Asymtomatic giardiasis?

[Chris K]

Today I learned you can have Giardia in your body, but exhibit no symptoms. This makes sense of course, but isn’t something I considered when reading anecdotes of people who say they don’t treat their water and never get sick. It might not be the drink, but the drinker.

In any event, last week I was a mile or two into a planned half day trail run to a relatively obscure alpine basin when I realized I grabbed the soft flask that had the regular cap, not the filter cap I intended to bring! 500 ml for several hours in the sun… Oh well, there will be plenty of delicious, cold clean water everywhere once I get up high I told myself. So, I filled my bottle above treeline, from a trickling south-facing stream below a steep rock face still holding snow. As it emerged from a talus slope, I scooped it up and drank heartily. No symptoms yet ;)

[DWR D]

I think most backpackers would not bother to treat that water… I might out of habit, but would feel pretty good about not treating it… I think the odds are very high that water was not infected with anything bad…

 

[Terran Terran]

I hardly ever filtered in the back country when I was close to the source. Sometimes there’s an excess of vegetation or minerals and I’d filter for taste. You can tell if a spring has been trampled or you can smell the musk odor.

It’s mostly around people.

[DWR D]

“It’s mostly around people”

Not so sure about that. Most people come from a town or a city… and most people in those places do not have Giardia to spread… (other things, maybe)… I would guess that most Giardia is spread by animals… In any case, few animals or people up high above tree line.

[AK Granola]

There are an awful lot of giardia cases in New York City. Not too many wild animals there.

[DWR D]

Aren’t all those ‘animals’ in NYC wild?  :)

 

[DWR D]

Even just one tenth of one percent of the people living in cities would be “an awful lot of Giardia cases”…  My guess is people are not the primary spreaders of Giardia in water sources out in nature… But then, maybe the people v animals is a false distinction… we people are, after all, animals…

[Terran Terran]

If there’s a large animal population, I would filter. I guess beavers. Bears go in the water. You can see their pools and go upstream. I’ve seen trampled springs that smelled like sheep, that I wouldn’t touch. Generally if it’s coming out of the ground, it’s filtered.

[DWR D]

And Birds !

[Chris K]

There was a moose nearby, but I selected water above where I thought it spent time.

My anecdote aside, I just found it interesting that Giardia symptoms can occur by degrees, from serious cases to nothing at all. If you’re someone who doesn’t filter and doesn’t get sick, perhaps the water did contain Giardia but you are immune.

[DWR D]

I wonder if there can be long term health consequences even for those who have no short term symptoms?

[John S.]

Here is a ‘StatPearl’ on Giardiasis, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK513239/

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