder, scoop water as I go and treat it with a Steripen, which uses UV light to zap any bad critters that might be in it.

Several months prior, I had dropped my Steripen, but it appeared to be working fine. The flashing light that indicates the steripen is making proper contact with the water was working, along with the green indicator light that tells me the water has been zapped for the appropriate 45 seconds.  I use gray bottles and never thought to look down inside the bottle to see if the most important light,the UV light was actually working.

All winter went by without incident.  Then the weekend of the 20 mile loop, I scooped water from couple of places right next to the trail.  In retrospect, of course they were not the best options.  Somewhere along the way, I, for some reason, thought to look to see if the UV light was working. It was not.  I was not too concerned because I know a lot of people do not treat their water and I realized I has been drinking untreated water for several months. But it was now thru-hiker season, when you smell all sorts of bad smells along the trail and find toilet paper in all sorts of places.


Warning:   TMI coming, but I wanted to write this down, because my symptoms were a little different than most of the internet info.  You'll be safe if you skip the next paragraph.

So, a couple weekends later, I had stomach/bathroom issues.  A couple nights later, I was awakened by an urgent need to, umm, use the restroom.  That never happens.  Then I was nauseous.  I lost my appetitie and could not eat anything but crackers and toast. I alternated between not going at all for days to explosive incidents.  I sat in the recliner and stared into space.  I could not focus enough to read or watch T.V.  I felt fuzzy-headed and dizzy.  I did not throw up.  The doctor and I assumed it was the stomach flu, but I have never had the stomach flu.  A couple weeks went by.  I missed a lot of work. I would feel a bit better and head back to work, only to have to leave early. One morning, I was on my way out the door when I had to make a run for the bathroom. I was shaky and weak and as a teacher, I had to find a sub and come up with a lesson plan in a half hour.  I cried for awhile, then our secretary helped me find a sub and I came up with a lesson plan.  They ran tests, blood tests and a regular stool test.  Low blood sugar, nothing in the stool.  By this point, over three weeks had gone by.  I lost eight pounds sitting in the recliner.  I was apparently very pale because people kept remarking on that. I spent a lot of time being angry that I could not do the things I wanted to do and not understanding what was wrong. The fourth week, the doctor and I discussed the possibility of giardia.  First she gave me a round of antibiotics in case it was animal e coli. That didn't work. The stool test for giardia came back negative, but apparently they only pass every so often, so you usually have to do multiple tests.  Instead of that, she just went ahead and gave me the antibiotic from hell, flagyll.

I could not tell if the flagyll was working, because it gives you the exact same side-effects as the symptoms of giardia.  Only I felt worse. Finally, when I was finished with it, after five weeks of hanging with Little G and eight days of antibiotics, I began to feel better.  I had some energy and was hungry.  Then I had a bad couple days.  Then several good ones.  Then a bad one.  According to Dr. Google, it can take a few months for the intestines to heal, especially since I went so long before we figured it out.  Also, that doc says a lot of people become lactose intolerant for a while, and I think that has given me a couple bad days before I realized it.

So, eight weeks later, I feel more normal; I just get tired quicker. I still have some nausea and days when I just feel "off."  I am running, but not very far yet.  Today a group was running the Nantahala Adventure Run, which I was supposed to do, but instead I provided some aid and hiked/ran out four miles to see people as they came through.  My plan was to head all the way to the NOC and back, but my body thought differently.  I enjoyed hanging out on a rock in a quiet place in the sunshine and although I wished I could run the loop, was okay with doing what I did. 

Another very hard lesson learned.  If you do not treat your water, consider it.  And according to some sources, options such as bleach may not kill giardia unless it is used in fairly high concentration.  If you use bleach, you may want to do some research.  This person did a lot of research on the different ways of purifying water.  Apparently the Steripen is very effective....but only if you are sure it is working.  And I may trade in my gray bottles for some clear ones.