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Flower Sniffer
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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 5:14 pm 
https://slate.com/technology/2018/02/filtering-stream-water-or-fresh-water-is-medically-unnecessary.html Thoughts?

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DIYSteve
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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 6:00 pm 
Old news. Notwithstanding the hysteria of some in the PNW hiker/climber community that drinking a single drop of unfiltered mountain water is flirting with a painful death -- a myth which is enabled by water filter marketing hype -- the chance of contracting a GI microbial illness from mountain water sources has always been a remote risk. Per public health data most giardia, amoeba, crypto and other waterborne GI infections are contracted from domestic water supplies, e.g., city water, individual wells or shared wells. A mountain traveler is more likely to get a GI bug from a restaurant or rest area spigot than from a snowmelt mountain stream. It's pretty simple: Filter down low, popular camping spots (especially those without pit toilets) and stock camps. Per public health data, if you are seriously concerned about getting a waterborne GI illness, filter all water from all sources, including restaurants, city park spigots and friends' houses. ETA: A few years ago I read a study concluding that most GI illness from backpacking trips is contracted from a member of the victim's party through unclean hands, food, sharing water bottles, etc. Some hikers who think they got giardia from a mountain stream actually got norovirus from a friend.

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gb
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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 6:35 pm 
Actually I've had Giardia at least twice. The first time was drinking out of the stream below Kangaroo Pass. The second was a bit more obvious. I drank out of a pipe that came out of the ground at the south end of the Kaiparowitts Plateau. The pipe was actually coming out of a pasture that is grazed by cattle in the summer. Each time the symptoms got worse over the period of a week or two, and got worse in waves (blooms). The medicine for Giardia resolved the issues each time. But more realistically it probably isn't that easy to get Giardia in the Cascades. Streams surprisingly are worse than lakes as Giardia cysts tend to sink in lakes. I had a guided client who studied Giardia as a research scientist. I got that latter statement from him. He said that in boiling tests even at the boiling temperature of Denali that the cysts immediately broke apart when they reached the boiling point. Of late, I sometimes drink from streams that would appear to be safe and have had no effects for the past 20 years. I am careful where I drink and one should be aware that certain mammals can carry Giardia.

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DIYSteve
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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 6:50 pm 
Been there. In 1976, I contracted amoebic dysentery from a city park spigot in KY along the Transamerica bicycle trail. I found out only because a public health official traced the contamination to that water source. A few dozen other bicyclists got it, resulting in a public health investigation. It put me in the hospital with an IV in my arm. I got giardiasis from a water source near a popular hiking spot in OR where, again, public health officials confirmed after an outbreak. Both times I had stool tests to confirm the type of bug. gb, did you confirm that it was giardia with a stool test? How did you conclude that it came from that water source? It takes an average of 7 days (+/- 6 days) to incubate before manifesting in illness, so it could have been any of several water sources you drank from during a 2-week period prior to getting ill. Norovirus has similar symptoms. I know

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Malachai Constant
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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 6:50 pm 
The Slate article contains a lot of hyperbole including the claim that filtering is a product of white wealthy elites. The problem is that contamination is local and often transient. I would agree that contamination is unlikely in the alpine North Cascades. I would not worry about a stream coming off a snowfield on Luna for example. Other areas are more problematic such as the Olympic Coast or any area where cattle grazing is present. The Sierra is a very large area and while some areas may be safe like large lakes off popular trails whereas some place like Trail Camp on the way to Whitney are pretty nasty. The problem is that many are unaware that contamination is present. The clearest water may be dangerous. I had a friend who in Scouts camped near a waterfall who discovered a dead goat in the stream above. Filters are light and cheap now so the safest course is to carry them. There are several nwhikers who have become infected in the Cascades that I know of.

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DIYSteve
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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 6:55 pm 
Malachai Constant wrote:
There are several nwhikers who have become infected in the Cascades that I know of.
Same questions I asked gb: Did they confirm it was giardia? How did they pinpoint the bad water source among all the water sources from they drank for the 2 week period before they got sick? (Note that the vast majority of giardiasis is contracted from domestic water sources.)

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gb
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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 7:31 pm 
DIYSteve wrote:
Been there. In 1976, I contracted amoebic dysentery from a city park spigot in KY along the Transamerica bicycle trail. I found out only because a public health official traced the contamination to that water source. A few dozen other bicyclists got it, resulting in a public health investigation. It put me in the hospital with an IV in my arm. I got giardiasis from a water source near a popular hiking spot in OR where, again, public health officials confirmed after an outbreak. Both times I had stool tests to confirm the type of bug. gb, did you confirm that it was giardia with a stool test? How did you conclude that it came from that water source? It takes an average of 7 days (+/- 6 days) to incubate before manifesting in illness, so it could have been any of several water sources you drank from during a 2-week period prior to getting ill. Norovirus has similar symptoms. I know
In each of these cases I did the stool test and a test where you swallow a string and they pull it back up. I don't recall the results of the tests, but at the time I was quite ill and getting more so with extensive bloating and other symptoms. In each case the doctors gave me the medicine (don't recall the name) for Giardia and my symptoms got better rather shortly - perhaps 3-4 days. Doctors in each case told me that the tests were not in any way universally reliable. Hence the prophylactic treatment.

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treeswarper
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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 7:44 pm 
I believe I had it. One day I started throwing up and well, had the runs out the other end. The puking stopped but the other did not. After a week, I went to the Doctor and was not tested for anything, but was given pills for beaver fever and it cleared up. I had been drinking out of creeks and rivers in many places, at many elevations in Warshington's Southern Cascades.. I do not know where I got it. It was a year, 1977, when we were in a drought. Dunno if that has anything to do with it.

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Malachai Constant
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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 8:04 pm 
The ones I know of had it confirmed by testing I have never got it but for all I know may be a carrier. Lakes at high altitudes are safer due to ultraviolet light penetrating the surface. Kind of like a huge steripen.

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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 9:21 pm 
DIYSteve wrote:
ETA: A few years ago I read a study concluding that most GI illness from backpacking trips is contracted from a member of the victim's party through unclean hands, food, sharing water bottles, etc. Some hikers who think they got giardia from a mountain stream actually got norovirus from a friend.
Here is a paper - widely repeated in the 15+ years since it's first appearance - that suggests what Steve says; bad hygiene, not giardia, is the culprit. (I think I may have posted this here before). http://californiamountaineer.net/giardia.html There are a lot of differing views, of course. Caveats: We in WA are not in the Sierras. I am not an MD. Your experience may vary....

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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 9:28 pm 
gb wrote:
In each case the doctors gave me the medicine (don't recall the name) for Giardia and my symptoms got better rather shortly - perhaps 3-4 days.
Flagyl. It kills all sorts of intestinal microbes, bacterial and protozoa, not just giardia, and also used for some kinds of VD. They gave it to me for to kill amoebae and it worked. It made me groggy and sleepy for a few days -- or maybe that was the dehydration.
gb wrote:
Doctors in each case told me that the tests were not in any way universally reliable.
Not immediately reliable, but they can narrow it down with time, according to the public health people
gb wrote:
extensive bloating
That's a symptom common to giardia and amoebic dysentery -- I know because I had both -- (and maybe other intestinal microbes????) So, how did you narrow it down to drinking below Kangaroo Pass? Was it the hairpin side or the head o' the Twisp side? I could imagine how the bugs got there.
Malachai Constant wrote:
Lakes at high altitudes are safer due to ultraviolet light penetrating the surface. Kind of like a huge steripen.
I've heard that as a hypothesis but never seen proof of it. Linky?

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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 9:40 pm 
Of course not. It's all up to you. Calculate your odds of getting giardia - or any other nasty you can get from water (polio, cholera, norovirus, crypto, leptospirosis, etc) and take your chances. imo, humans can be a source of giardia. Since most people who are carrying giardia have no symptoms, they have no idea they are carrying it. With increasing numbers of folks leaving their poo all over the place, including in those lovely tarns (which may serve as water sources) they jump into all hot and sweaty on a summer day, there is a risk of human to human transmission. As well, you can be an asymptomatic carrier until something compromises your immune system, then voila, you "have" giardia. And of course, then you'd have no idea where you originally acquired the cysts, days, months, years before. Note the CDC has determined the average human has 140 mg of poo in the place where the sun don't shine. So if they take that "refreshing swim" someplace that isn't chlorinated, like in any backcountry water source, well..... So no, you don't have to filter your water. You can boil it, chemically treat it, use a Steripen, bring it from home, or decide how lucky you will be on any given day.

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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 9:50 pm 
AlpineRose wrote:
It's up to you. Calculate your odds of getting giardia
Agree. And use available evidence when deciding whether and when to filter, treat or boil water. Per the data, getting sick from drinking high mountain water are long odds. But yeah, filtering water can't hurt ya. And, again, per the available data, you're more likely to get it from a domestic water source, so if you're filtering water in the mountains, consider filtering restaurant water on your way to and from the mountains.

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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 9:52 pm 
I made some noodle soup with some lake water laden with bug larvae, and was too impatient to bring it to a boil. I came down with what I assume was Giardia about a week later. I was running out both ends, no appetite, but it was a "crash diet" anyway lost 10 lbs in a week, unfortunately I gained it all back almost immediately. First and only episode so far.

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gb
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PostFri Feb 02, 2018 9:54 pm 
DIYSteve wrote:
gb wrote:
In each case the doctors gave me the medicine (don't recall the name) for Giardia and my symptoms got better rather shortly - perhaps 3-4 days.
Flagyl. It kills all sorts of intestinal microbes, bacterial and protozoa, not just giardia, and also used for some kinds of VD. They gave it to me for to kill amoebae and it worked. It made me groggy and sleepy for a few days -- or maybe that was the dehydration.
gb wrote:
Doctors in each case told me that the tests were not in any way universally reliable.
Not immediately reliable, but they can narrow it down with time, according to the public health people
gb wrote:
extensive bloating
That's a symptom common to giardia and amoebic dysentery -- I know because I had both -- (and maybe other intestinal microbes????) So, how did you narrow it down to drinking below Kangaroo Pass? Was it the hairpin side or the head o' the Twisp side? I could imagine how the bugs got there.
Malachai Constant wrote:
Lakes at high altitudes are safer due to ultraviolet light penetrating the surface. Kind of like a huge steripen.
I've heard that as a hypothesis but never seen proof of it. Linky?
It was the hairpin side just below the pass. It was the only time I drank untreated water.

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