I’ve started using a de-wormer commonly used for horses, goats, dogs, cats and tropical fish. It’s called fenbendazole and how I happened on it is a strange story. When I started liver flushing and began seeing all kinds of weird things in the toilet, someone suggested I join the Facebook group called Morgellons Support Science so that I could get help identifying the weird things.
It turns out that Steve, the creator of that group, is a guy who cured himself of Morgellons by taking fenbendazole and has been teaching others in the group. It has over 2,000 members many of whom have reported life-changing improvements in their health.
When I arrived in the group and realized they were taking Safe-Guard, a product you get in ag supply stores and Petsmart – I thought to myself “no way! I’m desperate, but not that desperate…” and I put that idea in my back pocket for when I ran out of other good ideas.
That was before I tested positive for Strongyloides. And a funny thing happened when I started researching the best treatment for Strongyloides – I found a lot of people are using Fenben for it. The more I read, the more I became convinced Fenben was my ticket.
And in fact, yesterday I started taking a variety sold for treating tropical fish. I’m going to try to organize all the questions about Fenben that I’ve been researching in an easy-to-read format. I think this is worth doing because right now the online information is very scattered.
What is fenbendazole?
Fenbendazole is a benzimidazole anthelmintic (kills worms large enough to be visible) and it has a broad spectrum (kills a wide variety of critters). It’s a compound with a wide safety margin. For example, when they tested very large doses on cats, they found no detectable side effects. Its chemical formula is C15H13N3O2S.
How does fenbendazole kill parasites?
Fenben’s safety for humans stems from its mode of action – it binds to 3-tubulin astructural protein that blocks polymerization of tubulin into microtubules. Got that? Apparently the English translation is – it damages the the transport function of cells in parasites. I take it to mean that it paralyzes them and causes them to starve to death rather than poisoning them.
And the safety part is this – it has an affinity for parasitic tubules rather than mammalian tubules.
They say you don’t experience die-off reactions with Fenben – no herxing. I’m a little skeptical of that and will get to that further on.
Is it absorbed into your bloodstream?
I’ve read that Fenben is minimally absorbed when given orally, and that what is absorbed is metabolized in your liver to oxfendazole sulfoxide and sulfone. Fenbendazole leaves your body in the feces and urine.
Why is fenbendazole not sold for humans?
I haven’t been able to turn up any good information here. There is a draft study by the FDA showing a test in humans which revealed no side effects but it looks like they administered a single dose which is pretty useless. They did do quite a bit of study on animals and found an increased incidence of tumors in female rats given high doses. At the same time they cite 5 mg per kilogram as a safe dose in their long-term rat toxicity / carcinogenicity study.
This is what they said about humans:
Five healthy male subjects were given oral doses of 300 mg fenbendazole with breakfast, and 6 healthy male subjects were given 600 mg fenbendazole 12 hours after their last meals. Serum concentrations were monitored. The following parameters were evaluated: Blood pressure, pulse rate, symptom list and self-rating scale, and clinical chemistry values. Serum values were detected in 2/5 subjects receiving fenbendazole with a meal and 0/6 subjects receiving fenbendazole without food. No relevant changes were established in the subjects.
After studying the FDA history with DMSO, I’d say they’re pretty much clowns, so I don’t put much stock in whether or not they’ve approved a particular drug.
Side note: because I use DMSO, I found it interesting that fenbendazole dissolves easily in DMSO.
How safe is fenben?
Toxicity is measured by LD50 – the dose that is lethal to 50% of a population. Apparently, it was difficult to establish an LD50 for rodents because even 10,000 times the normal dose would not consistently kill mice or rats.
Fenben is considered the safest of the hundreds of benzimidazole derivatives that exist (its cousins). Unlike many of the cousins, it doesn’t cause birth defects either. Personally, I find it reassuring that Fenben has been studied as a cancer cure.
Still, I’m going to have my doctor monitor my liver enzymes.
You’ll notice this is not a footnoted research paper, so please do your own research to confirm what my quick and dirty research turned up.
Besides killing parasites, what else does fenbendazole do?
Remember that tubulin protein stuff that Fenben binds to? There’s a related protein called FtsZ which is involved in the cell division mechanism of all harmful bacteria and algaes. in theory, Fenben binds to FtsZ, disrupting e coli, lyme, malaria, toxoplasmosis, fungi, virus, syphilis etc. I believe Steve claims this includes AIDS but I hesitate to include it because when people read fantastical claims, they start thinking ‘this sounds like BS’.
I don’t want to stray too far on this topic but remember that what your doctor knows and doesn’t know is heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry which spent an estimated $24 billion marketing directly to healthcare professionals in 2012. Think about that amount.
Your doctor is getting paid to not know about inexpensive cures that are not patentable or have expired patents.
Fenbendazole has also been documented to have anti-tumorigenic effects.
How much fenbendazole do people take?
Many sufferers respond to miniscule amounts. If one is heavily infested, its best to start low dosage with fenben – this might mean around 15 mg. Some recommend starting with Reishi first to start the bowel to purge.
Roughly speaking, Steve and his followers are taking around 5 mg per kg per day which is the standard dose and preventative worming for fenbendazole. For perspective, the recommended dose for treating a strongyloides infection is 10 mg per kg per day.
I’m also treating my cats, because if they’re infected, and I get clean, I don’t want them re-infecting me. They are getting .2 to .3 mL a day which equals about 2 to 3 mg I believe.
How is Fenben taken?
Some say you want to take it with food because the worms you’re trying to kill our eating your food, so best to hide it in the food they’re eating. The fish fenbendazole powder doesn’t dissolve in water, but you can still makes it with water or juice or sprinkle on your food. Doesn’t have much taste.
I’m told it can be constipating so you want to use enough magnesium, preferably in between meals, to keep you loose.
Fenbendazole does dissolve in DMSO, so that’s another option, but I suspect that would pull more of it into your blood which you might not want.
What other medications or supplements should be combined with fenbendazole?
Steve recommends Red Reishi mushroom (look for organically grown from sterile media) with Fenben which is reported to have these benefits:
- Analgesic
- Anti-allergic activity
- Bronchitis-preventative effect, inducing regeneration of bronchial epithelium
- Anti-inflammatory
- Antibacterial, against Staphylococci, Streptococci, and Bacillus pneumoniae (perhaps due to increased immune system activity)
- Antioxidant, by eliminating hydroxyl free radicals
- Antitumor activity
- Antiviral effect, by inducing interferon production
- Lowers blood pressure
- Enhances bone marrow nucleated cell proliferation
- Cardiotonic action, lowering serum cholesterol levels with no effect on triglycerides, enhancing myocardial metabolism of hypoxic animals, and improving coronary artery hemodynamics
- Central depressant and peripheral anticholinergic actions on the autonomic nervous sytem reduce the effects of caffeine and relax muscles
- Enhanced natural killer cell (NK) activity in vitro in mice
- Expectorant and antitussive properties demonstrated in mice studies
- General immunopotentiation
- Anti-HIV activity in vitro and in vivo
- Improved adrenocortical function
- Increased production of Interleukin-1 by murine peritoneal macrophages in vitro
- Increased production of Interleukin-2 by murine splenocytes in vitro
For treating strongyloides, Fenben is often rotated with ivermectin – for example, this is from a guy who was suffering (99% cured now) from disseminated strongyloides, which is fatal more often than not:
I did 14 days in a row of double doses (28 total doses for month) then I did 5 day double doses every 2 weeks after that for the remaining 5.5 months or 20 total doses per month. I also did ivermectin during the 2 week rest periods with fenbendazole.
Fenbendazole has greater efficiency doing the double dose , it is clearly documented in treating small strongyles and trichostrongyles in horses. The horse people take these bastards serious as horse racing is big money and healthy horses are profitable. Fenbendazole is also very effective against chronic low grade candida and many fungal infections.
However, when I searched for evidence that Fenben has antifungal properties I found a study where it failed to inhibit a variety of fungi including Candida.
What are the alternatives to Fenbendazole?
I’m in a lot of Facebook groups for different oxidative therapies in one of those is CD Health. Recently a woman named Audrey posted that she was close to hundred percent recovered from Lyme disease using chlorine dioxide. She also tried Fenben while she was using chlorine dioxide and switched to mebendazole and said this about it:
Lyme update: I started on CD in mid August of this year. I’m continuing to feel better and have more energy. Most of the worst symptoms are completely gone now. I did have a big setback for a few weeks when I stupidly decided to try fenbendazole instead of mebendazole for my first parasite protocol. I took it for 8 days. BAD idea. It made me feel horrible and really set me back. Kerri recommends mebendazole for a reason.. it’s not systemic and is generally well tolerated. Fenbendazole is systemic. I did a consult with Kerri (highly recommended) and she reminded me that I shouldn’t keep taking something if it’s making me herx… herxing is NOT good for us. I’m always so aggressive with treatment.. it’s not always a good thing. New improvements that I’ve noticed lately is that I’m sleeping better and my digestion has improved… I used to have undigested food passing through and that has resolved. Energy is continuing to improve… I often have energy for extra chores like organizing and clearing out clutter now… for the first time in a long time. I”m so happy to be getting my life back!! At this point I’d say I’m about 90% better after just 3 and half months. I’m also doing a low fat raw vegan diet and daily castor oil packs and I think they help a lot as well as the CD.
Where do you get fenbendazole and what’s the best form?
You can buy Fenben on Amazon, at pet Smart or agricultural supply stores. Until recently, most were using Safe-guard or Panacur. Because Steve’s followers take it daily, many noticed weight gain probably due to the estrogenic effects of the preservative paraben one of the non-active ingredients. So many are now using Fish Bendazole which is a powdered form that doesn’t contain parabens.
How was I feeling before I started Fenben?
The big picture – my health has been improving. I’m more and more active. People around me say I look much better than I did two years ago when I first discovered the heavy metals and started chelation and methylation protocols. Still, that’s what you’re supposed to say to a friend, and I’m not so much better that I don’t wonder from time to time if I’m not just going in circles.
Those moments of doubt come with the territory though because when you’re detoxing, depression and moodiness are major side effects. We did go on a big family vacation to Europe a couple months ago and I rocked it! Two years ago I would not have dreamed of taking a risk like that.
The small picture – I’ve been ramping up my ozone therapy, doing an additional five seconds of ear insufflation (EI) every day and ozone just kicks my ass. It makes me stupid, apathetic, and bloated and tightens my connective tissues causing pain.
So at any given moment, if you ask me how I’m feeling, and how I’m doing, that’s a very complicated question. Today on my birthday I reached 7 minutes of EI and it feels like such a huge accomplishment.
What happened after I started Fenben?
Today is my second day and I’m only taking around 30 mg of Fenben so I will have to update this section over time. I also started Red Reishi the day before starting Fenben and my impression is that I’m feeling a bigger response to the Reishi. I’ve had frontal headaches and moodiness/irritability/mild depression – when I took two Reishi capsules together it was very strong, and then milder when I take them apart.
Today I was very cold in a warm room (81°F) for a while and then had diarrhea after which I felt quite a bit better. Really typical detox patterns for me. Because I’m taking the Reishi and Fenben together, I can’t be sure what’s doing what but I am sure it’s accelerating the cleansing process I’ve been in for a long time.
I also recently restarted using a bit of food grade hydrogen peroxide so I’m really attacking my pathogens on a lot of different fronts. That’s one of the problems we have discerning what’s working and what’s not in alternative medicine.
When you have cancer, who’s going to do just one thing about it? When you’ve been ill like I have for 13 years, you find something that works and you just added onto the pile of other things you know work.
The end result is you end up with stories like mine that are incredibly complicated to tell and most health practitioners will never have the patience to fully grasp… and until you’ve had an experience purging toxic stuff from your bowels that makes you suddenly and intensely ill, you probably have a hard time believing in “die off”, “detoxing” and “herxing”.
Reading what Steve wrote about an experience he had like that, really give me a lot of confidence in Fenben because I had already been through something like that during my liver flushes. Here’s what he wrote:
This protocol pushes out GSB and its symbiots, as they leave some of their toxins are re absorbed back into the bloodstream, making one a bit uncomfortable and for some very sick. This always passes! My first BMs after taking the MEDS scared me, it was quite an experience, my heartbeat was fluttery, breathing required applied Yoga techniques as I didn’t know if I was breathing, ears rang like a liberty bell, actually I thought I was dying, it passed and I saw what came out of my body, first clear, threadlike worms, wiggling slowly, almost vibrating. . . scary stuff, but as I’ve stated many times, better out of me than inside of me. These scary, sickening times abated over time.
I’m hoping to collect some of the recovery stories from people who’ve taken Fenben here as comments on this page. Stay tuned!
Please let me know what important questions I’ve left out…