You are reading a single comment by @dancing james and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@dancing james
Back to Giardia
I was in India when I got the illness and was travelling in Himachal Pradesh. Had been eating as a vegetarian, but in one restaurant we were given a meat dish. My travelling companion was a veggie so I felt obliged to eat it.
Very quickly I developed the key symptoms of sulphorous burps and farts - they were bad, worse than the smell of decomposing rodents from Murtles arse. I now found another way to clear a room in seconds, other than me talking.
I knew things were bad when there was about 30 seconds between thinking lavatory thoughts, and needing to be there. But it was monsoon season and one night I woke up and scrabbled to find the torch, my waterproof jacket and run to the guest house latrine. I did not make it, but made a huge mess in the process. I remember being delirious, cold, wet and crying to myself that all I wanted to do was get home but I could not change my flight and had a few more weeks of being stuck in India. Thankfully the monsoon rain was so heavy that I did not need an additional cold shower to clean myself.
We progressed up the Kulu Valley to Dharmasala, the town where the Dalai Lama and lots of Tibetan exiles live. At the guest house we stayed in the proprietor quickly guessed I had Gardia - the smell coming from me was clear indication. She told me I needed Yeshi Dhonden, I had no idea what this was. She pointed at a map and sent me off.
I ended up in a room with a weird mixture of middle class Indians, some
professional Western hypochondriacs (from their appearance) and street people. I was still unsure as to what I was letting myself in for.
Eventually I was invited into a room with tiny old Bhuddist monk and a much younger monk. The old chap was Yeshi, it turns out he is the Dalai Lama's doctor, treats the Monaco Royal family and Richard Gere (amongst other clients). The diagnosis was odd, they asked for my symptoms, took my pulse from multiple places, my palm and tongue were read, and they needed to know the date, place and time of my birth.
Diagnosis was then made and I was given some medicines, some were a brown dusty powder - looked like mud that came in a rough paper wrap. Others were little balls that looked like rabbit droppings, others were more rabbit poo, but wrapped in silk, tied with a silk thread and sealed with a wax seal. I was told to take these with hot water and chew them at various hours throughout the day.
Within 3 days the symptoms had started to abate, within 5 I was able to carry on traveling. I had been told of the one western medicine for the condition, banned in most of the world because it is so carcinogenic, plus it nukes your stomach fauna so you have to slowly rebuild the bacteria to be able to eat normally. I was grateful that this was not needed to clear up my symptoms.
Once back in the UK I had to be tested, and was all clear.
A picture of Yeshi
CSB yadda yadda