My Adventure with Giardia

by Steven
(Fairfax, VA)

I had planned on taking about 8 months off of work to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail.

While I had done excessive planning for the adventure I had failed to plan on contracting Giardia while in the woods. I was fortunate enough to run into a couple of other thru-hikers who shared with me some of their anti-diarrheal medicine so that I could make it to town.

I was able to find a doctor in town who was familiar with the AT thru hikers and recognized immediately that I had been infected with the Giardia parasite- also known as having “beaver fever” due to one of its vectors being animal feces in water.

I ended up enduring a 10-14 day routine of eating my meals and then taking a medication that was much like chemotherapy in that it killed everything it touched- good or bad. I couldn’t really tell that it was working but I did notice my stools weren’t as runny and “oily” (sorry to be so gross) as they were in the woods and so I took that as improving.

I ended up camping out (so to speak) in a cheap hotel for a week while undergoing this treatment and so I was in a pretty comfortable set up with all things considered.

I was advised by a few fellow thru-hikers to eat a lot of yogurt with live culture to help get my gut back into shape and so I did. I was able to get back on the trail within 10 days and have learned to ALWAYS boil my water since!