[pct-l] Giardia

[Donna "L-Rod" Saufley]

It seems that Giardia has become the term amongst hikers for "the trots", like Kleenex has become the commonly used name for facial tissues as Xerox has for copies.  Regardless of what actually causes the stomach distress (giardia, crypto, poor hygene, old/bad food, poor food handling, flu, etc.), the end result seems the same:  dehydration, physical weakness, loss of appetite, and weight loss.  Sadly hikers get too weak to continue on with the high demands of long distance hiking.  It's always sad to hear that something like that ends a hike and cuts short a dream. 

L-Rod

-----Original Message-----
>From: "Eric Lee (GAMES)" <elee at microsoft.com>
>Sent: Sep 14, 2007 12:10 PM
>To: "t.n. turner" <barnumbaileypdx at hotmail.com>, Shauna <csxii at schizoaffective.org>, Jeffrey Olson <jolson at olc.edu>
>Cc: "pct-l at backcountry.net" <pct-l at backcountry.net>
>Subject: Re: [pct-l] Giardia
>
>Tammy wrote:
>>
>But Catra is not the first this year to end her hike due to what is being termed, Giardia. It may very well be Giardia, but I believe that it is just 'dirt' from 'hiker hygiene' and sharing food. Which to me isn't Giardia, because it's always connected with water sources. And as far as I know, none of the hikers that had to get off, either completely or just for a few weeks, never were diagnosed definitively with Giardia. Whatever.
>>
>
>Giardia is a specific organism that can be tested for, though it often isn't.  It can be acquired either from water sources or more commonly from other people, as folks have noted already.  Water is probably the *least* common vector for Giardia.
>
>Also, there seems to be a tendency to label any kind of intestinal distress while hiking "giardia", though of course there are many other causes of that problem, like food poisoning from stuff that's been banging around in the bottom of the food bag for far too long.
>
>No idea whether Catra was properly tested or not, but it's too bad there's so much confusion around this topic due to the overuse of the term "giardia".  If we had better information about the *cause* of problems people run into out there, we could make better choices to avoid those problems.
>
>Eric
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