Everyone Thinks They Have the Diarrhea Parasite | WIRED

Overview

Could It Be cyclosporiasis or is it just IBS? That’s the question every social feed and group chat is agonizing over at the moment.

Joye Pate was forced to ask the question earlier than most, when she woke up on a Monday in late June with stomach cramps. The 28-year-old had recently taken a trip to New York, and her first assumption was that she had eaten something that disagreed with her stomach. She went to the bathroom and noticed that her stools were loose.

Details

“An hour after that, I found myself back in the bathroom,” Pate tells WIRED. “And essentially, it just kept happening every hour or so.”

Monday was hourly diarrhea. Tuesday was more of the same. By Wednesday, Pate was frantically Googling, trying to figure out the cause. On Thursday—after days of consuming little other than broth and crackers—Pate finally discovered a potential explanation: cyclospora.

Nearly 7,000 people across the country may have been sickened with the parasitic infection that causes explosive diarrhea, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although experts estimate that number is almost certainly much higher. As of publishing, the case count in Michigan alone stood at 4,312.

But if you’re scrolling through Instagram, you might think that everyone you know—in every corner of the country—is impacted: bad for the bowels, good for the algorithm. Even if the parasite isn’t actually everywhere, social media is making it feel that way, triggering anxieties up and down your feeds.

Pate never tested positive for cyclospora, but felt her symptoms—which lasted a full week—fit the bill. Her Tik Tok about the experience has been flooded with commenters who think they might have cyclosporiasis themselves. She wanted to share her experience because, back in late June, there was not much coverage of the outbreak.

Now, Pate says, cyclospora is all over her social media. Tik Toks by people claiming to have had the infection, as well as videos from people terrified of getting sick, are racking up thousands of views. Suddenly, it seems, everyone wants to talk about their tummy troubles.

“I feel like I have 99 percent of the symptoms, but I also have stomach issues all the time,” influencer Meagan Rose said in a Tik Tok with more than 40,000 views. “And I’m extremely stressed right now, because I’m like—at what point am I going to know?”

Food content creators, meanwhile, are pivoting to cooked vegetables. “Trying to avoid explosive diarrhea, so how do we feel about steak & crispy smashed potato for dinner?” said cookbook author Arash Hashemi of Shred Happens in an Instagram story on Wednesday.

"Avoiding raw produce? Stir-fry your lettuce," wrote the New York Times Cooking Instagram account in a story linking to a recipe.

“I was so worried after I had a salad from my local bodega and my stomach was bothering me the rest of the afternoon at work, but I also have a history of IBS,” one woman, who asked to stay anonymous, tells WIRED about her experience with days of watery diarrhea. “There I was on the toilet scrolling through Instagram and seeing posts about the parasite.”

Michigan health authorities have identified lettuce or salad greens as a potential cause for the outbreak, but no specific ingredient, grower, or supplier has yet been named. Past outbreaks of cyclosporiasis have been tied to leafy greens, herbs, and raspberries.

One of the bottlenecks in tracking the outbreak is diagnosing it. Cyclospora isn’t as common as other foodborne pathogens such as E. Coli and salmonella, and routine stool tests do not typically screen for it. Plus, many people who get diarrhea never seek medical care unless their case is particularly severe.

Lauren Clark, a 44-year-old mom who lives in New Jersey, tells WIRED that she was hospitalized in early May with severe diarrhea before she had heard about cyclosporiasis. She woke up with nausea and threw up a few times before “having the other explosive problem” for several hours. (The CDC says the outbreak began in early May).

She remembers eating a bib salad at a restaurant two days before her symptoms began. No one else in her family ate the same thing or got sick, so she thought her illness could be linked to the salad. Symptoms of a cyclospora infection typically appear about a week after exposure, but they can occur as soon as two days or as late as two weeks after the parasite is ingested.

Her stool was “sheer liquid and bloody,” so she went to urgent care. Clinicians there took her blood pressure, which had dropped, and advised her to go to the hospital. She immediately went to the emergency room, where she got IV fluids and tests for E. Coli, salmonella, giardia, and other common foodborne and waterborne illnesses, but she wasn’t tested for cyclospora.

For those regularly running to the bathroom, calling your doctor and asking for a stool test is your best bet. Cyclospora is highly treatable with the antibiotics Bactrim and Septra, which are typically taken twice a day for seven to 10 days. Experts say that washing fruits and vegetables thoroughly and vigorously can lower the risk of infection. Vinegar and commercial disinfectants aren’t effective at killing the parasite. Even with best practices, it’s still possible to contract cyclosporiasis.

Joel Barratt, a molecular parasitologist and assistant professor at Emory School of Medicine, urges people to contact their doctor and get tested instead of assuming they have cyclospora.

“Just because cyclospora is making the news now, doesn't mean that that's what you have. You want to get tested and make sure you get the correct treatment. Because if you get the wrong treatment,” he says, “you're not going to get better.”

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Key Takeaways

Could It Be cyclosporiasis or is it just IBS
Joye Pate was forced to ask the question earlier than most, when she woke up on a Monday in late June with stomach cramps
“An hour after that, I found myself back in the bathroom,” Pate tells WIRED
Monday was hourly diarrhea
Nearly 7,000 people across the country may have been sickened with the parasitic infection that causes explosive diarrhea, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although experts estimate that number is almost certainly much higher