Japanese knotweed and Raynauds disease

not had this

my partner and i mainly just got benefits from Japanese knotweed

are you sure its the knotweed that's driving the symptoms -they are a common symptoms with bart and lyme - and buhner says knotweed is good for microcirculation - rather than causes an issue

hard to know why it would be long lasting

it sounds more like some kind of auto-immune reaction - which Reynaud's is driven by

so it could be that the JK ramps that up to some degree - possibly by driving some kind of herx / inflammation - and then inflammation then drives more auto-immune - and then it takes a long time to settle down again

we do see people here who cannot tolerate herbs as they seem to flare herx symptoms out of all proportion - and i do think that lyme triggers forms of auto-immunity - even unnamed / unknown forms to some degree in most patients ( but these do seem to largely settle down with successful treatment)

short term or transient auto-immunity is a known thing with many infections - and several auto-antibodies have been documented to occur with lyme - eg antiphospholipid antibodies

i also notice increased capillary refill times when i take antimicrobials - or antifibrinolytics - that take a few weeks to settle down - which i suspect is driven by a similar mechanism

in terms of what to do about it
i think i would just stick to low does of JK - so as not to trigger it

potentially try other endothelial cell protecting herbs or treatments to try and calm the reaction / inflammation
Red sage root (salvia miltiorrhiza/ Dan Shen ) is one Buhner suggests

or experiment with other things that help stabilise inflammation in the blood vessels like platelet activation inhibitors, or additional anti-inflammatories - like high dose omega-3's, bio available Curcumin etc etc

for what its worth i think there are various forms of auto-immunity

mild forms driven by infections come and go all the time - they are not necessarily permanent

and this is not just lyme - but things like the common cold - or a stomach bug can drive it - and they typically cause a few unexplained symptoms the the infection clears and the auto-immunity wanes and we are none the wiser we even had it - so never associate the symptoms with auto-immunity
this my read on the science on the topic
other forms - like type 1 diabetes - seem to be more or less permanent once the full blown auto-immunity develops

i think everyone with lyme has some degree of immunity - and some form of neuropathy - which is likely to be driven by auto-immunity - and its the neuropathy of the circulatory system nerves that's thought to be the cause of Reynaud's

so i was suggesting auto-immunity in that context - rather than a permanent condition
i think its likely it will settle down again with successful treatment of the infections

all the best