Herxing and healing Clarification, please

So what I have learned from this forum is that a herx is an increase in symptoms typically after there has been an increase or change of some sort in your protocol (herb, supplement, detoxing, abx). Also a herx can present with a new symptom. The ultimate goal however is to do enough detoxing that you do not herx or minimize its effect. Some people simply do not herx, which could mean that their body is doing a great job at getting those toxins effectively and rapidly out of the body.
I've even seen where people equate a herx with healing.

Here is where I need clarification. So how do you know if healing is occurring? Is it where you used to herx and now you don't as much when you make increases or changes in your protocol? Or if you never or rarely herx, you just progressively feel better (this to me would be an ideal situation).

I'm trying to define, healing. When I see people say, I'm 50% or 80% healed, what does that mean? Symptoms are gone for 3-4 days in a row, 30 days in a row? When do you scratch a symptom off your list and conclude, 30%, 50%, 80% healed?

Does lab work play a part? For example, viral numbers decreasing? Or is it moreso relative to how you feel overall?

Just having a difficult time wrapping my head around quantifying the healing component.

Krimpet said...
Here is where I need clarification. So how do you know if healing is occurring? Is it where you used to herx and now you don't as much when you make increases or changes in your protocol? Or if you never or rarely herx, you just progressively feel better (this to me would be an ideal situation).

I'm trying to define, healing. When I see people say, I'm 50% or 80% healed, what does that mean? Symptoms are gone for 3-4 days in a row, 30 days in a row? When do you scratch a symptom off your list and conclude, 30%, 50%, 80% healed?

Healing can be improvements in certain symptoms and/or complete resolution of symptoms.
Also, the decrease in severity of herxes can also be a sign of healing.

When people say 80% or 50% healed (for example) it can mean that they are having more symptom free days...OR it can mean they have enough symptoms that have disappeared...OR it can mean that a good number of their symptoms have decreased in severity...OR a combination of all of these.

In my case, I have 'lost' symptoms that have not returned...I have also some symptoms that are 'barely' there...I have symptoms that I have 'lost'....but every now and then I feel a little 'twinge'.
...regarding herxes: for the most part my herxes aren't as bad as they were in the beginning - except recently when I added in Artemisinin to target Babesia...had a really bad herx in the middle of the night.

It isn't the same for everyone...and for some of us it's difficult to gauge. My symptoms fluctuate daily, and even hourly...

Also - I have one or two symptoms that are way worse than others...and if all my others were gone or greatly reduced...I would still feel pretty crappy. The pain/discomfort of that one symptom is enough to over-ride everything else.

One thing I've observed is that the journey seems so different for each person with of course, the common intention to restore balance.

For myself, when I use a percentage, I sort of relate it to my list of symptoms. If there were 100 little concerns, and with treatment, 60 of them were no longer an issue for a month or two, then I correlated that as a 60% reduction in symptoms.

With herxing, initially, I was herxing and not knowing what a herx was.

I haven't considered, until now, to be honest, that maybe I should consider tapering to reduce herxing.

Initially, it was hell, and I just didn't have the knowledge base to know about how to cope with it... I just lived in an epsom salt bath at night when it was hell.

I knew I was getting better when symptoms began to reduce, with some clearing up altogether.

I always welcome an increase in symptoms because I translate that into bacteria dying.

It isn't gnarly like it used to be...