20 Oct Three Colonoscopies Missed Her Worms with Kim Rogers
Have you ever sat in a doctor’s office with a list of symptoms so long you felt embarrassed reading it out loud? Bloating after every meal, weight that won’t budge, cravings, brain fog, poor sleep, anxiety. And were you told, kindly but firmly, to focus on just one thing at a time?
I’ve been there. Over 20 years ago, before I knew I had celiac disease, I listed about 15 symptoms to a very good doctor. He told me that was a lot of different things and he wanted to look at them one by one. I understand why. But I now believe that approach is exactly what keeps so many of us stuck in midlife.
I call it “one thing-itis.” Is it just my hormones? Just my workout? Just the right supplement? The truth is that as we move through midlife, things stack up. One of the most overlooked pieces of that stack is toxic load. When toxic load is high, every other symptom tends to get louder.
I learned this personally. A few years ago, deep in perimenopause, I gained weight and my blood sugar went haywire. I assumed it was hormones. A friend I call my gut genie suggested parasites could be involved, and honestly, I thought she was a little crazy. She was right. Addressing parasites helped my blood sugar. Then she asked the question that changed everything: why was I getting them, and what was feeding them? That question led me to discover my ruptured breast implant and then mold.
I know some of you are nodding right now, and some of you are ready to click away at the word “worms.” Both reactions are welcome here. Stay with me, because today’s guest has one of the most remarkable health detective stories I’ve ever heard.
🐛 Order your kit here and use coupon NATALIEJILL to save 20% during their flash sale
Who Is Kim Rogers, the “Worm Queen”?
Kim Rogers is the co-founder and CEO of RogersHood Apothecary and the creator of the ParaFy Parasite Cleanse Kit. Before she became known online as the Worm Queen, she spent years inside Western medicine, starting in 2004. Her background includes:
- Two healthcare degrees
- Running 25 healthcare colleges and writing their curriculum
- Helping write educational medical textbooks for major publishers
- Serving on medical advisory boards and writing national certifications
She jokingly calls herself a Western medicine refugee. She knows the human body, and she knows how the system works from the inside. That’s exactly what makes her story so powerful.
13 Surgeries and Still No Answers
For years, Kim’s diagnosis was stage four endometriosis. She had five surgeries before a full hysterectomy and five more after. Her appendix, uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, and cervix were all removed. The surgeries themselves created scar tissue, which led to adenomyosis.
Her symptoms read like a list so many women will recognize:
- Bloating every time she ate
- Severe constipation
- Eating very little but still not losing weight
- Grinding her teeth so hard that crowns kept needing replacement
- Exhaustion so deep she couldn’t work or carry more than 10 pounds
- Anxiety so intense that some days she couldn’t get out of bed
- Neurological symptoms serious enough that she was tested for MS twice
Kim kept asking her doctors, many of whom were her colleagues, the same question. What’s the root of this? Why did I develop endometriosis in the first place? Nobody could connect the dots.
The breaking point came in 2019. After her last surgery, she was told there was nothing more they could do and that this was how she would live for the rest of her life. Then she stopped having bowel movements for a full month. She and her husband believed she was dying. They sold everything, left their careers, and moved to land outside a rainforest in Washington to build a log home. Kim was determined not to leave him with a mortgage or debt. They made a decision together: either they would heal her, or they would say goodbye.
Stepping Outside the Box to Find the Root Cause
Kim describes this period as stepping outside of everything she had been taught. She began researching how scar tissue and abnormal growths are broken down, how to work toward reducing her medications, and how to get her digestion moving again. Part of her personal journey included plant medicine. I want to be clear, though: that was her path, not a prescription. The real lesson is that she stopped seeing herself only as a patient and started asking why.
That shift is something every one of us can make. She tells a story about the advice she got for her constipation. She hadn’t had a bowel movement in a month, and the answer was to take psyllium husk. Her question was different. Why haven’t I gone? What is causing this?
That’s what it means to be a health detective.
What Is Toxic Load? How Lyme, Mold, and Parasites Feed Each Other
Kim believes most of us have never truly cleansed our systems. In her view, the root cause is rarely just parasites. It’s heavy metals that weigh parasites down, mold that lives in protective biofilm, and old infections, all stacking on top of each other.
She describes her own healing as peeling an onion:
- Parasites were the first layer, and the one that made her go viral in 2021.
- Mold came next. She discovered she had been living in mold and that her mother likely carried mold toxicity too.
- Lyme disease was the deepest layer. At the end of 2023, she learned she’d had Lyme for about 30 years, likely from a tick bite at age 12. Lyme can mimic MS, which may explain her earlier tests.
Here’s how Kim explains the connection. Lyme is a bacteria that burrows into tissue and surrounds itself with a biofilm coat. She describes this as holding a mirror in front of your immune system. Behind that mirror, mold, parasites, and other toxins can thrive while the immune system has no idea anything is wrong. In her experience, these organisms are drawn to scar tissue. She believes this is why her years of surgeries made things worse.
Kim also believes parasites “mop up” heavy metals and other toxins. That’s why some people think parasites are helpful. Her view is that they come at a very high cost: stolen nutrients, sugar cravings, inflammation, and even anxiety and intrusive thoughts, which she says rarely get discussed. The real problem, she explains, is overgrowth.
Are Parasites Really That Common in the United States?
This is where the conversation gets divisive. Many people assume parasites only happen in other countries. Meanwhile, places like Mexico, Guatemala, Jamaica, and Nigeria treat deworming as a normal part of life.
Kim pointed out that routine testing in the US often focuses on certain microscopic parasites and rarely on worms. Her own experience is a striking example. She had three colonoscopies and none of them found anything. Yet within three days of her first cleanse, she saw roundworms, flukes, and pinworms in the toilet. The right-sided pain that had always signaled another surgery was coming disappeared and never returned.
She also shared a piece of history I had never heard. In the early 1900s, hookworm was widespread across the American South. Outhouses overflowed into fields, people walked barefoot, and Kim cited estimates that roughly 40% of the population was infected. Because hookworm feeds on blood, it caused widespread anemia and exhaustion. Public health workers took stool samples to county fairs and showed people the worms under a microscope. The most common reaction was flat-out denial.
Kim believes that same denial is alive today. When people don’t understand something, they tend to reject it.
How Parasite Exposure Happens
Kim’s message is that exposure is normal and nearly impossible to avoid. Common routes she mentioned:
- Walking barefoot in soil
- Undercooked meat and raw fish
- Unwashed produce, including organic produce
- Unfiltered water and ice, especially when traveling
- Pets (Kim and her dog ended up with the same worm)
Kim chooses to avoid restaurant salads and ice. I take a different approach. I gave up raw fish and sushi, but I’m not afraid of salads. I believe in terrain theory: the stronger your internal environment, the better your body can handle exposure. Two women can eat the same meal and have completely different outcomes depending on their toxic load. There’s room for both approaches here.
Why a Random Parasite Cleanse Can Backfire
If you’ve tried a cleanse before and felt awful, this part is for you.
Kim’s first cleanse was an inexpensive kit from Amazon. She had previously tested negative for Epstein-Barr virus, twice. About six weeks after that cleanse, she tested positive and developed mono. Her belief is that whatever she killed off released the virus it had been holding, and she had nothing in place to help her body clear it.
She had a second experience that taught her even more. While using her own kit, she was unknowingly living in mold. She believes the wormwood in her kit was helping suppress mold growth. When she stopped the kit, her health crashed. She lost half her hair and her eyes swelled shut. In her words, she had removed the mold’s roommate, and the mold flourished.
This is why Kim says detoxing is so complicated. In her view:
- Targeting one organism can let others take over. For example, she believes certain prescription anti-parasitics don’t address every type of worm.
- What was being held gets released. If metals, viruses, or mold aren’t cleared, the body may reabsorb them.
- People feel terrible and give up. Many never realize why the cleanse made them feel worse.
Kim credits Dr. Josh Axe with a principle that shaped her approach: when you bring in herbs that kill, you have to bring in support too. She uses a simple metaphor. Biofilm is the house. Some herbs burn the house down, and others, like cilantro, help carry the heavy metals out.
She isn’t against prescription anti-parasitics. She has used them herself, followed by a waiting period and then an herbal cleanse, and says she is working with a pharmacy on combined protocols.
What a More Supportive Parasite Cleanse Looks Like
Kim originally created the ParaFy kit for herself and her husband. She figured if it went nowhere, at least they’d have a lifetime supply. RogersHood now makes its products in-house, and Kim says they have sold more than 350,000 kits worldwide.
Here’s her approach as she describes it:
- Three herbal tinctures plus a binder, using ingredients like clove, garlic, cilantro, wormwood, usnea, and lungwort lichen
- Double extraction in water and alcohol, after soaking the herbs for five to eight weeks
- Comfort support, such as white willow bark, because she remembers how uncomfortable her own early cleanses felt
- A binder at night to help carry out what’s being released
- About 30 days of use, with enough product to stretch to roughly 45 days
- Repeating three to four times a year, which she sees as preventive maintenance
She deliberately uses the word cleansing rather than detox, because she feels it’s gentler and less intimidating. People in her community most often report less inflammation, clearer skin, and less brain fog.
Full transparency: this is not a sponsored episode. I wanted Kim’s story because I think it matters. At the time we recorded, I was about five days into her Lymph Kit, with her parasite kit to follow. I’ll report back.
“I Was More Scared Not Knowing”
I asked Kim what she’d say to women who are too scared to try a cleanse because they don’t want to see anything. Her answer stuck with me. She was far more afraid of never finding her root cause and living sick forever. The moment she saw what came out of her body, she felt validated for the first time in years.
That experience is what turned her into her own patient advocate.
Could Parasites Be Part of Your Midlife Health Puzzle?
According to Kim, signs of overgrowth may include:
- Sugar cravings and blood sugar swings
- Bloating, constipation, and digestive issues that won’t resolve
- Teeth grinding
- Anxiety and intrusive thoughts
- Low iron that doesn’t improve with supplements
- Fatigue, inflammation, and weight that won’t budge
These symptoms overlap with many other conditions, including perimenopause, thyroid issues, and nutrient deficiencies. That’s exactly why the health detective approach matters. Talk with a practitioner you trust about testing and your options. This is especially important if you’re pregnant, nursing, managing a health condition, or taking medications.
Becoming Your Own Health Detective
If you’re working on your hormones, thyroid, cortisol, gut, or fat loss and still feel stuck, toxic load may be worth exploring. Parasites aren’t the answer to everything. They may be the puzzle piece that helps everything else start working.
What I love most about Kim’s story is that her solution came from walking through her own setbacks. She went from planning her goodbye to feeling healthier than she did in her 20s, and now she runs a company helping others. She did it by refusing to accept one symptom at a time as the whole story.
🐛 Order your kit here and use coupon NATALIEJILL to save 20% during their flash sale
The contents of the Midlife Conversations podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider. Some episodes of Midlife Conversations may be sponsored by products or services discussed during the show. The host may receive compensation for such advertisements or if you purchase products through affiliate links mentioned on this podcast.
