A few questions about herxing

I’ve been doing the Buhner herbs for almost six months but still can’t get anywhere near the normal doses of any of the antimicrobials. I seem to herx constantly. At least I think it’s herxing because I always feel bad after I increase any anti-microbials and a little better when I back off or stop for a few days. I feel like this is really holding me back so I have a handful of questions:

Is diarrhea a symptom of herxing? When I ramp up I seem to always get it and haven’t been able to pinpoint any particular herb that’s causing it. It just seems like when I increase anything it happens. It goes away when I back down on the anti-microbial herbs.

Am I doing enough? I feel like I must be. I take daily epsom salt baths, dry brush first, drink tons of filtered lemon water, take a binder every day, I walk for exercise, get tons of sleep, take red root, NAC, milk thistle, reduced glutathione. I just ordered some Nutramedix pinella and burbur. I haven’t tried that yet. Could that make a difference? Apparently I’m homozygous on one of the MTHFR genes so I take methyl b. I guess I also have some HLA genes that makes it hard to detox biotoxins. I’m not sure what to do about that one.

Can I heal with a lower dose than is recommended? It seems to me that if I’m herxing, it means something is dying. Maybe I should just stick with a low dose for awhile and see what happens?

Thanks for any input you can offer.

Manzanita2 said...
I’ve been doing the Buhner herbs for almost six months but still can’t get anywhere near the normal doses of any of the antimicrobials. I seem to herx constantly. At least I think it’s herxing because I always feel bad after I increase any anti-microbials and a little better when I back off or stop for a few days. I feel like this is really holding me back so I have a handful of questions:

Is diarrhea a symptom of herxing? When I ramp up I seem to always get it and haven’t been able to pinpoint any particular herb that’s causing it. It just seems like when I increase anything it happens. It goes away when I back down on the anti-microbial herbs.

Am I doing enough? I feel like I must be. I take daily epsom salt baths, dry brush first, drink tons of filtered lemon water, take a binder every day, I walk for exercise, get tons of sleep, take red root, NAC, milk thistle, reduced glutathione. I just ordered some Nutramedix pinella and burbur. I haven’t tried that yet. Could that make a difference? Apparently I’m homozygous on one of the MTHFR genes so I take methyl b. I guess I also have some HLA genes that makes it hard to detox biotoxins. I’m not sure what to do about that one.

Can I heal with a lower dose than is recommended? It seems to me that if I’m herxing, it means something is dying. Maybe I should just stick with a low dose for awhile and see what happens?

Thanks for any input you can offer.

I could've written everything you wrote and just swapped out constipation and intestinal inflammation in place of the diarrhea. I've been doing Buhner's for just over 8 months now. I had a couple of days to weeks here and there where I had noticeable improvement, but I'm back in the pit again. I'm stuck with tiny doses of the killer herbs too. I have the HLA thing. I'm sure I have some kind of genetic mutations, as I have tremendous difficulty detoxing, but I haven't had those tests done. I do all the same detox stuff you do and get little if any relief from it.

Buhner says we can heal at a low dose. Right now, it's all the hope I've got unless God miraculously heals me.

Just know you're not alone in how you're experiencing this.

This was a big roadblock for me for a long time. The ONLY thing that got me over it was to decrease the dose a LOT. I had to start at about 1/8tsp knotweed alone. Even then I still herxed, it just didn't leave me feeling like I was dying. I'm now up to 4tsb with other herbs and doing alright. If you lower the dose to just above the threshold of herxing it should go away in a few days and then you can increase it and repeat.

You may find this helpful - I post it from time to time to help others gain perspective of some things:

​​ ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​With the experience that I had personally, and what I've watched others go through, here is what I believe needs to happen for many of us to heal:

a)Detoxing - gene mutations, multiple tick-borne infections and more can have a big impact on our ability to detox.

You can find some really good detoxing suggestions in the "New to Lyme?" thread that sits at the top of the forum. And this is another really good resource for detoxing ideas for Lyme patients:
www.tiredoflyme.com/detox-methods.html

But, there is such a thing as over detoxing. This happens when we move more toxins than our body is capable of processing out effectively. Many toxins are stored in our tissues, and by detoxing, we move them to the bloodstream where we can process them out of our bodies through the lymph system, then on to the liver and kidneys as so on. We have to be sure to add in more detoxing routines slowly and carefully, or we will end up herxing just like we had never been detoxing. This article helps to explain that some: www.tiredoflyme.com/4-reasons-why-you-still-feel-bad-despite-detoxing.html


​​​​b)Supporting the body functions/systems. We have to have the body working at it's peak performance to heal from something as devastating as these infections. Supporting any gland, organ, body system that is struggling will allow the body to switch it's 'concentration' from just trying to function over to healing.

​​c) Raise the immune function. Many legitimate Lyme researchers now believe that it's the lowered immune function that determines who gets chronic Lyme and who heals right away. We already know that Lyme lowers the immune function and when a person has Bartonella and/or Babesia, the immune function is further compromised, so to heal we must raise our immune function.

d) Lastly, oddly enough, are anti-infective treatments. Many of us have experienced treatment failures, so we can see that the treatments aren't the only thing we need to have - there has to be more to the equation, but anti-infective treatments are very important!!