Gou-Teng (Uncaria rhynchophylla) success stories?

So has anyone had success with Gou Teng for peripheral neuropathy too? Most people talk about brain fog and cognitive issues with neuroborreliosis. I've got almost none of that. But I got plenty of damaged small fiber nerves in my legs that cause all the stinging firey electrical pain

I use the concentrated granules from amazon too.


The brand is E-Fong. It's a yellow square bottle.


If you type in Gou Teng on amazon its one of the first ones to show up.

Post Edited (LymeSick 🌟) : 11/8/2017 12:38:28 PM (GMT-7)

Hi,

I'm probably the wrong person to ask because I'm bad at Math, especially since I got Lyme. But I'll try to give you what I think might be the answer to your question.

The concentrated granules I'm taking say the following:

5:1 Single concentrated granules extracted from 500g of the raw herbs

It says that one serving (spoon is inside the container, so I'm assuming one serving = one scoop scoop) is 1 gram and that there's 100 gram inside the bottle.

It also says 100 gram is equal to 500 gram.

That means, one serving (1 gram or 1 scoop) is equal to 5 grams of Gue-Teng.

Are you using the Hawaii Pharm brand, this one? :

https://www.hawaiipharm.com/gou-teng-alc-extract

It says that 20-30 drops equal 0.7 ml - 1 ml

So that means 1ml = 30 drops.

Which, according to the label, 1 ml equals 970 mg of Gou Teng.

That's very close to 1000mg (or 1 gram), so to make the math easier, lets say 1ml (30 drops) = 1000 mg (1 gram).

In other words, one scoop (scoop was provided) of concentrated granules (1 gram concentrated by 5 = 5 grams) is the same as 150 drops of the tincture.

So it is my understanding that you would have to take 1/5 of the scoop provided, to get the same as 30 drops of the tincture.

I personally just take one scoop myself. That's what a serving is considered according to this brand.

I've taken up to 3 scoops a day with no side effects, besides the usual Herxing (Which for me personally, is muscle cramps). But that might have been because of other supplements I'm taking.

Post Edited (LymeSick 🌟) : 11/9/2017 4:26:26 PM (GMT-7)

So it's been awhile and I wanted to update the thread some more. I know i really pushed the gou in my earlier thread, but I've since learned that it was the knotweed doing most of the work. I think the gou teng helped synergistically... but now on mostly knotweed and cistus. Still in remission...or er at least still getting better.

Could be a herx, especially if it is increasing neuro symptoms you've experienced before. I think it has strong effects on neuro-lyme. Good to take a break, maybe reintroduce at some point but at a smaller dosage.

I also came across this comment on fb: "If you already have an over-reactive Th1 response, Uncaria rhynchophylla tend to stimulate it even more. I would have a Human Th Cytokine Panel to see what's occurring in your body. In general a herx is toxin related die-off and passes. If it hangs on I would suspect a simulated immune reaction."

You could look into herbs that stabilize mast cells, something like quercetin? Aerose91 also mentioned a few things in another thread like inositol and butterbur. I'd run that stuff by your ND especially if they are knowledgable in the pharmacology of plant medicines.

sebreg said...
Could be a herx, especially if it is increasing neuro symptoms you've experienced before. I think it has strong effects on neuro-lyme. Good to take a break, maybe reintroduce at some point but at a smaller dosage.

I also came across this comment on fb: "If you already have an over-reactive Th1 response, Uncaria rhynchophylla tend to stimulate it even more. I would have a Human Th Cytokine Panel to see what's occurring in your body. In general a herx is toxin related die-off and passes. If it hangs on I would suspect a simulated immune reaction."

You could look into herbs that stabilize mast cells, something like quercetin? Aerose91 also mentioned a few things in another thread like inositol and butterbur. I'd run that stuff by your ND especially if they are knowledgable in the pharmacology of plant medicines.

This is something I'm curious about and wonder if it's a thread some of us have to walk. Do some of us lean more into autoimmunity than others? My personal experience with every immune modulator Buhner recommends is it severely ramps up all my existing psychological problems- which are many. Never tried gou-teng but immediatly after taking cat's claw, samento or rhodiola my depersonalization, psychosis, confusion, mania, OCD and a bunch of other stuff ramps way up. This has always been really troublesome for me because if immune modulators wont work, what else could be wrong? Does anyone else have this experience?

WalkingbyFaith said...

Aerose91 said...

This is something I'm curious about and wonder if it's a thread some of us have to walk. Do some of us lean more into autoimmunity than others? My personal experience with every immune modulator Buhner recommends is it severely ramps up all my existing psychological problems- which are many. Never tried gou-teng but immediatly after taking cat's claw, samento or rhodiola my depersonalization, psychosis, confusion, mania, OCD and a bunch of other stuff ramps way up. This has always been really troublesome for me because if immune modulators wont work, what else could be wrong? Does anyone else have this experience?

Good question, Aerose - “if immune modulators wont work, what else could be wrong?“

I accidentally OD’d on gou-teng earlier this week, and didn’t notice anything too adverse. I normally take 10 drops and accidentally took 40-60 drops, thinking it was Chinese skullcap.

I have not had any issues with Rhodiola, but I do with cat’s claw. I have measuring spoons that have 3 spoons smaller than 1/8 tsp. I recently upped my cat’s claw from a dusting of powder to the smallest one of those measuring spoons. My joint pain and numbness has been a lot worse. Can’t say for sure it’s the cat’s claw but wouldn’t be surprised.

I do have trouble with danshen (red sage). I stopped that one. My body loves the Chinese skullcap, though. I take full doses of it.

I have issues with cat's claw and red sage as well. They both make me (literally) go crazy. Depersonalization, psychosis, mania, nightmares, etc all go through the roof. Im curious about it because you and I seem to have the more severe toxicity/CIRS issues so perhaps this is either a mast cell or immune stimulus reaction. I know my MCAS is pretty severe, maybe that causes immune systems to go extra bonkers? I can't believe after 7.5 years I'm still trying to figure out the basics

Somebody said...
I have issues with cat's claw and red sage as well. They both make me (literally) go crazy. Depersonalization, psychosis, mania, nightmares, etc all go through the roof. Im curious about it because you and I seem to have the more severe toxicity/CIRS issues so perhaps this is either a mast cell or immune stimulus reaction. I know my MCAS is pretty severe, maybe that causes immune systems to go extra bonkers? I can't believe after 7.5 years I'm still trying to figure out the basics

I cannot locate the thread where I posted about possibly having a reaction to Chinese Cat's Claw. I think it made me extremely anxious, depressed and really out of it emotionally. The above is one of the comments in that thread. I also cannot believe how much I am constantly learning after at least the same number of years!

I have been taking it for around 1 year now.

i built up the dose gradually from around 1ml 4x to 4ml 4x over that time. as part of the extended lyme protocol in Buhners healing Lyme second edition book.

i didnt notice any herx like effects or any other short-term reaction good or bad from this herb. but over this time period, i have made slow but steady improvements.

i had taken his original protocol of knotweed, cats claw and Andrographis for 2-3 years prior to that without any great improvement so something in the later protocol seems to be the driver. i suspect either the Rhyncho or the Dan Shen in combination with the other herbs.

buhners doses for rhyncho seem to be a bit higher than many of the other herbs - i feel like I could consume much more but settled at this middle of the range dose largely for cost reasons.

ref dosage there seems to be quite a bit of confusion over the different dosage measurements
i tend to use milliliters as its more precise and repeatable ( every teaspoon is different - and even droppers differ )

in case it's of help

Drops
if you measure accurately how many drops actually make up 1ml - it varies a little from tincture to tincture but is usually v close to 38drops per ml ( internet sources vary from 20 to 30 but v few people seem to have actually measured it so i recommend using 38 or trying for yourself)

teaspoons
a teaspoon is generally regarded as 5ml - but real-world teaspoons vary from 3 to 8ml so again - I use ml

droppers
a full squeeze of a dropper ( fully squeezed till no more air will come out - then submerged in liquid and released and then squeezed out into a receptacle ) is usually designed to produce 1ml

menstruum ratios
this is the weight herb divided by the weight of liquid or menstruum ( so-called because it was the usual practice to leave the mixture to extract for 1 month) usually an alcohol and water mixture. eg 100g of herb with 500g of the alcohol-water mixture would be a 1:5 ratio tincture.
note - there is no general equivalence between tinctures and dry herbs as the tinctures and dry herbs are absorbed to widely differing degrees in the body. if you read herbal texts you will see some herbs where the tincture dose is close to the powdered herb dose - and other herbs where it is 1/4 or even 1/8th of the amount for the same effect. this is because the alcohol in the tincture is often extracting the active ingredients many times more effectively than the body's digestive juices can.


5:1 and 10:1 dry extract ratios
are common in modern-day China and available in the west from Chinese sources.
they are typically made by drying water extracts of the dried herb.
eg 100g of herb was extracted with water and then dried and the dried yield weighed to be 1/5th or 1/10th of the initial herb.
sometimes gums, oils and resins are also removed in processing.
again there is no direct equivalence to other forms of the same herb as it is often not known what constituents of the herb are most active or synergistic and which of these have been recovered to what extent in the water extraction - vs extraction with other solvents ( like alcohol in tinctures).
there is however a long history os using herbs as teas in China so this and cost reasons perhaps explains the predominant use of water as the solvent.
Note - there was little or no tradition of distilling of alcohol in ancient Chinese culture and likely as a result, tinctures are largely absent from TCM.