>> Her immune system was apparently exceptionally effective and doing 
>> a
>> good job of attacking the giardia.

> I honestly have to question this statement, though.

We paid $250 for that opinion :-).
That's $NZ but in spending power about the same as $US250 in the US.
Hopefully we got what we paid for :-).
Our doctor basically said take painkillers and it will probably get 
better.
The specialist said "This is what has happened" (as above) take 
painkillers and it will probably get better.
However, he did also go through the various blood test results and 
explain how they helped j\him arrive at his conclusion and also 
explained why he thought that in this case it would probably get 
better and not instead trn into something like fibromyalgia. 
Fibromyalgia is essentially just long term persistent pain that has no 
other medical label that suits. Having it tends to lead to you being 
viewed as a faker and a nut case by some people. Alas, this doesn't 
make the all too real pain go away.

> If her immune
> system was being exceptionally effective, then why was she still
> suffering from it?

Giardia is not a trivial bug to combat. It gives you diaorhea par 
excellence, significant discimfort and pain and, left to its own 
devices, you can have it for literally months. Most people do NOT 
manage to shake it off themselves or combat it effectively without 
antibiotic. It takes an above average response to it to get rid of it 
promptly by oneself and here "prompt" is apparently measured in weeks 
to a month rather than days. So ...

> I can't help but expect that if this is the case,
> a visit to the doctor wouldn't have been necessary.

Your prerspective is understandable but certainly doesn't have to be 
correct, even though it may be. In her case she may have succeeded in 
fighting it off. In her case, if I am to believe the man who we paid 
$250 to,  she was doing better than most. Alas, it seems she still is. 
He said that the muscle sheath on the major muscles is similar enough 
genetically to giardia, and I do not know how true this is, that the 
body on occasion 'mistakes' the two when things change suddenly. His 
explanation fits the available informatuon well enough. It may be 
totally wrong.

>> The metrnidazol killed the
>> remaining giardia and her immune system, robbed of its enemy and 
>> with
>> its systems running on full blast,  went on a rampage and attacked 
>> ALL
>> her major muscles.

> I admit my knowledge of the biology is limited.  I have heard 
> similar
> notions mentioned before, including the idea that an antibiotic
> *kills* the immune system.

That may happen, but it is not a "similar notion" to what is being 
proped here but something entirely different.

> I  must confess that I have never
> understood how this is supposed to work.  While the analogy on the
> surface seems sensible, what little I've read on the subject would
> seem to indicate that it doesn't bear scrutiny.

As you have two totally different examples I'm not sure which yiu are 
referring to. The antibiotic kills the bug version makes total sense 
to me - even if ut has no basis in fact :-).

>I would very much
> appreciate comment from anyone on the list who has more insight.

Consider the above a layman's proxy reply for the specialist we saw.



        Russell

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