Beta Glucan and Remicade

hmmm, you should do the check if cancer meds are given at the same time as Beta Glucan since it was initially found encouraging in treatment for cancer.

What preparation specifically are you using?

q

I have been following medicinal mushrooms for a while. Their main active ingredient is beta glucan. My mom was recently diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and given NSAIDs which can be really bad for your stomach. I then noticed either on http://www.medicinalmushroominfo.com or www.pubmed.com that beta glucan should not be taken together with those medicine because both of them COMBINED can cause bleeding of the stomach -- in rare cases.

So, I told my mom to stop using mushroom extract. I did some more research after that -- on both of those sites -- and noticed that it beta glucan and especially medicinal mushrooms seem to help with both arthritis and with some other disorders like stomach cancer etc. So, even though there is risk, I figured out that it's probably worth it (because of the RA medicine wasn't working).

I can't tell you for sure if you can take them, and I'm not an MD. I simply used to fix some of my cardiovascular issues with Agaricus Blazei mushroom about 5 years ago and since then, I've been a big fan.

Now, I googled Remicade, and surprisingly, I noticed that it is actually a medicine also for RA (which is what my mom has). Here's what the first one of those sites told about. They reported that healthcare practitioners say that when a person with RA is given betaglucan, their symptoms get worse during the first few days, and then they will get exponentially better.

That doesn't answer your question, though. In other words, can you take both together.

So, I'm not sure if this helps. I'm happy to help if you have any questions. I set this to notify me if there are any reply postings.

Oops, I read your second post right now. You have to visit those two sites and rather use mushroom based stuff than the yeast thing. It's way more powerful. Here's what I would do. 1) first find out the names of the medicinal mushrooms from the first site, and see if you find what you are looking for and then 2) go to the pubmed site - it's maintained by the National Institute of Health -- and see what you can come up with if you use the name of the mushroom and the exact diagnosis keyword together.

That should do it. Btw, neither sites sell anything, and do not even have any ads, so you will still have to find your products somewhere else.

Good luck!

PS. I talked to a mushroom extract product provider near Portland, OR a couple of months ago. They said that the therapeutic dose of all these products is much higher (sometimes 5-10 times higher) than the recommended dose on the supplement bottle. This is because it is different to have an acute health problem than to consume a 'maintenance dosage'.