Pete Dixon

So I ordered my first hookworms around July 7th, 2018. 

Celiac.com Sponsor (A13):
The sales and transport of hookworm operates in somewhat of a gray area. Authorities recognize that seriously ill people are trying helminths like hookworms tin order to get better, but the laws in all jurisdictions haven't caught up with what some people see as a medical necessity. Accordingly, providers of hookworm larvae prefer to operate on the down low. Restricting communication by email and payment by Bitcoin work towards that end.

So I had to learn to use Bitcoin. At the time the vendor I chose advised the use of a company called Localcoins to purchase the Bitcoin. Once bought, Localcoins provided the facility to send the Bitcoin elsewherefor a fee. To actually buy the Bitcoin you had to pick a seller from the list, contact them, and arrange to send money from your bank account to a sort of escrow account managed by Localcoins. Once the money arrived, the seller would get the money, and the Bitcoin would be transferred to my Localcoins account. Each time I purchased Bitcoin I had to photograph my ID and send it along to the seller. Scamming abounds in the Bitcoin world I suppose.

Once the money had been sent to the Bitcoin address supplied by my hookworm larvae provider I emailed them to say the money was coming. The confirmation was quick. My larvae would be shipped shortly!

I found the Bitcoin business tedious and inefficient. The $200 US asked by the larvae provider probably translated to at least $300 CAN by the time everything was done, plus the 1-2 hrs it took of my time to get things sorted. I've gone through that process twice and the second time wasn't that much better. I suppose if you keep Bitcoin on hand it's a trivial matter, but I don't.

Back to July 2018. I believe it was July 31st when my hookworm larvae arrived. The provider had sent detailed instructions by email prior to delivery. In a nutshell, what I had bought was 25 invisibly microscopic larvae floating in a small vial with the number 25 written on it. There was another vial of the same proportions containing saline, a small pipette, and gauze layered bandage.

The instructions were simple. Gently suck the contents out of the first vial and carefully squirt it on gauze. Then suck up the saline and wash out the first vial, swirling it around a bit to catch any stragglers, and then use the pipette again to squirt that onto the gauze as well.

The bandage is then placed on the hairless patch of skin of choice and attached firmly in place. The instructions were to leave it there for 12 hours with the intent that the larvae would take the opportunity to detect my skin and do what came naturally, namely burrow in and head for my blood supply. Which brings up a good point. What happens to the hookworm larvae once they enter the body?

The species of hookworm used in Helminthic Therapy is Necator americanus, or the New World hookworm. It’s programmed as part of its development to penetrate the skin, move through the bloodstream to the lungs where the larvae mature for about a week. From there they move up the trachea, get coughed up and then swallowed down. Their eventual goal is the top of the jejunum, a part of the small intestine.