[pct-l] Giardiasis, filtering water

["Joanne Lennox" <goforth@cio.net>]

I was planning to just take iodine on my thruhike (crystals -use a satuated
solution), I have used this method for 25 years and have never gotten
giardiasis when I actually treated the water and when I am preparing my own
food and washing my own dishes.  Waiting a hour for the iodine to disinfect
can be hard when you're really thirsty.

Nevertheless, I have had giardiasis 3 times.  Each successive time it got
worse, and Flagyl (the treatment ) is a potent antibiotic which I would
just as soon not take ever again.  I got it the first time in Nepal where I
was staying in "teahouses", and there was no sanitation.  Dishes were
washed in the ditch, and there were no toilets at all. Everywhere,you had
to be careful where you stepped.  The second time was a mystery for a year.
 It seemed to come from the Calf Creek campground water (near Boulder,
Utah) because of the timing of the incubation period and onset of sickness.
 When I went back the next year to the same place, I decided to be careful
and only use the nearest municiple city water, which was in Boulder, Utah. 
In between trips, we rendered some assisstance in a bad accident, and I
meet the local EMT.  She mentioned that some of the Boulder town kids might
be thin because of Giardiasis. Red lights started flashing!!!! It turns out
the town water is untreated and from a beaver pond ( "G ="Beaver Fever"). 
Too late, we were sick again by the time we got home.  The water that you
least suspect can be the problem; makes no difference if everybody else is
drinking it. All those people going to the Escalente area and the New Grand
staircase park be forewarned  - many of the canyons there, even ones that
are dry part of the year,have got lots of beavers in them.

I had some doubts about using iodine for 5 months as well, but figured that
I I could use it to Kennedy meadows, and be very careful thereafter in the
Sierras to see how much use there was in the watershed of any particular
watersource.  I wonder about Jardines statement that you can build up
immunity.  I do know that infection of most diseases is dose related - the
more innoculum , in this case Giardia cysts, the more likely you are to
become infected. and also there are tremendous individual differences in
the titer level (number of cysts/liter) required to infect.  Some people
can drink directly from a tremendously polluted source and never get sick;
others are sick drinking small amounts of water from sources that are have
very little pollution.

I noticed that Jardine takes Flagyl in his first aid kit, which meant to me
that he thought there was going to be a good chance that he was going to
get sick.

About ten years back, I got a Katydn Micro filter.  You need to be Hercules
to use the thing, it is a major feat to get a single quart of filtered
water with this gadget. We used it once.  It got parked on a shelf
permanently.  I have decided that If I got a filter it would be an MSR
micro, which has a nice handle, rather than the plunger mechanism of most
filters like the Pur. 

Mostly I wanted to use the iodine alone because of weight considerations. 
And I know I can trust iodine if I use it right.  I have been on two trips
where filters broke. Everybody ended up using my iodine.

Question: how many people have gotten sick in the stretch between Campo and
Kennedy Meadows?  Have any of you thruhikers used iodine alone, and carried
no filter?

Sincerwely
Goforth
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