posted
I am considering starting the Buhner protocol and adding in some antibiotics to help lower the bacterial load. (I saw no improvement in 6 months of antibiotic therapy)
In his book he says "This core protocol can be used along with antibiotc therapy and will increase the positive outcomes from antibiotics considerably."
I wonder what he's basing this on? Has he done his own experiments with this?
Jim: (or anyone else experienced with this protocol)
Anyways I was just curious, what made you start the Buhner Protocol??? Its a fairly new protcol correct? Did you know someone who had good results from this protcol or did you just jump into it and hope for the best?
Right now i'm calculating the costs, jeez, at full dose I would be taking 4pills x 4 times a day = ALOT OF PILLS!! How much did this protocol cost you monthly before you began buying herbs in bulk?
So you take all of your pills in between main meal and dessert? YOu take them all at once? At full dosage 5 CORE herbs = 4x each pill = 20 pills!!
How quickly did you see improvements? Thanks.
Posts: 170 | From Vancouver | Registered: Apr 2006
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JimBoB
Unregistered
posted
Hi Jon:
Welcome to the "club".
I have had Lyme since October 1999. I did not go to a doctor until March of 2000. Course NOW we all know that was WAY too long to wait.
He gave me Cipro for 24 days. It worked great, the pain went away. BUT that only lasted about 8 or 9 months and then the pain kept coming slowly back.
Until, by fall of 2005 I thought I was going to die. My duck, er, doc said I was cured and ALL people are with 21 days of abx, so would not do anything more about it. JERK!
So, since I had NO money and NO help, I was on MY OWN. I found LymeNet and on it the first day I saw the Amazon advertisement to the left of this page, and lo and behold the Healing Lyme book was on it. SO I ordered it INSTANTLY.
When it came I read it as fast as I could with my brain fog. Ordered some of the herbs, and wondered how I too would pay for them at maximum. I also ordered MORE than the Core Protocol herbs.
SO I sold an old car, paid some bills and bought a bunch of herbs. Enough for a month or two. But then I thought, NOW what will I do when I run out and no money. (I was on Social Security, which at less than $500 a month, is not much to live on).
So I found out about BULK HERBS and got empty capsules and a machine and ordered all these things from various companies I found on the net. Wasn't easy. Now what I do is much easier.
Get almost ALL my herbs now from 1st Chinese Herbs, and get my empty capsules by the 1,000's from WonderLabs.com, which is by far the cheapest. I also get some vitamins from them.
FREE shipping with $40 of herbs from 1st Chinese, and FREE shipping on $100 or more from WonderLabs.
You probably save about 80% by doing your own capsules. It does take time, but I do it only while I am watching TV anyway. So killing two birds with one stone, as it were.
I have been on herbs for 15 months now. I would NEVER want to go back to abx. NEVER. Ugh!!!
I noticed improvement in just a few short days and tremendous improvement in 11 or 12 days, on the herbs. With NO abx. I added in the abx later, Tetracycline, then Doxycycline, but felt much worse on it. Killed my stomach. So quit them altogether in February 2006 and have never looked back.
I did take about 3 weeks of Amoxicillin this winter for Prostatitis. That was low dosage, 500 to 750mg a day. It was tough on my stomach also, but found I could manage it, IF I took it BEFORE my meal with about 1/3 of a glass of skim milk. Glad I am back off of it though. It DID help the prostatitis. And who knows, maybe it did help kill some Lyme Spirochetes.
I am only taking about half as many pills now as I was at my maximum. But still a lot more than 20 pills at a time.
I WAS up to about 93 pills a day when I was at my max. It was split in to three doses. NOW I just do TWO doses. I STILL take the SAME amount of Devil's Claw. I feel IT is important for my arthritis and inflammation symptoms.
ALSO, If you look up other threads on this list, on herbs, you will find what ALL I have taken and HOW they affected me.
Herbs work when abx no longer will. THEY work on a totally different principal than the abx. THEY build you up. Abx tears you down, for the most part. Abx KILLS. THAT is how they are designed to work.
Herbs help build up your OWN immune system AND the rest of your body, IF you take the right ones. THAT is where Buhner comes in. Read his book thoroughly. Ask questions, NOT of doctors, but of those who have experience in herbs, especially with Lyme, and you will be able to improve your system.
And speaking of system, don't ignore yours, by thinking KILL, but HOW to BUILD YOURS UP. Don't forget to take Sarsaparilla, Red Root tincture, and probably Milk THistle, also to cleanse your Lymph System, which includes your liver.
posted
i used arteminisinin,and added maca,for energy,and i also added bentonite for toxin release. I purchased the actual herb at first chinese herbs.com I filled my own capsules,it is very inexpensive,and worked for me i was on antibiotics for 9 years,and only got to a point,that i had no life.Noew i have a little bit of a life.Not 100 percent but doing better.You may want to read about maca and bentonite.I taloiored my herbs to match my symptoms.I also take 4 drops of oil of oregano 3 times a day.
Posts: 510 | From NEVERLAND.USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Thanks for your story Jim. For now I will just purchase the capsulated herbs.
So you took all of your doses inbetween main meal and your dessert? So like 20 different pills one after another at once? Posts: 170 | From Vancouver | Registered: Apr 2006
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hardynaka
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 8099
posted
Jon, it does look absurd, the number of capsules.
But all in his protocol are either used to ingesting large amounts of pills many times a day
OR they do sort of smothies with something else (when they get trouble to swallow pills)
OR they do teas (less effective according to Buhner though, but that's the way the Chinese do)
OR they take tinctures(same as above).
I took LOTS of pills for a long time.
You'll start to see them as food!
Selma
Posts: 1086 | From Switzerland | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
Many people can not get to a high dose of the herbs very fast . Some people never need to . They start feeling better on a low dose after about four months.
Some have severe herxing and have to keep the dose low ( to tolerance ) for quite a while . ( This isnot uncommon ) . The bottom line isthat it is VERY Individual .
I suspect the men can tolerate higher doses faster judging from the personal messages I have from those I have questioned . The women I have spoken with had been on the protocol several months and were still just taking four capsules of andro daily ( total) , plus the other herbs athat are part of the core protocol . AND THEY WERE feeling better ( after some ROUGH herxing early on ).
Jim Bob made amazing progress rather quickly . He is also right about the need to take detox seriously .
The sarsaparilla did not help me , but the red root tincture does seem to really help so far !
There are other things you can take for detox too .
Did you ever try minocycline? It is an ABX that penetrates tissue deeper than some of the other ABX . I believe you said you did not have improvement on ABX thus far .
I have NEVER heard of anyone who did not herx like H-ll on minocycline . EVEN A LOW DOSE .
quote:Originally posted by Jon: Thanks for your story Jim. For now I will just purchase the capsulated herbs.
So you took all of your doses inbetween main meal and your dessert? So like 20 different pills one after another at once?
TIP: If you plan on eating that many gelcaps, I'd advise using vegetarian capsules. Veggie-caps cost a bit more, but are made of cellulose(s), which as you know is fiber. Gelatin capsules kinda slow up digestion imo.
I'm using gelatin caps now as a friend of mine was nice enough to give me 1000 free capsules.
Over the years I've gotten used to taking pills. I throw like 5 in my mouth at once and swallow like 2 at a time. I could easily eat like 30 capsules in a couple minutes.
However, since I've been on the sugar-free, no fruit type diet, my taste buds have adjusted and pretty much nothing tastes nasty anymore. I put a chunk of an andrographis tablet in my mouth before sleep and let it sit there to combat oral pathogens hehe. So sometimes I dump out the contents of capsules, or if I have bulk herbs, I just put it in a cup and drink it. Mixing a lot of inositol can make the taste better if desired.
-------------------- "You know, the worst, meanest, nastiest, ticks in the world are politicks," - Steve Nostrum Posts: 242 | From South NJ | Registered: Dec 2006
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JimBoB
Unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Jon: Thanks for your story Jim. For now I will just purchase the capsulated herbs.
So you took all of your doses inbetween main meal and your dessert? So like 20 different pills one after another at once?
YES, Jon, all at once, three times a day. Now only two times a day. More than 20 though at a time.
I really don't consider them medicine though. Just a healthier form of my meal.
posted
I started out with Gelatin caps, but have ONLY used veggie caps for many, many months. About 50% more in cost, but I just didn't want to put that much bovine stuff into me, not knowing WHAT they did with them. OR IF some diseases SHOULD take over.
Your choice on that though.
Buhner doesn't recommend one over the other.
As far as making FAST progress. Yes, I did, right in the beginning on only a few pills a day. It was like a miracle.
However a few are not enough to keep you there, usually. Take AS MANY AS YOU CAN HANDLE up to Buhner's recommendations. AND I do NOT mean JUST the core protocol. Expand out to Stephania Root, Devil's Claw, Periwinkle, Nettle, etc., etc..
You can NOT know JUST HOW MUCH something like Sarsaparilla is reall helping you on the whole. Sarsaparilla is a great blood cleanser, it helps for Arthritis, skin disorders, cancer, fever, digestive disorders, asthma, type 2 diabetes, dysentery, etc..
Maybe it will only help YOU a little on some of these things, but who are you to say it does NO good for you. Unless you can get inside your body with somekind of vision tools and actually see and KNOW what is happening there, you cannot say it is NOT helping you at all.
WHEN I quit ALL my herbs for Lyme. I will STILL continue to take Sarsaparilla. Whether I "think" I need it or not. PERIOD.
Even doctors don't know WHAT we need exactly, HOW can WE say we know so much more than the experts that have studied this for centuries?
I have an IQ of 141. But when it comes to medicine and what really helps us overall in our systems, it probably isn't even an 80. So I will leave WHAT these all important herbs do to the experts.
posted
A member on this forum says that she buys the herbs bulk and instead of encapsulating them in pills she just mixes the herbs in water and drinks it down. I am thinking i will do this since I don't mind any bad tastes.
Posts: 170 | From Vancouver | Registered: Apr 2006
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JimBoB
Unregistered
posted
Hopefully you won't get an upset stomach. I would still take them with my meals.
Good luck. I SURE would NOT want to take andrographis that way. NOR some of the herbs that burn your mouth real bad, like Ginger.
posted
If you mix the herbs with some water , them chase them down quickly with lemonade or a tart juice, you could probably get used to it pretty quick . You just have to swallow it FAST .
And Jim Bob is right , it is best to take the herbs with some food rather than on an empty stomach .
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