FIR Sauna experience and herxing?

Hi all. Me again! Man, this Lyme is frustrating. I have a question and discussion topic group the forum - FIR Saunas.

I bought a fairly nice one and it came last week. I got it mainly to help me detox mercury from my system as it is recommended for same by my doc and many others. Plus it has many purported benefits for Lyme treatment and just general health.

Well, last week, I felt much better in my treatment before the sauna
I even worked the past 2 weeks without missing a day! Friday and Saturday I tried out the new sauna and loved it! Had it heated to 110-120 and Spent a total of 45 min in there over the weekend. It really felt nice and I was hoping to get results with sweating out the mercury. Well, I kinda forgot one thing - heat kills Lyme! That's good, right? Not necessarily!

I think I inadvertently caused myself a mongo herx. After the final sauna session Saturday afternoon, I was fine until later in the evening when I started really spacing out. Even weird audio disturbances along with my other typical neuro Lyme symptoms. It lasted into Sunday with me first feeling nauseous and extremely lethargic and almost as if I were dying
yesterday, I made it to work but was so dizzy and fuzzy headed it was very uncomfortable and disturbing. It lasted through last night with extreme head pressure and I have been unable to sleep more than an hour.at a time. This morning, I feel somewhat better but shaken and tired. I decided to bag work and try and rest today.

First of all, has anyone here experienced an unrelenting major herx like this that lasted 3 days!?! I mean I was convinced I was dying or going crazy. Can the sauna have caused that? If so, maybe I should go more slowly at it (less time and lower temps ).? What can I do if caught in such a pickle again? I did some warm detox baths and even a coffee enema (uggh). Is there anything I can take to quell the neurotoxins roiling in my system?

I had been able to go to work 11 days straight. I even felt so well that Friday night, I took my wife out to dinner! Now I feel as if I am all the way back to square one after making so much forward progress. Discouraging as heck. Any thoughts?

Hey CV - thanks for the kind note. I lasugh about the coffee "surprise" that I like to call them. Given my roots as an old fashioned country boy, they run countre to just about everything I thought I would EVER do!. That said, I did one when I got desperate as I felt my liver had swollen one night - it was not in pain but was defintely uncoftforable and enlarged. The coffee enema helped get it back to normal in a day! The big thing with the C/E is INCREASED GLUTATHIONE (GSH) - the body needs this to detox and much is used up trying to keep up with the Lyme toxins and other pollutants in the system. The C/E is supposed to increase GSH production 600-700% - much more that anything else shy of a GSH I/V.

I have not felt the gall bladder release (which is what I think you are referring to) but there is quite a bit of gurgling going on in there. It seems to work though noting the success with the liver swelling (probably was backed-up with toxins) and I did it again yesterday to help with this latest mongo herx and it seemed to help as well. Feeling much better today though very tried from the herx and no sleep.

I have backed off on the FIR to ease into it more gradually. 10 min at 105-100 every other day and then increase in small increments. Eating "healthy" caused me to raise merc levels (fish and fish oil capsules) along with a dental filling that was exposed for about 5 months...so, even for that, I need to be gradual on excising that from my system....thx again for the message!

oh boy, now I have even more questions.  I was near ready to order one of the wood saunas with carbon fiber heater from Evolutions Health, for the purpose of detoxing.

Then you say it might have caused a herx?  That means that you need yet another method of detox?  But I thought that was the sole purpose of the sauna?  Sorry for sounding dumb...but I am!  What am I missing?

Now I wonder if I should get a sauna and it was indeed a herx.  Also I am wondering what is considered a good sauna?  Not to change the subject but the FIR's interested me.

Is there a specific frequency or something?  I was going to get a portable until I read about the out-gasing and that concerned me.

I am afraid of herxing-I had a not-so-good neuro herx the other night amd it scared me.  I do not want one any worse than that. 

Does saunas really kill lyme?  And if so,  I wonder if that would matter if I am being treated only for babesia now?

My understanding of the FIR is that it is used for detox and not really for killing Lyme bugs, though it can help due to increased body temp leading to your immune system kicking in. But methinks that the amount of killing of bugs is not very significant.

I have a portable and never heard of "out-gassing", so I can't say much about it. I think the portable FIR is pretty inexpensive (as far as this stuff goes), and I can bring it in and out of my living room with ease.

Yaz, thanks for the info about C/E and GSH. I always wondered exactly what the coffee did that made the liver kick in so much. I have off-and-on gotten IV vitamins, and he gives a "glutathione push" to the vitamins at the end, which I do think helped with my herxing. But it is nice to know the C/E may have a similar or the same effect, since the IVs were not cheap. And like you (and many of us to be sure), I NEVER thought these are the things I would willing do to myself!

You can use the chair to keep your head out or go all-in. Only difference I note is that I need the temp much lower when I'm all-in. The chair, BTW is metal so it heats up insanely, and its not comfortable either. Almost every Amazon review said the same thing. The actual sauna is great, though.

Make sure you have lots of towels, as once you're up to 30 min, you'll sweat through a towel in 1-2 uses. I have to hit the thrift store for this.

OH how funny you should say that Cycle!!!!
I was thinking the same thing about myself yesterday!!! LOL!!!

yazzer - ike Traveler said, 45 minutes at that temperature is way too much to start with. I recently purchased a good quality Far-Infra Red Sauna too. I found out the hard way that it can cause a herx. I was trying to increase the temperature much too quickly and the length of time I was going in because I was trying to induce a sweat to rid my body of toxins. I felt really sick right away and all my awful symptoms came roaring right back and I herxed for many days.

So now I found out from my LLND that temperature is the actually the last thing to increase.

My LLND told me you want to increase frequency in the sauna first (even if the length of time you are staying in there is only 5 minutes). I am currently going every 3rd day but am now going to increase it to every other day.

The 2nd thing to increase is time in the sauna.

The last thing to increase is temperature.

Apparently if you do not sweat in the beginning it will come in time. Meanwhile, you are still killing the bugs and reaping all the other benefits of the FIR sauna.

Yes there are good saunas out there used...thats how I found my sauna...it was only a year old and the warranty was transferred to me...I searched on craigslist etc & you will find one....the main reasons I got a IF sauna at the house was this...its a great resource for detoxing, your skin is your largest organ of your body, easier to use, and a must for me is to take a shower right after a sauna treatment...I mean I walk out of the sauna into the shower so I don't re-absorb the toxins...I couldn't do this coming back from the place that had a sauna.

My first thought when I read that someone had a reaction to the sauna was this...I started detoxing my heavy metals first...it took nearly 9 months to lower all my metal counts down to good level & lower...after my metal count was below normal, I stopped taking my two naps a day that lasted 2 too 4 hours a day...one must detox very slow so your body systems are not over taxed....Its been my experience that if one has a reaction to a treatment, back off & slow down, or I needed to do something else first...the way I am doing my treatments is this...detox metal count first...secondly, get rid of parasites in the colon etc., & then begin to rid myself of Lyme bugs...the key to all this is a healthy gut...your body wants to assist you in ridding any disease...give your body the best help you can...healthy gut, healthy person...

Post Edited (Leaf 90) : 1/24/2016 2:59:11 AM (GMT-7)