Giardia sucks

“Good you kept her on a leash the whole time.”

“do dogs get giardia?”

“Yep, my parents' dog had it twice, from drinking stagnant marsh water.”

“yup.
And catskhiker, she was leashed. I splashed too. She also unfortunatly got really bad ropeburns under her forelegs from her harness. Thanks for asking.”

“my dog had giardia once. he still drinks out of any mosquito ridden puddle he comes across. hasn't been sick again. the vet said he has less of a chance but can get giardia still, or something to that effect.”

“My rottie gets the sick like this BAD when I change his food. Blech. He is a good dog and has never had an accident but I know better now. Even if I mix a can of wet food with his dry he gets sick. Table scraps mixed with his food are no problem, so life has high points for him. :)”

“So where do I meet this Giardia chick? Is she Greek or something?”

“down by the seement pond, bit...”

“Was your dog confirmed to have giardia? If so, there is a medication called panacur, which is a powder that gets mixed with his food for several days. This has been shown to be more effective at treating giardia than flagyl.”

“Flagyl worked for me and only cost 3 bucks.”

“It may not be Giardia after all. She had a solid poo this morning and hasn't been barking at the back door to be let out all day. We're still gonna get her tested this afternoon.”

“Actually, I think that is a half-truth at best. Just my opinion.”

“what?”

“definatly not giardia!! Yay!. Must have just been some intestinal bug. She's okey dokey.”

“I got it about 15 months ago an am still suffering from the after-effects. I lost from 190 lbs to a low of 168. I'm now at around 175; still rushing to the bathroom about 2 or 3 times a day. At the worst it was up to about ten times a day. I eat everything in site to keep my weight up, even when I know it will mean a trip to the head. The doctors said that I have "post traumatic stress irritable bowel syndrome", caused by not getting treatment soon enough, and that it could last up to three years. I am pretty sure I got it from one of two places: either from using one of the squeeze bottle types of water filters; or from swimming in a mountain stream. I've changed from filters to AquaMira almost exclusively. But hay, what doesn't kill you will make you stronger, and, I'm real experienced in crapping in the woods.”

“I like the rotten egg burbs and farts the best.”

“Heck, I can get those without giardia!”

“BS, I had giardia a few years back, but it cleared up quickly. I went to the doctor right away when I suspected I might have it. A round of antibiotics or something like that did the job.

Wasn't it fun getting a stool sample for the doctor? LOL!”

“Ummmm, okay....


how's your explosive diarrhea?”

“and how do you manage to have it while still being completely full of schit?”

“LMAO....Its a t-shirt I want to buy for mike!”

“the scary thing is that if you ask him he'll actually deliver one hell of a story... makes you cringe the way he tells it... you'll be chemically treating your boiled and filtered water afterwards.”

“Its been two year now and I am still suffering. I went to the doctor last week and he says it might take another year or so to completely clear up. He gave me some new meds that seem to help. If you think you have it, get treatment. The test for Giardia test positive in only about 20% of the samples. Get the doc to prescribe treatment with out the test.”

“Do chlorine tabletts (Katadyn Micropur) kill Giardia?”

“yes... in 30 mins for giardia... it's just the standard numbers for chlorine dioxide (AquaMira, etc).”

“Unfortunately, with chlorine tabs, you still have to drink it. Yuch!”

“nimblefoot must not realize that that are tablets that nutralize the flavor....”

“the chemicals dissipate in 4 hours so if you don't like the taste wait a while. some people treat their water before they go to bed.

the "4 hour" treatment time for chlorine dioxide (it's not chlorine) is "maximum dwell time" meaning this is the longest time you can treat the water with the chemicals. after this the chemicals are gone... so there is no taste from the chemicals 'cause there are no chemicals to taste.

sc, i think you are thinking of iodine... adding vitamin-c to iodine treated water neutralizes the treatment by converting the iodine to iodide (just learned this on TT) and also apparently kills the metallic taste to boot. iodine unlike the oxidant chlorine dioxide produces, doesn't dissipate.

personally i can't taste the oxidants that chlorine dioxide produces after 30 minutes or i don't find it that objectionable compared to municipal treated water.
last edited: 3/26/07 8:09:41 AM”

“You're right, SC. I haven't used it since the 50's or 60's. Progress, what a concept.”

“just to highlight a fine point...

there is a huge difference between chlorine dioxide (ClO2) and chlorine just like there is a huge difference between H2O (water) and oxygen.

chlorine dioxide <> chlorine

...not even close... as similar as oxygen and water.”

“Some manufacturers of waterfilter boast about the tiny size of pore on their filter cartridges. Seems most filter elements have 0.5, 0.3 or 0.2 micron pores. Are filters with 0.2 micron pores really superior to 0.5 micron?”

“i am not an expert with filters as i don't use them that often. i do know that you want to watch for marketing here... i would look at "absoloute pore size" NOT "nominal pore size".

crypto and giardia are like 3-6 microns i think (not certain)... much greater than all the numbers you quoted.”

“Mtnsteve,

We had neighbors whose well tested positive for arsenic! Only about 2 miles away! Within the entire family we own 6 5-acre lots near Cottonwood and we were all nervous. I took samples into Hetch Hetchy for extensive testing of heavy metals and all was okay. Actually the water quality there is better than our well water in Escalon.

Doesn't sound right that contamination could come from installation of a new pump. Good luck.

Flip”

“The US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) requires water treatment filters to have 6-micron pores. Your standard filter that you find in any backpacking outfitter shop is usually 3-micron (like the Katadyn Hiker, for example). Some of the more expensive higher-end filters might have 2-micron pores, but consequently, their elements could be really expensive to replace.

That said, I use my Katadyn Hiker filter all the time except for when i'm expecting frost in the winter (the filter is too much of a pain to incubate then). The EPA requirement of 6um (microns) won't catch cryptosporidums, but the standard 3um filters will. Not sure if the 2um filters pick up anything else of significance, or whether they just make a good marketing tactic...

In the winter, I just use Aqua Mira. However, I try to avoid chemical treatments whenever I can, because quite frankly, who wants to wait 30 minutes to have drinking water?”