gkamom said...
It should probably be noted that he said its contraindicated for an active infection, but can be used as a preventative after you have been successfully treated.
I read that Traveler takes, but I'm not sure if it was an old post.
Actually, it's not contraindicated for an active infection, only a chronic infection, but even then, there are some with chronic Lyme that actually feel better on it.
Stephen’s response:
If you are not currently sick, you can certainly take astragalus. The reason for not recommending it is that astragalus raises the parts of the immune system that are overactivated in chronic lyme. Those parts of the immune system are highly effective against lyme early on and help prevent or reduce the disease but if they are low to begin with and you are infected the infection can spread more easily. After awhile the immune system does ratchet up those parts to attack the lyme bacteria but by then the spirochete has altered itself and is no longer very affected by them, those parts of the immune system then begin to cause some of the lyme symptoms people have making the disease a kind of autoimmune problem.
buhnerhealinglyme.com/herbs/astragalus-contraindicated/ I began using astragalus at 1,000 mgs a day back in January of this year(2015), as I had decided that I didn't want to have to treat Lyme yearly. I raised my dose up to 1,000 mgs, 3 times a day when I started getting ticks attaching again. Buhner says to use it for 3 months at this raised dose after a possible infection, so I've been on that dose since early spring. I have not been having issues with increased inflammation until very recently (last two weeks) and I'm not sure if it's from the astragalus use or not, but I've lowered my dose back down to 1,000 mgs a day since the ticks aren't nearly as active now for the rest of this year.
I figure next Spring I'll likely need to raise my dose back up again, but that's okay as it can be used safely for a very long time.