Your Guide To Parasites: Inflammation And Health Solutions

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Hello.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

So great to have you here. We’re going to talk about parasites today. One of my favorite topics and I asked you to do this because I’ve seen you talk about parasites before and I wanted to bring your expertise in here. And I’d like to introduce you to our audience. You’re a board-certified family physician. You worked in that arena for 20 years, and you also have a functional medicine practice in Massachusetts and a virtual consulting practice as well. And you’re currently serving as president of the International Society for Environmentally Acquired Illness, which I think is very relevant to this talk today. And you have a passion for repos medicine because, you know, it helps your patients get better faster. So, really excited to talk about parasites. Ready to get going?

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Ready.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Okay. You know, there’s a lot of myths around parasites. So let’s first start with some myth-busting. Can you talk about what are the common parasites that are in our bodies that drive inflammation, that drive chronic disease? And we’ll get deeper into that, too. But what are the common parasites that we’re seeing in people in developed countries are.

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Sort of classification, I’m thinking category we can think parasites. First of all, I mean, we could arguably list a number of different pathogens or bugs as parasites, but if we’re being more specific about the parasites we’re talking about today, then there are like three categories. There are the helminths or the worms, and then there are the protozoa parasites that are just cellular microscopic organisms. And then there’s these ectoparasites that we all love to think about, like lice and that kind of thing. So yeah, those are three categories. And then within the say worm parasites, which I presume we’ll be spending most of our time on here today but wherever it leads. There are three main categories there with cestodes, nematodes, and trematodes. Interestingly, and I don’t think we’re going to talk too much about energy medicine, but I uncovered a fourth type in one particular case, I don’t know what that was about, but I actually validated the existence of that on the CDC website of all places. So but mainly cestodes, nematodes, and trematodes.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

What was the fourth one?

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

I’ll be honest with you, I don’t remember the name of it. It was like a long scientific name, but it’s the most remarkable story. I don’t know if you want to get into that, but.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

There’s time and if you’re willing to talk about it.

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I’m so intrigued right now. Okay. So clearly what you just shared with us is that parasites are well and alive among us in first-world countries. And as you alluded to, worms are a big category. So how is it that they go unnoticed and that, you know, whatever problems they’re causing in the body don’t seem to be linked back to parasites? So there must be a set of symptoms and, you know, a way to kind of cue as in that parasites may be a problem.

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Yeah, honestly, it’s not so straightforward. I mean, but that’s the case with a lot of root cause or silent killer topics, there’s no doubt. Right? I mean, that’s kind of the nature of the beast with root cause medicine. You know, the illustration, I think a lot of people, probably most people who are listening here are familiar with that illustration of a tree. You know, we’re talking about the trunk and the roots of a tree, not so much just the outer limbs and the leaves. But the way I often talk about patients is if you can imagine a tree where in a 360-degree panorama of the around the tree, actually the tree looks different on different angles and the leaves might even look not just different colored but might be different shapes. Right? So those expressions, those leaves from different parts of the tree would look really, really different but they all stem from the same trunk and roots. So that’s just a hard, I think that’s a hard paradigm and concept to grasp for both the public and practitioners alike. But, you know, getting back to the specifics of your question, well, let me illustrate this case in point. All right. When I brought this up as a case example, you know, at the conference that we were at last year, so New England Journal of Medicine. I agree. The top journal in the country in the medical field, I think it was 21 or 22 case reports. 

A gentleman I think in his mid-forties, the late forties they describe as otherwise healthy mental status changes in the middle of the night, some delusional thinking, end up in the E.R. and an outright seizure in the E.R. And in the end, the diagnosis was they found that he had a worm parasite in his brain. Now, the thing that’s really interesting to me there is so like I said, he’s otherwise been healthy. He’s not had any past medical history, blah, blah, blah. They don’t outright say it, but they infer because he is an immigrant from Guatemala but from 20 years prior, they’re kind of inferring the suspicion that he’s had this. If you read between the lines that he’s had this worm for 20 years or not to say that necessarily in his brain, but it may have stemmed from years prior. And that’s also an off-the-rail thinking even in conventional medicine.

So when we talk about it, when you ask how can it go unnoticed. I mean, the fact of the matter is there are, we could even make the argument like how big a deal are various bugs or toxins or in this case, worms, you know, do they always cause symptoms? Maybe not so much, right? We have a galaxy, literally a galaxy full of bacteria in our colon. They’re not all bad. They’re not necessarily we’re not, we don’t all have symptoms. So I think it’s really in when I talk to patients, it’s much more about this is the definition of information. It’s not just bugs and toxins. It’s the fact that you have an immune system that is now provoked and responding in a way that is what’s causing the symptoms. But if we don’t have, if we don’t have an immune system and we don’t have inflammation by definition because you don’t have a response to those bugs, toxins, worms, parasites, or anything else, you’ll die. You’ll die probably a quick death, but you’re not going to suffer much along the way because you don’t, you can’t bounce an inflammatory response. 

So if we get more disorder symptoms specifically, like the thing that we’re going to think about most commonly is, you know, gut health. That people want to think about diarrhea, IBS, abdominal pain, bloating, whatever. I mean, and that’s not to say by any means that the worm parasites are the cause of those symptoms. Right? It’s always more than one thing. It’s a collection of topics. Just even talking about the bugs or toxins and the immune reaction that right there is two topics much less the whole collection of different bugs and toxins. But yeah, I mean, if you are in the brain, case in point during the journal article, write mental status change and seizures. I can’t get the word schizophrenia in my head and I’m blanking here. The one parasite, the one that we’re talking about with in case there’s a, I’m blanking on what I said in a moment here but one of the worms, one of the helminth worms that the lifecycle goes between the gut system, the lungs and the brain.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Strongyles?

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Thank you. Right. That’s why I was like I said, I couldn’t get the word schizophrenia in my head. I think I was stuck on the mental status change.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Start with S

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

I knew it was an S and I couldn’t get schizophrenia in my head. Yeah. So like where is the symptomatology based on where that pathogen is at that moment. Is it an adult sort of worm form and a larvae form? And so it’s really variable, unfortunately-

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

And that’s the thing that I wanted to get at for the audience, that the symptoms of having a parasite can be very nonspecific or they can be very extreme like this New England Journal of Medicine case where a man had had a worm in his brain. Before that, I think the majority of people that you’re seeing in your practice and that I’ve seen in mine, it’s low energy, it’s insomnia, joint pain, it’s digestive distresses of different types, it’s acne, and it’s migraine headaches. It’s so nonspecific.

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

And which is I get that from a sort of skeptic’s point of view, I feel like I’m always thinking about or talking to the skeptic in the room in my head. So, you know, I think the skeptic would say, like, well, it just feels like you’re throwing stuff up on the wall and seeing what sticks. And I can see where that comes from. You know, as a viewpoint. But like I said, it’s like we know it’s the root in the trunks and it literally is AI. I would like to believe that in the coming years, as the evolution of AI unfolds, there’ll be a greater understanding and acceptance of that paradigm that it’s not just one plus one equals two.

And so if you don’t have these clear-cut symptoms due to this clear-cut topic, then that makes that clear-cut, you know, symptomatology diagnosis. All these chronic things that we talk about are so multifactorial, it’s almost unfair to be asking the kind of question like, what symptoms does this particular issue cause? Well, is that issue in your gut, or is that issue in your joints, or is that issue in the brain? And therefore, the symptoms might vary. And some people. Well, the symptoms are so very well. Yeah, because it depends on where it’s at and what else is going on in the person’s health history and all that stuff. It’s complicated, as you know.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

And you know, one of the reasons I wanted to bring you on here is because you are a Western-trained family physician and you work in functional medicine and treat parasites and lecture on parasites all the time. And I think that is impactful and meaningful to have you speaking here. It brings such validity to this topic. So could you talk a little bit about the relationship between parasites and environmental toxins? Because this is a big one and this is a big topic that many of our speakers are talking about is environmental toxins, and there is a relationship there between parasites and toxins. So can you share with us, with the audience, what that is?

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Number one, you know, I think in terms of and I don’t know how much you might get into it and other entries and sessions, interviews and such. But, you know, I think in terms of the term called exposome, exposures. And so anything that doesn’t derive from us so parasites and then here I think I’m guessing from your point we can just safely say we’re talking about worm parasites when we say parasites unless otherwise specified, they’re just one of many other exposomes, right? Environmental toxins, if we say synthetic toxicants as defined as toxins here or biological toxins or bacteria or worm parasites, they’re all just another entry point under the big umbrella category of exposome. And so one relationship between worm parasites and environmental toxins is they’re just all siblings of the within, they’re all community members of the exposure community, which can individually, independently, and especially collectively cause immune aggravation and immune reactivity and therefore, by definition information. So, you know, we can look at it as aggregate as one plus one equals plus one plus one plus one equals, you know, the large amount or synergistically more than that number. But we can also talk about how they directly interact. And there are probably two sub-thoughts around there. One is under that, I should say, one is there are some bugs and toxins that can activate others, right? So we talk about COVID, its mainstream research, and mainstream thinking that SARS-CoV-2 had seemed to activate or reactivate the Epstein-Barr mono virus. And I would argue beyond Epstein-Barr or other herpes viruses seems like it happens a lot. We’ve seen that I don’t know about you, but we’ve had a number of patients who, you know, they’ve had shingles and they’re around or zoster in their eye and a few patients who are in Florida. There even there’s a couple of ophthalmologists down there who are saying they’re seeing it so often. They’re just asking patients to be on medications to treat stomach shingles, like indefinitely for the time being because they just don’t want to see in the eyes, ever again like it was so bad.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

The other thing that we’re seeing is the reactivation of Lyme, the reactivation of this general gut disruption, right? People are doing great. They’re cruising along, they get COVID and just a full digestive disruption. You run a gut test. There are all kinds of opportunistic bacteria, maybe some parasites there, maybe stuff they’d already cleared out. Yeah. So this is an issue that. 

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

I mean, the COVID, when I use this as a again, speaking to the skeptical room just because it’s in the mainstream media, it mainstream literature. Right. But the parasite topic I think under like sort of to be here is interesting because of the thing that really struck me so wildly. A few years ago was the reminder I had learned this years ago but forgot. But one of the big stalwart practitioners are member of the ILDS community, the Lyme disease community who’s a pathologist. Al McDonald had presented a study from several years ago publication or presentation of 19 autopsy patients, brain autopsies whereby nematodes. I very confidently recall they were all nematodes. Nematodes were found in these 19 individuals’ brains. These are 19 individuals who had some kind of neurologic, neurodegenerative disorder, dementia, Parkinson’s, ALS, etc. And those 19 folks had nematodes in their brain. And inside the nematodes were Borrelia, Lyme, Bartonella, yeast, and heavy metals. I know those were on the list. If there were more, I don’t remember. But so again, it’s like that. It’s a Trojan horse kind of model where these worm parasites appear to be able to act as a reservoir of other bugs and toxins. So there’s a synergistic relationship where it’s not just one plus one equals two, it’s there’s a symbiotic benefit for those other bugs and toxins.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

And we see that in nature where one bug will live in the site of another bug. I’m trying to think of a good example right now, but something will come. But yeah, I mean, this is why wouldn’t it happen on this on this level as well? And so just when we’re talking about worms, again, I just want to share with you, that we’re talking about nematodes here, which is really one of the most common categories of worms on the earth, which is in the Helminth category. And it gets confusing when you’re classifying all of this. So some of the common worms that people might know are tapeworms, liver flukes, and nematodes, what else would you say?

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

cestodes, nematodes, and trematodes are the three big categories. And then, like you said, there’s a number of different kinds of worms underneath there, and then there’s ones within those three categories. And then one of the ones that I think is sort of an outlier, I don’t recall that it fits within one of those three, but it’s sort of still an evolutionary classification. Ah, I believe it’s a tapeworm. Yeah. I think it might be the tapeworms. Did you mention tapeworms just now? Okay. Yeah, I think that might be. Yeah, I think that is the one that is out there. I don’t know. I’m sorry. I believe it is the worm. I think the worm is the one that’s kind of like by classification. Since you’re talking about classification, that might be the one. That’s a little.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yeah, that’s the one we know the least about. I mean, we see a lot of it when we work on parasites, you know, detox protocols and rope worm is the one that there’s not a lot of research on. There’s a lot of confusion about what it is. Is it a combination of, you know, biofilms and mucus? And is it colonies of bacteria and parasites together? I mean, what is it exactly? Yeah.

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

You know, truth be told, I don’t personally get really into the details of trying to delineate the specific worm parasite involved in most cases, the therapies we are in. I don’t know if you want to get into that or not, but the treatment therapies we use, you know, in pharmaceuticals, the biggest problem is we can’t really access those medicines very well. Right. The conventional dosing for those are so minuscule that they don’t really do a great job. I think from most practitioners’ experiences who wrestle with this stuff on a chronic inflation level that it doesn’t amount to much and the costs for them are not feasible to be using. So we end up, you know, a lot of us, you know, I certainly I know to use a lot of, I use both but we use a lot of non-pharmaceuticals and I don’t know that there is that much data that you know this non-supplement herbal whatever the case may be is for that worm and this one is only for that worm and there’s so much crossover, which is the case with the pharmaceuticals as well, that I don’t know that there’s as much need to get real specific about them. And then the diagnostics try to figure out, you know, what, where we’re dealing with. I mean, good luck with that, too.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

So yeah, totally. Well, this has been so enlightening, this first half of our conversation. We’re going to continue on deeper. But before we continue the conversation, you know, we’re going to get into how can we protect ourselves from parasite infection, the relationship between gut health parasites and inflammation, holistic approaches. We’ll talk about, you know, whether there’s any data around parasites being helpful or harmful to us. That’s something that we kind of were debating before we jumped on this conversation. But we’ll continue the conversation. So, Dr. Su, I want to thank you so much for joining us today for this talk on parasites and to our audience. I hope you found our conversation insightful, and helpful. 

If you’re a summit purchaser, stay right here, because we’re about to dive even deeper into this discussion with Dr. Su. And if you’re not, click on the button on this page get access to a continuation of the conversation and many others, and really get the tools you need to reclaim your health. If you’re watching this continuation of my talk with  Dr. Su, thank you for being a valuable member of our community and we’re going to dive right back in. So,  Dr. Su, you started to talk about treatments and you know how we handle this. So could you talk about some of the holistic approaches to dealing with parasites and inflammation? You did mention that in the Western world treatments for this may not be as effective as what we have in the natural medicine world.

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

So the question is about different treatment options.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yeah. And, you know, just holistic approaches and treatment options, and that will segway into actually just be thinking about this as you answer that question, is there a right way or a wrong way to cleanse parasites out of the body?

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Well, I mean, I don’t tend to be a very binary thinker, so I rough the bags on the nature of the question. I think I hesitate to say there’s a right or wrong way. I think maybe on the bottom side there is or absolutely wrong way. I’m sure there could be some true modalities that just aren’t really geared toward worm parasites that we might think are right. So one example might be I have no I have no understanding that say a topic alone or melatonin as a pharmaceutical medication are going to be effective for worm parasites, for example. So if somebody that’s a case of a misnomer with work terminology. I can sometimes be a little stickler about terms, but if somebody’s saying, oh, I’ve got a parasite and I need to find somebody to help treat me with melatonin because that’s an entire parasitic.

Well, I’m not aware that treats worm parasites. It’s a protozoan parasite. So I think it’s just a point of simple clarification without being clear on the terms as far as what I tend to use. Yeah, I will use both pharmaceuticals and non-pharmaceuticals. I can’t say why I’m familiar with a wide spectrum of different supplement companies that use parasitic that have and offer parasitic therapy. So the far, far, far brunt, I mean, perhaps nearly exclusive usage for me is within the cell core supplement.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Myself as well. It’s safe to mention this as well. 

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

I wasn’t sure. If that was like-

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

You know, totally okay. Lots of it. I mean, it’s no secret in my community that we run cell core protocol and we’ll have lots of speakers on this event that are also using cell core in their practices. And, you know, of all the things that I do use, I find that their products are the most effective. So, you know, in terms of is there a right way or wrong maybe there’s just a better way to remove parasites and a more or less a way that doesn’t have such a heavy lift on the body that people can still function throughout their lives while they remove parasites instead of crashing.

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

No, I think that’s. I think that I don’t mean to punt on it, but I think that’s a pretty complicated question because I am a big believer in the topic of sequence. Right. And I think this gets into a lot of what the summary is about, and that is that there’s so many different, as we’ve already alluded to earlier, there’s so many bugs and toxins that can contribute to inflammation, no question. And, you know, why does one person let’s say one person has five different diagnostic bugs and toxins and another person has five, the same five. Why is the first person more symptomatic than the second person? Right. And hypothetical model. Well, it’s not even just about the bugs and toxins. It’s also about what’s their immune system like, what’s their gut health look like, what’s their, you know, mind, body, limbic system, and mental, emotional health. You know, there’s so many pieces to the puzzle. It’s literally, again, like I refer back to I and it’s easy to talk about these days. It’s all over media news, etc. 

And I’m very attuned to that on a research level, as my wife does research in that area with metabolomics in human health. And so it’s such a complicated story that I don’t know there’s. And how do we predict that for any given person? I think it’s kind of difficult, but I think you and I can sense it’s safe to us just, you know, briefly here, succinctly talk about that. You know, the cell core community talks a lot. So shout out to the cell core folks. And you know, whether you’re a practitioner, patient or certainly, you know, the, the teaching is a lot about drainage as a first step right along as the body to drain openly really not specifically to what bugs and toxins you know different in terminology than detoxing but kind of similar concept you know. So I think you can’t go wrong with that. And then and then beyond that, the sequences of how you or I or other practitioners might address different bugs and toxins in that expose on the category that becomes, well, practitioner dependent. So, you know, I won’t spend time getting into those details on how I think about that unless you are asking that. But the sequencing sequence matters.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I think that’s what I was fishing for is that and I love how you use the word sequence. I always try to explain the concept that we’ve got to build a runway before we’re able to actually effectively help your body remove toxins or pathogens in any capacity. We have to build a foundation to build a runway first so that we can tick off with solving this problem. And that’s exactly what you just said, though. So thank you. And then could we talk a bit about, you know, obviously the example of the man with a parasite in his brain, that would be a massive, you know, complication that would arise from an untreated parasite infection. But for the wide majority of people that are dealing with, you know, your garden variety parasite, not in your brain, what are complications that can arise from not treating parasite infections? And why should we go after this? I mean, why should we care about this?

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

So on like a common level, you know, widespread complication level, the top two things that come across my mind, number one, are, again, without getting into real details, but that aspect of our immune system called the T helper cell balance. So for anyone who’s familiar with that, we’re talking about TH1 TH2 polarization balance and you know parasites this is mainstream medicine. You can look this up in, you know, graphics and all this stuff in research articles, but worm parasites are, I think, one of the if not the only typically in graphics, the only actual bug or toxin that is listed as a driver of TH2 immune dominance. Right. Or yeah. I mean, I would just call that. And so, what happens when people have a high TH2? These are the people who we say have they seemingly have a lot of reactivity and reactivity is easily and commonly experienced as these are the people who, in conventional medicine so the mainstream crowd, right? The public in America, the common people who have changed to dominance are asthmatic, people who have asthma, bad allergies, more severe allergies, and severe eczema.

They have a lot of reactivity to foods, maybe medicines or supplements they’re often thought of or told or described by health care practitioners as you have some kind of unspecified, nonspecific autoimmune condition. And usually, what they mean by autoimmune is we just can’t explain it. Your immune system reacts well, commonly it’s a to dominance topic, even gluten sensitivity is definitely in there. So that’s a widespread number of people. The second big category for me is the impact of, let’s say nutrient deficiencies in the gut perhaps. Right. So I when I’m seeing people year to year for physicals I’m looking at their trends of their whatever B-12, folic acid, and those issues, those two as examples, maybe iron as well. When I see trends where it’s just lowering, lowering, lowering. Well, why is that? It’s really unlikely that you’re not eating as much nutritionally, right, especially if you’re anywhere eating kind of more standard American food or just, you know, there’s so much food that’s fortified. Like, what’s the likelihood that you really aren’t getting enough B12 and you’re getting year after year? So that becomes a suspicion as well. And I mean, easily on the CBC, the complete blood count, you can find people who have higher percentages of eosinophils, you know, like over 3%, definitely over 4%. Those are all markers. And so anyway, I’m kind of delving into more how do you identify it or suspect it. But that all stems from they’re all related to that alters to imbalance topic.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Oh, yeah, yeah, related to you know what happens if these things go unidentified or untreated. I mean, severe vitamin deficiencies lead to other health problems.

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Yeah. I mean, you know, there are people all the time that like I’m just beginning older or the pollen count just getting higher or whatever the real we all have. Excellent. We have things we tell ourselves or create an explanation for. But these are under the hood. You know, this is not that uncommon. This is much more common than we really recognize it to be as a player.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

It is common. And, you know, I can tell you the overwhelming majority of people in my programs who don’t show worms on their gut test because they’re very hard to identify on a gut test. They don’t show worms, but the majority of them pass them. It’s fascinating. They see them or they see, you know, liver flukes or something. They see something that’s visible to the naked eye. Quite interesting how they’re very good at hiding from our lab. Okay. So, you know, I mentioned that you and I were discussing this before we jumped on, and I’d love to discuss this point for a moment. I’d love to hear your case study about what you identified if you want to share that. But we talked about this. Is there a fine line between parasites being helpful and harmful in our bodies? And we were kind of discussing, you know, I have people that come at me and say, if you kill my parasites, it’s going to it’s going to hurt other things because they’re there for a reason. And then other people who say, get these out of me, you know, there cannot possibly be a good reason for these to be here. And I think we were what we were discussing is there’s just not enough data. There’s not enough research to really answer that question at this point.

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

I’m very interested in research to answer that question about the balance of good, healthy, or less healthy parasites. Right?

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yeah. They go for you or bad for you.

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Yeah. Because some people, some people aware of some practitioners or some schools of thought of using worm parasites of specific types as a therapeutic agent actually for, for a couple, few different causes. So that it’s an excellent insight question into well, okay, how could using a worm parasite be therapeutic for the benefit when we’re talking about this on the negative? And I think it’s just another testimonial reflection that yeah, there’s so much that’s not binary in health and medicine and we hate to make it that complicated because we’re left with indecision and analysis paralysis, but unfortunately it’s the nature of the beast. And like I said, we just don’t think we know that enough. Right. And then we can also talk easily, and make some comments about the matter of harmony. Right. I mean, there are harmony and reactivation of the terrain of, you know, if we look we have we have many people have more bacteria in their colon than all the cells in the body combined. But we regulate that stuff well enough that we’re not, you know, a detriment from all those noncell bacteria. So how much does it affect us if there are some additional gases there that are non-bacteria, that are worm parasites? I mean. Well, you know, they’re a small fraction of that ecosystem there. Can they be there, you know, harmoniously, perhaps even symbiotically, you know, in a beneficial way sometimes? I mean, we definitely have a symbiotic, symbiotic benefit relationship with a lot of bacteria in our gut. We absolutely need that. So I think there’s just more to be determined over time.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

What I know is when we start getting these parasites out of people, they feel better. Yeah, their energy goes up, their brain function gets stronger, they get more productive in their lives, they start being present in their relationships, their anxiety goes down, their skin looks better, they poop better. Literally, people feel so much better when we get rid of these. So I mean, I’m going to stay on that soapbox that we’re getting rid of parasites.

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Not taking it the wrong way that, you know, it’s a total mystery or that we’re wishy-washy about it because I rarely hear about that therapeutic usage. And again. it’s only like the recommendation when people talk about that, it’s only a specific strain. We’re not talking about all of the other code system treatments, etc. So let’s be clear with that.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Well, you’re a master at sharing case studies. I’ve heard you share many if you want to share a case study with us, we love to hear it. Are you talking about that fourth kind of category of worm that you identified? 

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Well, I think, you know, on a short basis, I mean, it’s because it’s not necessarily just about the case, isn’t necessarily just about the topic of worm parasites here. It’s as much a topic, which is a whole other story about the diagnostic modality of using some energy testing, which again, I won’t be into detail here. But, you know, I again, learned that through the cell core community. So again, props to Dr. Todd, Dr. Jay, and the cell core community. And Peter, you know who you are if you’re listening to this and they’re like, they changed my life. I mean, personally, professionally, in every way.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Mine, too.

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Yeah. So, I’ve learned to ask a very open binary. I don’t like binary. In this case, it needs to be very specific binary questions. And in this particular person’s case, you know, details aside of anything else is just to say the questions led to what is causing this person’s particular symptoms of the in the sinuses and I go through a very open-ended as much as I can unbiased way of asking the questions in the same systematic method. A methodical approach. And in this case, a person’s case, it came to be various worm parasites. And then in this case I was trying to delineate the different kinds of worm parasites. And I don’t just go into, you know, asking specific types because I feel like it lends itself to bias. At least I try not to when I have the time to be more methodical. In this case, I was coming up with types of worm parasites, in a type of worm parasite that was not in the cestodes, nematodes, and trematodes category. And I kept double, triple checking on the testing and I kept coming up with that. It’s something else and it wasn’t the rope worm, which, you know, have we ever heard of rope worms in the science cavities? I don’t think so. I don’t know. But I kept coming up with another one. 

And so I go looking on the Internet and I’ve done this several times. And this is, it’s like mind-blowing when this happens, but it’s happened multiple times. And I found, and I think it was on a CDC website, that because I’m thinking like, what are there more than three categories of worm parasites? Because I’m not aware of that. And I think it was on the CDC website that I read, oh, there’s a fourth type. And so then I tracked it down and I found and I actually pulled it up while we were talking. I looked I’m looking at right now so I find this fourth worm parasite. I don’t know if it’s a whole category. I’ll be honest. I can’t remember the details there. Acanthocephaliasis. It’s also known as the spiny or thorny-headed worms, common parasites of wildlife in some domestic animal species, but they rarely infect humans. I’m reading about the CDC website right now. And the crazy part about that story is that this individual who is I can’t go into details but has been suffering for many, many years, ostracized by umpteen number of people, not just the medical community, but friends and family. And has been saying to me for months to a couple of years, it feels like this thing, like they’re feeling and seeing stuff come out of their skin unprovoked and it’s moving. I mean, it’s I’ve seen the videos a lot of times video and. They’re telling me it feels like it’s got like hooks on the end of it. And it’s like digging into my skin and, like, hurting me, like, in a pinching form. But no one can validate this, but here I am. I assessed that on this energy modality. I’ve never heard of this. I go to the website, there’s a fourth type. I looked this up, I found this worm, and it’s written as a spiny or thorny-headed worm. And if you look at the graphics on it, like they describe eerily, eerily in the description of what this person has commented about, what they feel, that there are these little hooks on the end, this worm, and they dig in. It was like mind-blowing. So anyway, that’s the short version of that story.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

And is there a happy ending? Did they resolve this?

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Still suffering

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Still trying to get it out?

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

It’s a real beast of a situation. And there’s for other reasons, there’s a lot of difficulty in getting the person help as well as being able to.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

And it probably has to do with that sequence that we were talking about. So there’s a sequence there is an order of operations to support the body to remove this. It’s not just like a go-in, like a bunch of Navy SEALs and kill, like you’ve got to do an order of operations in a sequence to effectively help the body get this out.

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

So it’s also I think we can put a little plug into that here for anybody has a, you know if anybody as an attendee relates. I mean, you know, we hear you and see if you’re one of those people who had been marginalized and told that it’s not real or you’re just stressed out or need to talk to a therapist or you need to get on Prozac or and it doesn’t have to be about parasites, whatever it is, whatever your symptoms are. Right. Chronic pain, chronic fatigue. We know the mind-body has great effects and that’s not a negative or a judgment. But, you know, there’s a lot of people who have suffered androgenic, you know, inflammation, let’s call it. Right, I guess induced as from a medical procedure or practitioner where people experience essentially medical trauma or anxiety and PTSD, and then it’s hard for them to receive help from practitioners anymore and they become their Lone Ranger self-advocate agent because they don’t have trust in people over time. And that’s a big part of a lot of people’s stories, unfortunately.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. So this leads me, we have like five minutes that we can spend together still and I’d love to just I mean, parasites aside and this extraordinary talk that we’ve had unpacking so much great information for people, I would love to know what was it like for you to be a Western-trained physician family physician, you know, doing your thing over there, helping people and then getting into the functional medicine world and then the parasite world and then the cell core world and just all of it. It must have been I mean, only a very special person could realize that there’s more to the picture and there’s more than what you learned in medical school. Could you speak into that, like what that was like for you?

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

I don’t know. I certainly don’t take credit for anything. I think it’s just the way I’m wired. Yeah, I don’t know. Some people might some people have said it’s a gift. I don’t know what to call it. I think I’m just a, I think I’m just a curious person. You know, I ask questions. I ask too many questions. Peter has helped me greatly with the monkey in my head, but it’s still there, you know? It’s better. I’m better directed with it. And I think it is. You know, everything in life is like a two-edged sword. And so asking the questions and just not settling for it is what it is, hopefully not to the point of burnout and self-sabotage excessively. So like my dad was a drug researcher for Eli Lilly. One of his best friends in our neighborhood was a co-inventor of Prozac. I mean, I come from a background like that now. My dad with my mom dad grew up in China and Taiwan. And he would be doing research in his office at night with an acupuncture pen and needle in his hand for headaches. So he wasn’t like a strictly Western-minded person. But I’m an analytical person at heart. 

But it’s been beyond a fulfilling journey not because of just where I am, but it’s the stories in the last two years. And again, great gratitude to the so-called community and the friends and the folks there who have influenced me and opened my eyes again. And I legitimately, 100%, 200% say the whole everything there. It’s been beyond professional game changer. I mean, it is a personal life game changer. And so when you ask about what that story has been like? What’s that journey been like? It’s not so much about what it’s been like for me. It’s the building now beyond what I could do two years ago or what I could bring to the table. Not what I could do, but what I could bring to the table to be part of the privileged journey of someone else’s healing journey and be able to help support and guide them, especially in the energy medicine world, and find answers that I would have never, ever, would have never come to by my own intellect or analysis or just understanding and knowledge base would have never made those decisions. Certainly not in any kind of timeframe and years that these people are now experiencing it. It’s kind of hard to describe.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I understand because my life is very changed. I spent 20 years in Western medicine before I stepped out fully into my functional health coaching practice. And I hear you. I know that our viewers right now are going to want to know how to get a hold of you, and how to get in contact with you. You do have a virtual practice. You do have a physical location on, the East Coast. So where can our audience find you, Dr. Su?

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Yeah, I think it is just, I sort of have a sort of like resume website, if you will, for whatever, you know, just for presentation. It’s just drmarksu.com, D R M A R K S U.com that’s pretty much the easiest.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Right? Well, we will definitely expect people to be searching you out after this talk. Thank you so much for your time, your expertise, and for what I can see is truly your love for humanity and helping others. And thank you for being a yes to contribute your knowledge and your very personal journey right here on this summit as well.

Mark Su, MD, FAAFP

Kudos to you. Thanks to you, Laura.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

And until next time, everyone. Take good care. Bye, now.