Xylitol - sounds so innocent - But.....

it is kicking my but !!

i was tolerating a pulsed approach with doxy, azithro, tinidazole and rifampicin pretty well
(alongside herbs and methylene blue and bromelain - which had got me to around 60% recovered - adding the abx to see if i can push it across the finishing line - or at least get some useful steps forward)

i just added a tiny dose of Xylitol - 1g per day for the last 4 days ( broadly in line with Dr J's approach)

not much new happening for the first few days - a bit of extra disturbed sleep maybe
by the 3rd days started aching all over, disturbed sleep, fatigue - weird pains in my muscles
4th day today and i am hammered - significant pain in joints and muscles, fatigue, grogginess etc

so surprising that its something so innocent most people can use it like sugar by the spoonful if you don't have Lyme and co - but for those with Lyme its like a sledgehammer

full dose is 2x teaspoons - which when i have weighed them are around 12g total - so i am using less than a1/10th of the recommended dose.

i think biofilms are a key component of successful treatment - but go steady if you use this one people

Girlie said...
The worst thing for me was after taking it, within a few minutes I was running to the bathroom.

yep - i am expecting that at doses of 12g or more - but no sign of those issues at 1g per day

it has just made the herx reactions from the antibiotics around 2-3x as strong.

not pleasant - but its doing what its supposed to do

thanks Sara - yes curious

i have also used nasal sprays and mouthwash without any noticeable effects before - but the amount ingested that way is minimal - so that's as expected

but i am surprised to hear you do not have a reaction to a gram or more a day though from the gum

some bacteria make biofilms and extra cellular matrix from different things
spirochetes seem to make it from different substances than other gram negative bacteria - like bartonella

xylitol and other sugar alcohols are though to disrupt biofilms by causing the bacteria to incorporate them into their biofilms in place of sugars - and this is thought to be especially significant in those bacteria that make their extra cellular matrix / biofilm from polysaccharides - like bart.
borrelia make their biofilms from mainly alginate - which is still a type of polysaccharide so you would expect both of these to be affected by xylitol

so i guess its possible that some bacteria just don't react to xylitol
or perhaps it means that your body has cleared the infections and you are only now dealing with the after effects

I guess thats why they use it in Phoenix Rising as nasal droppelts to Attack nasal persisters of viral, bacterial or fungal infections.. i might try it aswell.

Currently Using that Protocol of Jake with the Oregano oil, Tee tree oil and black seed oil nose dropplets. Seeing what it Brings .

Omega33 said...
I have been doing the 7 day monthly xylitol / lactoferrin pulse for over a year now and its such a powerful tool and cheap biofilm agent. I usually do 4 tablespoons which is 50 grams. Big dose. No bathroom issues. My favorite biofilm agent however is Nitroxoline.

Wow 50grams!! - that sounds like a huge dose
i am a bit nervous about stepping up to 2g a day next week on my next pulse

i take it you had to build up to that over time ?

what antimicrobials are you taking with your biofilm agents ?

they do somewhat different things

proteolytic enzymes such as serrapeptase ( also bromelain, nattokinase, lumbrokinase etc ) are intended to dissolve proteins - mainly fibrin
this is useful as many of these infections stimulate the body to produce excess fibrin which interferes with teh microcirculation and adds to symptoms as well as shields bacteria from the immune systems white blood cells.
one of the constituents of many biofilms are also proteins - and so proteolytic may have some action against biofilms also - but they are mainly made of things like lipopolysaccharides and mucopolysaccharides and extracellular DNA - which proteolytics do not target

xylitol is thought to target biofilms via a separate mechanism - via weakening the polysaccharides and thereby breaking up - or allowing the immune system to break up - the biofilms

biofilms in the body are very resilient
for this reason its best to target them with multiple agents from multiple mechanisms
but you may need to introduce one at a time at a rate your body can cope with

Just an update to add that my second round of Xylitol seems much milder

i stepped the dose up cautiously as 1g / day in the first go round seemed like plenty - but i am still a long way from the approx 12g a day that Dr J uses - so i went up a baby step to 1.5g a day

its the 4th day in today and its defo more manageable than the first round

i have a feeling that the first few times you take this stuff it does more work - and after that it gets much easier

this fits with Dr J's patient reports of "what the hell have you given me??!! " when they first tried it
and yet some people seem to be working their way up to 30g a day or more over time

it could also be that it was particularly strong for me because i am using a number of other substances that are known to break up biofilms to some extent or another:
-bromelain - helps dissolve proteins in the extracellular matrix
-black seed oil - contains carvacrol and other phenolics that are known to disrupt biofilms - like essential oils
-many Buhner herbs - he writes that most herbs have some anti-biofilm action
-Methylene blue - think i read it helps break up biofilms
-NAC - has some biofilm dispersing activity at higher doses

so it could be that adding xylitol on top of these resulted in enhanced breakup of the biofilms vs Xylitol on its own - perhaps by attacking biofilms via a separate mechanism to the above - and that could be the cause of the v strong reaction to the small dose.

note - i am taking abx at the same time - as per Dr J so not sure what the reactions would be to xylitol on its own (which is generally not recommended as the idea is to kill what you break up - rather than let it recolonise some other place in the body).

overall it seems like the best approach is to go slowly at first till you feel out how you respond to Xylitol

Thanks for posting this.

DrJ mentioned it could take 3 years after finishing maintenance (especially with cognitive issues) to fully heal.

So that gives me some hope that my memory can still improve…
2024 is year 3 for me. (I think I finished maintenance in 2021)

Garzie said...
thanks for posting Quin - i will give that a watch 👍🏻

I assumed that was what you were referring to, but I guess Dr. J has mentioned this before.

As for the "microbial chaos" that Dr. J describes, I've had this happen with things other than xylitol. A few days ago I took another round of meds, and in addition to the usual borrelia herx, I got a fever, sore throat, runny nose, and cough. Clearly something other than borrelia came out.

I'm surprised that Dr. J is recommending stevia. I took stevia and it did nothing.

I added xylitol recently as well. It made me herx for the first time since starting teasel. I normally don’t herx.
I have worked up to 2 teaspoons a day over the last 2 months. I also added serrapeptase.
Xylitol did not cause any bathroom issues, just a week long headache and fatigue. Thankfully it did not come back when I increased the dose. Serrapeptase caused joint pain to come back, something that had gone away with the herbal treatment. Thankfully that is starting to fade now.

Girlie said...
Thanks for posting this.

DrJ mentioned it could take 3 years after finishing maintenance (especially with cognitive issues) to fully heal.

So that gives me some hope that my memory can still improve…
2024 is year 3 for me. (I think I finished maintenance in 2021)

Borrelia disrupts the glial-astrocyte complex blocking word selection and short term memory and causes swelling of the Superior Cervical Ganglion, our nervous system's speech hub.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23866773/

Whether you can recover from it or not - that's another story.

Does chlorine dioxide, aka MMS, take out biofilms?

as an update on xylitol - taken as a biofilm disrupter alongside and to increase the effectiveness of antibiotics

i had to start very low dose to keep the herx reactions manageable - initially 1g a day for 5 days
then 1g for 7 days - then 2g for 5 days - and the last dose was on 4g for 5 days during the 2nd week of each pulse of antibiotics.

this last pulse was the first one where the herx like effects seem to have levelled off a bit and fatigue was manageable during the xylitol week - whereas its been worse for the previous 3months as i was ramping up the xylitol

i should be ok to do 6g a day for 5 days on the next pulse - so getting close to the recommended dose used by Dr J of 8g for 6days

just thought i would update the thread to let people know it does get easier with this stuff

Ref MMS - its main use is as an industrial beaching agent - eg used to bleach wood pulp in paper mils - i believe the products marketed as MMS for human use on the internet are a bogus and potentially dangerous moneymaking scheme, their health claims are not supported by any respected research. i would not put it in my body.
As with all such schemes, you will find avid supporters if you look for them - but - as one of our erudite members once said - you will also find people on the internet who say they have seen Elvis - so please take care.