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Artemisinin and allicinin - herx or drugs too strong?

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Posted 5/23/2012 8:50 PM (GMT 0)
Hello,
I was first diagnosed in 2008 with serious lyme manifestation. Anti/bio many many times since then/ babesia and lyme. The lyme arthritus is gone, yeh, but some neurological and a lot of the mental stuff continues. Heard about Dr Zhang and thought I would give that a try.

6 days to get up to full dose of 1000 Artemesinin and allicinin, and in another 6 days I was sick as a dog. What do you think, herx or drugs? My head became so heavy I couldn't lift it off the pillow, dizzy, throwing up, intense headaches behind my eyes and at the back of my head. I couldn't eat, after several days of progressively getting worse I stopped the medication. It took me 3-4 days before I could go back to work...I was wrecked. It is hard to know about this herxing....the acupuncture/herbalist who studied with Dr Zhang assured me it was herx and that we should try again....
Posted 5/23/2012 11:40 PM (GMT 0)
Hi,

I have Lyme, babesia, Erlichia and Bartonella. So far we are mainly going after babesia. My herxes are really bad too. When I'm off antibiotics I have the terrible stabbing headaches (some of the worst headaches I have ever had with unbearable pain). I also get extremely weak and tired, feverish, dizzy, completely exhausted and lots of muscle and joint pain and spasms.

A few days ago I lost all the feeling in my legs. I could not move them. It was really scary, but luckily feeling came back about 4 hours later. The same thing has happened to my hands many times. Vitamin/glutathione IV's were helping that a lot, but when I'm herxing it doesn't work for it.

I had several weeks where I couldn't eat without throwing up. I'm either REALLY hungry all the time and can't eat enough or not hungry at all. No matter how much I eat, I don't gain any weight. I've lost about 30 lbs since I first got sick and I was normal weight to begin with.

I think it's a herx. At least I hope so. I am a little worried that it could be progression. I'm on mepron. I have done this twice. The first time I took it and had a bad week on week 1 and then weeks 2-8 when I had to stop because of liver problems. This time it has so far been the same except now that I'm combining it with doxy and zithromax, and my mepron dose is double. I feel a lot worse than the last time. I was terribly flu-like on week 1 and then it came back week 3 again. I'm on week 5 now and so far no relief or improvement.
Posted 5/24/2012 12:29 PM (GMT 0)
Hello, I went to your blog in attempt to understand more clearly what you are dealing with. Sounds profoundly difficult, my sympathies are with you.

I would like to hear about artemesinin herx experiences ... and how to differentiate between herx and drug effect. thanks.
Posted 5/24/2012 7:34 PM (GMT 0)
Ulster,

artemesinin is a very powerful herb and effective but I have been told
it has to be dosed in the right way.

some time on for a while and off for a while but in your case I have no idea and am nt a doctor.

One thing about herxing is if your blood is sluggy the herxes are worse.

What have you taken for thick blood? I wonder what chineese herb for that is? Natokineese? or lubrokaneese?

also coffee enemas always helped me when I was herxing.

Artemesinin is a parasite killer and when I took it years ago not knowing even that I had parasites or lyme it really helped me but I had to do coffee enemas to keep from getting killer migraines. No I know from my doctor it was from thick blood.

In chineese medicine they were calling the type migraines I was having "Liver Gallbladder syndrome".

I have hep C so back then I thought everything was from the Hep C. But it was really the lyme and all the parasites that come with it.

be sure also to drink water. Keep flushing and ask your doc what you are taking for biofilms and possible sluggish blood.
Posted 5/25/2012 10:35 PM (GMT 0)
I got a herx when I started artiminisin, but it wasn't as severe as yours. For me, it would go away within a few hours, but my dr. did say that it causes herx. Good luck!
Posted 5/26/2012 5:15 PM (GMT 0)
Allicin (not specifically Zhang's formula) absolutely kicked my butt! I have a pretty high tolerance for herxing, but the Allicin really got me. In theory I was supposed to go up to 6 pills a day, but I never got past 4. And I recently started Artemesia, and it also made me herx. My guess is you just started too hard too fast. I worked my way up really slowly with the Allicin, and am on a really low dose or Artemesia right now.
Posted 5/26/2012 5:23 PM (GMT 0)
thanks for feedback.
Posted 5/26/2012 5:26 PM (GMT 0)
But, does this really mean that the drugs are whooping us, or does this mean the drugs are working, the spirochetes etc are dying, and it's a herx reaction, which is good.
Posted 5/26/2012 11:07 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Ulster,
I too have been using Chinese Medicine to heal from these infections. I would venture to guess that what you were dealing with was a horrible herx, from my own experiences. Are you detoxing? Dry skin brushing? Drinking 64 ounces of water a day? Are you able to get any exercise? Can you get to a sauna?

The reason there are so many questions pertaining to detoxing is because as you kill off the bacteria, toxins are released and if your body isn't able to detox well enough, then you will have these major herxes.

Another thing I discovered has been that a person should ramp up doses slowly, otherwise the body gets totally overwhelmed and can't heal. I've made this mistake a couple of time now and had results similar to yours. Not fun!!!

So I would agree with your practitioner that it most likely was a really bad herx, but I would also caution you to go at a much slower pace when restarting the herbs, and only do one at a time. Remember, your body is in bad shape!
Posted 5/27/2012 3:00 AM (GMT 0)
thank you for your replies.
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