Over on the YBC® App, I am sharing my journey through an 18 week parasite cleanse diet/treatment my whole little fam bam is doing (boyfriend, Buck Buck, myself). I’ve bee doing a ton of research on parasites and I am fascinated. If you really want to nerd out on it, check out this overview of all the different parasites us humans are host to.
Many of us may be carrying parasites, and while some of us may have symptoms, others may not. My naturopath suggests doing a yearly cleanse, but speak with your own naturopath or health practitioner to see what is best for your body. For my little fam bam, she wrote up protocols for myself, my boyfriend and my ten year old Siberian Husky. Each of us have a different protocol because we are all dealing with different things. For me, I’ve traveled to many developing nations in the last fifteen years and had my own set of issues which I’m talking about in the YBC® App. My boyfriend had some minor skin issues and teeth grinding he was dealing with (both can be symptoms of parasites), and he’s traveled to many developing nations as well. My dog Buckles had recently been tested for parasites and came up negative, but my naturopath said that they really can’t test for all parasites, and so it’s beneficial to do a gentle natural parasite cleanse for pets as well, because it can be easy to spread parasites from pets to owners.
Buckles’ normal diet is whatever I eat for dinner. It’s usually a high quality meat (beef, bison, chicken, salmon, lamb, pork), a carb (sweet potato, rice, butternut squash, acorn squash, pumpkin), and veggies (broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, zucchini, summer squash). I also add bone broth, a little scoop of good quality fat like coconut oil, and l-glutamine and like to sprinkle some nutritional yeast in his food as well, and I usually top it all off with a dollop of yogurt or kefir for good probiotics. I just don’t trust what is in dry dog food, and I don’t think it’s healthy for their guts to give them shelf stable, processed foods. His health is pretty good but he does have some inflammation in his knees. In the recent months, I have been very lazy with our carbs and been doing mostly simple carbs like potatoes and rice. Now, I am cutting out those simple carbs and replacing them with nutrient dense carbs like squashes while we do these cleanses. The reason behind that is that many parasites live off sugar and simple carbs, so we want to starve them off. In addition, we want to go in with herbal supplements as well. For Buckles, I’ll be using these natural, anti-parasite pills (the ingredients within the pill are the same as what some humans are given for parasite cleanses). In addition, he’ll have one clove of garlic to his food (I chop it up so small), and a little food grade diatomaceous earth (be sure to stir this into the wet part of food like mashed butternut squash because it can be harmful to the lungs if inhaled, but it’s beneficial to the body when digesting). In addition, he’ll also get a tablespoon of pumpkin seeds, which he absolutely loves. I thought he’d refuse to eat his food with the the strong scents of the herbs (garlic and then I’ve been taking apart the PetAlive capsule and emptying the contents into his food, so there’s cloves and wormwood in there which are pretty strong smells), but he hasn’t had any problems eating at all! He always licks his plate clean, and I’m so grateful for that.
The cleanse goes for ten days of the supplements, five days off, ten more days of the supplements, five days off and then we are back to normal. He’s only at the start of the first round, but so far I’ve noticed his coat is shinier and fuller, and his knees feel slightly less inflamed. This might be due to switching up the quality of our carbs (been doing that for about 4 weeks for him now), but I will keep you posted on everything I notice. Stay tuned to follow his journey, and don’t forget to download the YBC® App to check my journey as well.