Milk Thistle Liver Pain

I had a little discussion with Traveler a few weeks ago regarding milk thistle causing "liver" pain. Seems it happens to some people and it's certainly happened to myself while taking Buhners large recommended doses. It seems lyme frequently causes gallbladder inflammation and possible partial bile duct obstruction as a result. Milk thistle, being a cholagogue, increases bile flow making larger doses contraindicated in this situation. So if you're taking antimicrobials and trying to get some liver support you may just be herxing and inflamming your gallbladder and then trying to force bile through the inflammed ducts. Or so I've come to believe is my current situation. In this case less hepatics may actually be more. Maybe you all know this and I'm just slow. But it stumped me for a while how I would get bad pain for an herb that was supposed to be extremely protective of my liver :P Thought i would share. I've lowered my milk thistle dose way back down and so far it seems to be helping instead of hurting.

Only if it's causing you problems. I'm not saying it's bad. But you know, if you're treating and all of a sudden you feel pain in your liver area consider the hepatics and not just the antimicrobials. The first time around i was doing really well on cats claw and stopped because i thought thats what was causing it. So i took a largish dose of milk thistle to try and remedy the situation and... ouch! I don't know for sure but i feel like as long as the dose is not causing pain it might actually be beneficial. It's good to keep things moving, just not too much at once and especially not when you're inflamed. So far antimicrobial = mild pain. Antimicrobial + milk thistle = less pain. Antimicrobial + more milk thistle = a lot of pain. We'll see if that trend continues :P