Cat's Claw, Japanese Knotweed Dosing

So I am doing really, really well and my LLMD is ready to wean me off the abx. But he wants me to start with Cat's Claw and Japanese Knotweed sort of to "clean up" some bacteria still floating around. He recommended I get tinctures from Woodland Essence, which I did.

What dosage should I start at? I want to start slowly, although I tend to not react to things as much anymore.

Serving size on the bottles are for Japanese Knotweed, 5-20 drops, 3-4 times a day. For Cat's Claw it's 20-40 drops, 3 times a day. That seems like a lot.

Just wondering if anyone has used this brand and can recommend where to start. I have Buhners's book, but I find it completely overwhelming and confusing.

Thanks!

I started out with doing 1 herb, one drop the first day. You want to see if you have any allergic reaction to it or any other side effects. Then the next day I stayed with that herb and did 1 drop 3 times a day. The next day I did 2 drops, 3 times a day. You see how I am upping slowly?

Low and slow is what we generally call it here.

When you add in the next herb, follow the same procedure. 1 drop to see how you do. Slowly up it.

Buhner says 3 times a day but some of his herbalists say that if you can do it 4 times a day, that is even better.

The reasoning is this - You do not want a lapse of coverage in your herbs. You want them in you continually with no breaks. By doing them lower dosages and more often is better then less often and higher dosages. I sure hope that made sense. If not shoot me an email and I will grab another cup of coffee. LOL

mm, I don't think it will matter between Cat's claw and Japanese Knotweed which you do first. I had experience with cat's claw way before lyme so I just took a couple of capsules with no problem, 3 times a day.

But for the Japanese Knotweed I used the tincture and I did the drops - low and slowly moving up. Here is the weird part. Hubby got lyme after I did. When I was doing Japanese Knotweed my maximum dose was 2 droppers full. Hubby's was only 1 dropper full. He is a big dude at 6'7". So size has nothing to do with dosage. Evidently J/K and I love each other but not so much for hubby. I think I could have even done more than 2 droppers full but I stuck with Buhner's max.

My way was really listening to my body. When I got to the amount of drops where I did not feel right, I stayed at that dosage. I would try and add in another drop and if I felt weird again, I would go back and just stay there.

It is hard to explain. Most importantly is being gentle. Herbs are designed to work with your body and not against it. So any adverse effect is not good. Back off and go more slowly if that happens.

Also herbs like working together (synergy). What happens is that they do an even better job when working together.