The Parasite Problem: Why You Shouldn’t Go to War Without Fixing the Battlefield
There’s this growing trend in functional medicine circles right now- and while well-intentioned, it's dangerously short-sighted.
It goes like this: "Found a parasite? Kill it. Throw some antimicrobial herbs at it, maybe a round of prescription meds and boom- you’re clean."
But let me give it to you straight: if you're killing parasites without addressing the terrain they thrive in, you're setting yourself up to lose the war before you’ve even begun to fight.
The Terrain Is Everything
Imagine this.
You walk into your kitchen and see cockroaches. You grab the bug spray and go full Rambo. Dead roaches. Feels good, right?
But you never take out the trash. You never seal the cracks. You don’t fix the water leak under the sink.
Guess what? They’re coming back.
Your gut works the same way. Parasites are opportunists. They thrive in weak terrain- low stomach acid, poor bile flow, sluggish motility, damaged mucosa, low secretory IgA and yes… chronic stress. Kill the bug all you want, but if you don’t fix the terrain, they’ll be back.
Symptom Chasing Keeps You Sick
Here’s the truth most practitioners won’t tell you: you’re not sick because you have a parasite. You have a parasite because you’re already sick- your ecosystem is imbalanced. It’s why some people eat raw sushi every week and feel great, while others get wrecked by one sketchy salad.
Killing a parasite without rebuilding the gut lining, rebooting your immune intelligence and restoring metabolic order is like building a mansion on quicksand. It might look good for a month. But the cracks are already forming.
How to Actually Win the Parasite War
We use a process called "test, don’t guess" and we look for what we call Metabolic Chaos®- a state where the hormone, immune, digestive, detoxification, and nervous systems are all out of sync. Parasites are part of the picture, but not the whole canvas.
Here’s what we fix before we go parasite hunting:
Stomach acid – The first line of defense. Most people have too little, not too much.
Bile flow – Critical for fat digestion and killing invaders.
Digestive enzymes – Without these, you're fermenting food, not digesting it.
Mucosal lining – Your gut wall isn’t just a barrier, it’s a battlefield.
Secretory IgA – Your gut’s immune sniper squad. If it’s depleted, parasites win.
Liver detox – Because dead bugs release toxins. If your liver’s backed up, you’ll feel worse before you feel better.
Once that foundation is laid, then- and only then- do we introduce targeted antimicrobial protocols. And even then, we rotate, pulse, support drainage pathways and track symptoms. Precision over panic.
You Don’t Need a Bigger Hammer, You Need a Smarter Strategy
The old “find the bug, kill the bug” approach? That’s fear-based medicine. It treats your body like a war zone and forgets it’s actually a garden.
You want to be resilient? Stop throwing napalm at the weeds and start nourishing the soil.
When your gut is strong- when the terrain is clean, the immune system is sharp and the body isn’t stuck in fight-or-flight mode- those parasites don’t stand a chance.
You don’t need to live in fear of sushi, street tacos or your last vacation to Tulum. You just need to build a gut so strong that invaders have nowhere to hide.
Final Word
Parasites are real. And yes, they can cause chaos. But treating them without restoring the terrain is like drying off while you’re still standing in the rain.
Don’t treat the bug. Treat the terrain. That's how you get well- and stay well.
