A few things which seem to be helping .....

Awesome to see! I have always judged my improvements by percentages. For instance, I went from about 20% in late 2011 to 85% - 90% by early 2015. So where would you put your low to high? Just happy for you.

running wild said...
Awesome to see! I have always judged my improvements by percentages. For instance, I went from about 20% in late 2011 to 85% - 90% by early 2015. So where would you put your low to high? Just happy for you.

i think i may be just past half way back now RW so 55%

its a bit of an odd one as i was high functioning before getting ill - so 100% for me would be able to work 12hr days of intense high pressure work - and maybe mountain biking at the weekend.

as it is - even though everything aches and mornings are pretty hard and my day revolves around treatments - i walk round the supermarket - look at most other shoppers stooped over their trolleys, dragging themselves about - and think they look worse than i do! lol

So great to hear you're still taking the thymus Garzie.
I just finished another course of TA-1 myself last week.

I'm so glad that you're making improvements!

Do you feel like the cistus tea might be giving you energy? Or more of a killing agent?

I recently bought teasel, which is new for me, but I haven't tried it yet. They look like granules. I think it's made as a tea as well.
Thank you for the update!

That is great. It's often when I do multiple things at once where I notice nice improvements. Knowing what had the most impact isn't that important as getting better is 😊

Deep_sleep said...
That is great. It's often when I do multiple things at once where I notice nice improvements. Knowing what had the most impact isn't that important as getting better is 😊

yep - i feel the same way - progress is what's most important

after trying some heavy hitting approaches - that were either intolerable - or just didn't move the needle enough on their own - i have instead tried adopting the many small levers approach to help move the needle.
lifestyle changes, stress management, diet, herbs, immune modulators, etc etc

the only interest in trying to figure out what helps most is that if it were clear - it might give clues as to what else might work

this has been the method in my approach so far - trying many things and keeping the things that seem to help and seeing what else i can add to them that might help further

my gut feeling is that the thymus and maybe the liver too could be helping - which is a bit of a surprise to me

the taurine seems pretty clear - but mostly to strength and maybe energy

the others its really hard to say as effects are not immediate and timing of them all overlap

will keep all as-is for now and see how that goes it may become a little clearer over time or if i stop any of the above

all the best with your own endeavours

RainyCloud said...
So great to hear you're still taking the thymus Garzie.
I just finished another course of TA-1 myself last week.

I'm so glad that you're making improvements!

Do you feel like the cistus tea might be giving you energy? Or more of a killing agent?

I recently bought teasel, which is new for me, but I haven't tried it yet. They look like granules. I think it's made as a tea as well.
Thank you for the update!

thanks Rainy

i dont have a clear feeling for the cistus yet - i had tried it twice before only for a day each time, and when i was feeling worst than i am at the moment and felt fairly sure it cause me to have a mild herx like reaction - less energy the next day mainly - and slowed my walks a bit - but nothing dramatic - so i left it alone for a while as i was at that time still ramping up buhner co-infection herbs and didn't want to add to the herx/flare from those

this time around the same dose seems to have less adverse effect - i do think had some more disturbed sleep after trying double that dose - so my feeling is it is more of a killing agent ( or at least causes some kind of herx like / flare effect ) - and like most things that do that - i will likely have to go slowly with it.

teasel is a strong herb for me - causes strong herx like effects at less than 1ml a day - so one of the strongest herbs i have tried.
That dose is of Buhner's recipe of tincture 1:3 45% alcohol - using the Chinese species D. asperoides, (Chinese or Japanese Teasel - also called Xu Duan)
i am currently making a batch of the Europe variant D. silvestris (syn. D. fullonum, D. vulgaris), Wild Teasel - but have yet to try it
i don't quite know how to advise on tea - i am sure the Chinese use it that way so i would look to TCM as a guide for dosage and preparation - but use caution as their doses are typically large ( i think i have read 6-21g per day) and make no account of the sensitivities of Lyme patients.
An older famous herbalist (Woods) recommended 1-3drops 1-3x a day for lyme disease and warned that even at these doses it could trigger a "healing crisis"

let me know how you get on

Yah bicarbonate raises ph. My urine ph was like 5.5, checked it around the time I got interstitial cystitis which is often an acid problem.

A lot of alternative med drs claim a more alkaline environment is antiinflammatory. It raised my urine ph to above a 7.0. Also works to increase acetylcholine which activates vagus nerve as garzie mentioned

hi Brandi

i am eating around 2oz of cooked liver per day at the moment - for the last 2-3 weeks
i know some people advocate raw - but i wasn't keen on the idea of eating it raw given our immune systems seem to be sub-par and what we now know of how many of these stealth infections are zoonotic.

usually gently fried in a pan with some herbs. i try to catch it when it is just cooked through and a tiny bit pink in the middle - before it becomes tough and rubbery.

i have beef liver quite a bit before when i was more ill but didn't notice any significant lift from it then - not sure if that was just because i felt so rough in general

i started this time around the time of the thymus experiment - so i cannot really distinguish which to attribute the benefit to - but the scientific evidence is all there for the high nutritional value of liver and i have a good feeling about both.

thymus is an old delicacy known as sweetbreads - but like so many things that were good and health promoting in the past, eating organ meats or nose to tail eating in general has fallen out of favour in the age of cheap industrially produced meat from feedlots and factory farms.

Rainy ha a thread on thymus glands and its extracts and health benefits - i contributed some photos

Garzie do you feel like there is a rebound effect on the bicarbonate?
In terms of stomach acid.
I know some of the more popular OTC acid reducers have this after chronic use.
Was just curious if the same happens with bicarbonate.
Thank you!

Thank you, I'm so happy for you Garzie, please keep us posted.

just thought i would update this thread to give a progress report

i have stuck with all of the above as i felt they were helping make me a bit stronger and more resilient - with the exception of the thymus gland - purely due to availability ( it seems it mainly a spring delicacy as teh gland is biggest and tastiest then ) - i have kept up with the liver - and thymus will be available in the spring again.

progress had been encouraging - but since august time i have had 2 bouts of viral illness -
- the first occurred after visiting a family member who it turned out tested positive for covid - and just caused worsening of my ongoing symptoms for around 1 month

- the second was a very clear respiratory illness /cold/ flu type thing - the first I have had in the 7 years since becoming ill - and though it knocked me back for over 1 month - i take it as a good sign that my immune system is normalising - as the lack of colds even when those in the same household have them is a known thing with chronic Lyme patients. i lost my sense of smell completely for several days with this could not detect any odour whatsoever from raw chopped garlic right under my nose - so seems likely this could have been COVID - but lat flow and PCR test both negative ( the BBC reported the current PCR test does not detect omicron variant - so that's a possible explanation)

these things obviously knocked me off my upward trajectory - but each time bounced back rapidly after 4 weeks or so - without any sign of long term symptoms and am now pretty much back to where i was before - or in fact doing a little better - best walks and mini-workouts so far.

i spent Christmas day with my brothers family - 3 of whom went down with PCR positive COVID 2-3 days later - so i will have been with them whilst they were infectious - but 1 week on i have no symptoms which might point to some immunity from prior exposure ( i hope this means i am out of the woods as incubation time is typically less than 1 week).

the only real change to my overall protocol has been the addition of the proteolytic enzyme bromelain - based on the dramatic and unquestionable presence of biofilms and most likely fibrin deposits based on clear images of bacteraemia with bartonella inside red blood cells in my slides (see my microscopy thread - the first definitive evidence of bart after years of suspicion )
there are stronger enzymes for fibrin deposits - but most upset my stomach too much to tolerate - and bromelain is the most tolerable i have found so far.
i am also very sensitive to herx reactions from most antimicrobials - so i wanted to start gently - i may then progress to lumbrokinase ( i think its approx 100x stronger for fibrin ) and possibly add in other biofilm agents for polysaccharide based biofilms

so the bromelain has been added alongside the anti-microbials ( co-infection herbs in high doses - sida, cryptolepis, alcornea, teasel, berberis, houttuynia ) and methylene blue.
the idea being that the biofilm/fibrin agents break up the biofilms and render then info free floating single active bacteria - that are then approx 500x more susceptible to antimicrobials ( this was a surprise to me when i read the science - not many seem to know about it - but he research is very clear on this point).
not surprisingly - i was sensitive to bromelain - and experienced increases in symptoms - very similar to those i experienced when ramping up the co-infection herbs too fast ( which is exactly what one would expect) - fatigue, body aches, disturbed sleep, mild increases in headache - random pains in limbs and liver area - so i had to go slowly - and even took the bromelain with meals to make it more manageable on my gut.
initially i used only 1/4 of 1 capsule ( Doctor's best Bromelain - 3000gdu per capsule )
i have worked up to 1 capsule per day over the course of around 1 month and have held it at that for the last 2 weeks - as a balance between herx and daily function

its early days - and my dose is still low vs target - as i think i will need to get to 4-6 capsules of bromelain per day - or try the stronger lumbrokinase - and perhaps also add other biofilm agents - but there are some promising signs of benefit - rather than just ongoing herx symptoms - eg
- best workouts since getting ill,
- 3 of my fastest walks on 3 consecutive days (was a one off only in the past)
- also improvement in capillary refill times - which is a measure of microcirculation. this was around 5 seconds average and has dropped to 3 seconds over the last 2weeks or so

as a side note - i think i should mention that i don't think biofilm agents are a good idea as a stand alone treatment - as the organisms can simply settle elsewhere if antimicrobials are not used to kill them once the biofilms are broken up - but i think they are valuable as part of an overall strategy to gradually breakdown bacterial biofilms in the body where the infection would otherwise reside in an ABX resistant stronghold - then re-infect the host when the abx are removed.

i know Buhner wrote that biofilm agents are not required with herbal therapies - as he belives the herbs themselves break up biofilms - but i have been taking comprehensive Buhner herbs at max buhner doses for over 2 years now - and my blood smear slides show extensive biofilm - so for me at least this is clearly not the case

the above approach is instead a synthesis of the approaches used by many of the leading LLMD's(Dr J, Dr MR, Dr H, Dr M etc ) - adjusted to my own particular case and needs - a kind of peeling away the layers of biofilm and gradually killing the microorganisms that emerge - while balancing the level of herx that is experienced with the need to continue some kind of daily life functioning

i hope the above is of some interest to those here - and may in some small way help you get on a positive trajectory for 2022.

Deep_sleep said...
I have sent you an email (not the same email I have listed here)

i received it - have just replied