Everyone Thinks They Have the Diarrhea Parasite

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.

“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.

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