Hi sKBM,
I'm truly sorry to hear that you are having liver problems. I'm not a doctor, just someone who's been around the lyme world for many, many years and have learned much from books, doctors, and other people with chronic lyme and if I feel I could help someone I will.
Anyway, ammonia can do much damage to one's liver. I don't know if this is the case with you but you have nothing to lose by using a product to bind up ammonia. I have a friend who had lyme for over 30 years and her liver was soaked with ammonia from lyme bacteria die-offs (toxins) that also affected her brain but the good news is she is totally well today!
Below are some quotes from articles from Dr. J. (the protocol that I used at home from his book). I am symptom-free from lyme for 6 years now!!
Anyway, I hope this helps:
"There are only a few ways ammonia can become a problem in the brain. Severe liver disease is a well-recognized producer of global or systemic ammonia. No one knew, until I discovered quite unexpectedly, that Lyme spirochetes could cause ammonia to accumulate in localized areas of the brain.
I first became aware of brain-ammonia problems while treating a gentleman from England who came to me having been diagnosed with Lyme disease (Neuroborreliosis). Quite surprisingly, my testing revealed Trypanosoma gambiense as his primary microbial challenge. T. gambiense causes African Sleeping Sickness (ASS).
Only after subsequent study did I find that the symptoms of ASS are caused by the neurotoxic effects of ammonia produced in the brain by the microbe. Interestingly, the man said that for years he had told doctors that it felt like someone was pouring ammonia over his brain.
The severe debilitation this man was experiencing reminded me of some symptoms reported by many of my extreme chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, ALS, and Lyme patients.
Subsequent testing revealed that all these people had localized ammonia accumulations primarily in the brain, heart, liver, and gums caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb), the causative agent in Lyme disease.
It would seem that Bb releases ammonia, which is converted to glutamine by way of the glutamine synthetase pathways, leading to localized swelling of astrocytes (brain cells).
This ammonia-induced glutamine accumulation may cause dysfunction of astrocytes, which leads to impairment of vascular reactivity (other than through a decrease in arginine availability for nitrous oxide) and increased production of nitric oxide (Toshiki 2000). It has been reported that many neurological problems are caused by either congenital or acquired hyper-ammonemia (Albrecht 1998).
All ammonia-related pathological changes predispose these individuals to cerebral allergies, due to alterations in the blood brain barrier, and subsequently allow larger molecules, such as common dietary amino acids, to pass through to the brain.
Neurotransmitter receptors and function is impaired, resulting in possibly the most common symptom: altered brain energy metabolism, leading to cognitive brain dysfunctions, i.e., the total fatigue of the mind when forced to read, talk, or think for extended periods.
Direct Resonance Testing (DRT) was used to test for the presence of ammonia in the brain, heart, and liver of over 100 chronic-illness patients; all patients were positive for ammonia over these areas.
Several other doctors have confirmed this finding using DRT. A DRT test is based upon the fact that every bend, rotation, or atomic bond of a given molecular structure, such as NH3, has a certain resonant frequency (Oschman 2000). When two substances with similar molecular frequency come in close proximity to each other, they will tend to vibrate "sympathetically" through harmonic resonance (Allen and Cross 1963, Sauer 1995).
****From the article "Lyme toxins, the primary cause of your symptoms"
If you would like the link to this article let me know.
Here are more links about ammonia:
http://hansacenter.com/pdfs/AmmoniaBloodBrainBarrier.pdf
There are more articles but I think that's plenty of information for now!
Hope this helps!