Chapelle said...
wow, thanks for the replies everyone!
rowingmom - very interesting, thank you! i would be so happy if i didn't have to reach the recommended doses, its just that she barely has any symptoms. The ones she had are now gone, which is amazing, but she is only 1/3 the way up to the dose of japanese knotweed, would you recommend I stop now?
is japanese knotweed and cat's claw enough for her? do you think she even needs Eleuthero if she is doing so well? I don't want to over do it, but I also don't want to under do it - I want to do it right and get it taken care of!!
cd - I totally agree with you about the bart and babs issue. I am pretty sure she had Bart too - not sure if she still does bc she does not exhibit any symptoms - but like you said, how could we know? bc I had it, and my youngest had it (she exhibited the rashes), so, I am pretty sure Teresa had it too. Whether we treated it or not when she took the meds the first time, I don't know. That is the tricky part!!
The buhner protocol for bart is a complicated one. I am hoping that just sticking to the lyme protocol will take care of it for her, what do you all think?
When I read your question to me about
her doing well on JK and Cat's Claw without Eleuthero, I was going to say just stay with those, at those dosages. But when you mentioned bartonella to cd, you have to know that those 2 herbs will not cover bartonella. If they did, Buhner would not have made a different protocol for it.
If I knew that my child likely had bartonella, I would remain with the doses of JK and CC that she is on now and try to initiate the bartonella protocol. If she starts having any issues with inflammation from the other herbs, I would recommend first decreasing the offending herb and then increasing JK as it is a very necessary anti-inflammatory. We never had issues getting K to max doses of JK, but that is the only one she could ever tolerate at maximum.
I know you are intimidated by it, but you needn't be. It is as easy as starting/using the other herbs she is already on.
I would start with the supportive herbs first; actually taking hawthorn (you can use tincture or capsule) once in the evening (we only dose it (250-500 mg) in the evening) is very calming and might help with the insomnia. She likely won't herx on that. That will help the endothelial inflammation caused by bartonella which can be the cause of later atherosclerosis as the body tries to mend that inflammation with cholesterol plaque.
Milk thistle, again I have ever only dosed this once (250 mg) in the evenings, will help her liver detoxify.
The EGCG we have only ever gotten from green tea, of which K drinks a couple of cups worth a day (organic only, not sourced from China). You can add a fruit-flavoured tea bag (or K likes spearmint or chocolate tea too) to it along with stevia to improve the taste. I send a thermos of this with K to school to drink through the day.
See, that's not so hard!
Only after this is going would I trial a bit of houttuynia (you can infuse the dry herb as a tea or use a tincture) to see what happens.
If she is doing as well as you say, you can take a month or more to initiate the supportive herbs, and only if you are comfortable with that, start the antimicrobials. She will have lots of supportive herbs on the go with the anti-inflammatories (JK, hawthorne), the immune support (cats' claw), and the liver detox.
You needn't even get to a point where herxing is a problem. Julie told me herself that we didn't need maximum dosages of anything to reach a point of healing. Only that it would take more time.