Posted by bleauberry on January 15, 2014, at 9:01:38
In reply to Psychiatric Cocktail, posted by bleauberry on January 15, 2014, at 8:14:34
I want to add a few comments as follow up.
Do you know what a Herxheimer reaction is? If no, please google it and become familiar with it. There is a decent chance you may experience this. You need to be able to discern that is what is happening, and to back off on the doses or even take a couple days off if that happens. Basically, it is just too much toxic crap being stirred up from bacterial death and other stuff, the immune system becomes overwhelmed, plumbing slows down, and it just feels bad. It is basically a "cytokine storm". Though it feels bad, it also is good in the sense that it confirms in a very loud manner that you are on the right track.
What might one feel the first few days? Is there any sort of diagnostic pattern to look for?
Predicting how you might feel in the first few days is impossible. We have no idea what is wrong inside your body and we will probably never know. Validation we did the right thing or not comes after treatment. There is little risk, practically zero toxicity, so we have nothing to lose, only gain.
Here is a diagnostic pattern that plays out with both pharmaceutical antibiotics as well as herbs. The very first day, or maybe the 2nd day, maybe the 3rd day....early in treatment...your experience might be "feel better than in a long time, almost like a miracle". Enjoy it but don't throw a party....this effect is short lived. Call it the honeymoon. Back to the old symptoms again real soon, and maybe worse than before. All good.
So what's going on there? Early in treatment, any offending pathogenic microbials will sort of be stunned, paralyzed, stopped, slowed down....but not killed, not dead. In this stunned state, their toxins stop. And you feel a lot better. Or maybe if there are no pathogenic issues, the herbs reduced inflammation, but now that other stuff is working better without that inflammation, the immune system is automatically naturally beefed up and bad stuff is going to get killed no matter what, even without direct antibacterial efforts. The herbs are going to change stuff, and a "healing crisis" could happen. Now, the honeymoon comes to an abrupt end when the bugs whatever they are start to die, about 3 or 4 days later. That's when the first Herx might well show up.
Feel better real fast....short honeymoon...followed by sort of a crash....highly diagnostic. When an MD suspects an infection such as lyme, but they want just one more piece of the puzzle to further cement their suspicions, the above pattern does that. This is very important because we do not have reliable accurate tests. So what we see happen clinically is more important than any lab test.
The supps I mentioned can be viewed as a base. Lots of stuff can be added to it. For example maybe if one of your major issues is anxiety, lemon balm can help while waiting on the rhodiola to smooth out and do its thing. If candida, yeast, or fungi is suspected rather than bacteria, the herbs will work on those too, but you could add other herbs very specific to those, such as grapefruit seed extract, oil of oregano, garlic (raw not cooked not processed), pau d'arco, and more. If more support in the pain/inflammation department is needed, then there are things like curcumin, which some docs consider mandatory, or boswellia, and a number of others. Willow is what aspirin is derived from, and the raw plant itself is a good herb for pain/inflammation. On and on. Add on what you think you might need. Experiment. Don't give up. The rest of your life and all of your well being, will be determined by how much faith and persistence you put into it.
A half hearted effort will probably predict a worthless outcome. So if you are feeling sort of on the fence, half hearted, not sure, that is fine, go forward with it anyway, but take it in small steps and mark on your calendar several months to dabble with the stuff. Be faithful to it. Do your work. Do your experiments. By the end of it all, you probably won't be half hearted about it any more. You will have experienced stuff, seen stuff, learned stuff, that puts you in a better position going forward to win the war.
All of this, all of it, assumes that your psychiatric symptoms have at their root cause one or all of these:
Unknown unsuspected chronic low level infection spewing neurotoxins into the bloodstream. lyme is most common, but there are at least a dozen others. Testing is not reliable. Since estimates are that only 1 out of 10 lyme cases is accurately diagnosed, that means a whole lot of people at pbabble have some strong potential issues there. What is maybe the most common symptom? Depression, with an without anxiety. Most patients complain of pains, but sometimes it is just depression.
Unknown unsuspected inflammation. Brain inflammation, nerve endings inflammation...obvious to see how that might mess up someone's mood center really badly. No accurate testing.
Unknown unsuspected neurotoxic accumulation. About 20% of the population has a faulty gene, resulting in poor ability to excrete normal toxins in our food, water, and air. Trace amounts build up over time and accumulate, to the point of overload and sickness. Add to that the mountains of toxins from a confused immune system attacking your own flesh, or the toxins of normal daily bacterial lives, you are going to be feeling like crap especially in psychiatric ways. If there is a serious issue in this department, even exercise might make you feel like crap. How often have we seen someone here complain that exercise made their depression worse? A lot. It happens. That's why. Toxic build up, too much. Exercise releases a lot of toxins.
The whole thing assumes the above are true. I believe they are true. Based on my own journeys, there is nothing I could do to disprove them. I've tried. I am naturally very suspicious and distrusting of anything new or anything without solid backing. If you don't know the stuff I have written, then to you it is new. Since I am just a stranger on the internet to you, then there should be suspicion. All good. Normal. Healthy. The greatest thing we can do, according to the Bible, other than love Jesus, is gather wisdom.
My suspicions and doubts had to be confronted head on. There is no way to know what might have happened, unless one actually does it. Those are some really good herbs, and I see a very strong application for them in the world of psychiatric treatment. While they can help directly with symptoms, as meds do, they go further than that by actually suppressing or eliminating the cause of the symptoms in the first place.
If during the process it was determined that a hidden lyme infection was uncovered, then at some point pharmaceutical antibiotics will likely be required to finish the job. The herbs have the advantages of:
-hitting a wide range of depression causes all at the same time
-uncovering new clues previously hidden
-pave the path for true healing, not just symptom controlThrough it all, do what you and your doc decide in terms of meds. He will not likely know much about plant medicine, especially the ones I mentioned, so don't even go there. They are all safe with meds and non toxic with very low risk of anything. He can manage the meds side of the equation, you manage the plants and supps. If he says no to supps and no to herbs, run out of there and start looking for a new doctor. My opinion, not suggestion.
poster:bleauberry
thread:1058591
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20131226/msgs/1058592.html