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High enough herb dose (Buhner)?

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Posted 12/14/2019 9:11 PM (GMT -5)
Hello all,
So I've been following Buhners protocol for two months now and continue to slow increase my dosages. My question is how will I know when I've reached a high enough dose? I know I will have to remain on the protocol for a long time, but how will I know the dosage I am on is correct? Thanks!
Posted 1/31/2020 5:41 PM (GMT -5)
Wow! Cauliflower Queen, so sorry you got no responses to this. I don’t remember even seeing this post.

Buhner gives a target dose range for each herb. Many (perhaps most!) find Buhner’s starting doses too high, especially for the antimicrobials.

The answer to your question is really dependent on your individual response to each herb. I would suggest using Buhner’s guidelines and working towards that as you get a feel for how your body is responding.

You’re now 3.5 months in. How do you feel? Have any symptoms improved? Have you had herxes from anything? Have you gotten a feel for which herbs you respond well to and which ones you don’t?

As for your basic question, I will tell you what I have heard. Buhner stated that he knows of super sensitive people who did get better or recover even at whatever tiny dose they could tolerate.

RealFoodRebel, who completely recovered using Buhner’s protocol and shared her story on her blog of the same name, said she saw many on Lyme forums fail to recover because they wouldn’t take high enough doses of the herbs due to fear of herxing.

I am one of the super sensitive tiny dose people and have been on the protocol over 2.5 years now. I have not recovered. I have had improvements in some things and decline in others. Mold is a huge factor for me, and I have one of the dreaded genes for biotoxins, which may or may not, be a significant factor.

I also have major gut issues that I have failed to resolve during my treatment and have not changed my diet significantly for any reasonable period of time.

Ongoing battles with mold exposure - past and present - and gut dysfunction along with poor diet are likely the lynchpins holding me back.

I have noticed being on Rx antifungals that I was able to tolerate higher doses of many things.

All these details are given just to give you my perspective and some food for thought.
Posted 1/31/2020 11:53 PM (GMT -5)
Thanks for your response. I am feeling better, although I still get stuck in the same pattern no matter what I seem to do - I increase the dose, feel pretty good about a day and a half, then herx, but try to keep going, then maybe back off a day and then feel good (my “back off” days continue to feel progressively better), then resume, still feel ok, then bam not so good, then back off....repeat... oh well sigh...
Posted 2/1/2020 7:19 PM (GMT -5)
I’m 6 months into treating with Buhner herbs and I just got to 60 drops a day, yes it took me that long because of herxing. I had multiple times where I would drop the herbs back to 20 drops a day or even skip a day just to get things under control.
Posted 2/1/2020 8:09 PM (GMT -5)
I was just wondering which of the Buhner protocols you guys are using? Lyme, Bart or something else?
Wife stopped antibiotics in November and started the Buhner protocol for Bartonella.
Since she has taken most of the herbs before, she started out with a dropper full of each and has stayed at that dose since the end of November.
Thinking about increasing dosages.
She feels that she has had improvement overall from the herbs, but still has bad days, better and worse days, but still a lot better than when we started this Journey four years ago.
Still not very active tho.
Not sure how you tell if you are having a flare, a herx, or something else.
So anyway I was just wondering which protocol you guys were using
Posted 2/2/2020 12:10 AM (GMT -5)
Yes, orbitingvaround, we sound similar. I’m at 3 core (jk, cc, andro) capsules 3 times a day and it varies for my tinctures- between 15-30 drops depending on the herb, but some days I have to drop right down.

Mkij, I’m doing a combo of the Lyme and Bart (there’s overlap). I find the bart herbs are the strongest for me (sida acuta and Houttuynia).
Posted 2/2/2020 7:33 AM (GMT -5)

Cauliflower Queen said...
Thanks for your response. I am feeling better, although I still get stuck in the same pattern no matter what I seem to do - I increase the dose, feel pretty good about a day and a half, then herx, but try to keep going, then maybe back off a day and then feel good (my “back off” days continue to feel progressively better), then resume, still feel ok, then bam not so good, then back off....repeat... oh well sigh...

This sounds EXACTLY like what I experienced the first 10 months of treatment. I kept trying to increase doses and felt like I would take one step forward and two steps back all the way. I was determined to keep trying.

In the 10th month, I had a massive expulsion of some kind of pathogenic mess from my gut and had an extremely irritated GI tract for about a week. I stopped all my herbs except knotweed during part of that time. When I restarted, I had to drop doses way back and take herbs only 2x day instead of 3x day. I felt relief after making those changes, because I had felt like I had been herxing most of the time since I had started and was tired of constant pain and misery.

After that, I stopped trying to increase doses and just kind of tried to stay consistent and comfortable. After a while, though, I felt I was declining. Turned out, I was being exposed to increasing levels of mold in the house. This was over a long period of time - a little over a year.

After identifying and getting away from mold again, stabilizing mast cells, and starting Rx antifungals to help my gut, I started trying to increase certain herbs again - mainly knotweed. I quickly went from 3/4 tsp to 1 tsp (powder) and increased tinctures by a few drops. I found I was able to tolerate higher doses of herbs with no problem.

I still have a lot of work to do regarding mold and my gut. I’ll get there. It’s taking me a long time because I haven’t been able to get in a clean enough environment. Hopefully, that will change soon. In the meantime, I keep taking what I have been taking.
Posted 2/2/2020 7:45 AM (GMT -5)
MKij,

I started out mainly with most of Buhner’s bartonella protocol plus cat’s claw, Gou-teng, and Chinese skullcap and Red sage/Danshen for Lyme and immune modulation.

As time went on, I dropped some and added orhers.

What I take now:
Japanese knotweed
Cat’s claw
Houttynia,
Alchornea
Bidens pilosa
Chinese skullcap
Sida acuta
Red root
Osha root
Isatis (will take a break now)
Lomatium (will take a break now)
Ran out of lion’s mane, red sage, gou-teng and haven’t reordered yet. Tried andrographis recently for maybe 2 weeks at 3-5 drops. Had a flare of some symptoms and stopped to see if it was a herx from the andrographis. The symptoms did stop, but I haven’t restarted andrographis to confirm it was that.

Edit: I take a bunch of supportive stuff too - hawthorn, rhodiola, ashwaganda, milk thistle, and too many supplements to list.
Posted 2/2/2020 7:53 AM (GMT -5)
The strongest herbs to me are also houtty and sida.

I could probably tolerate much higher doses of some things than what I take and just haven’t taken the time to experiment.

With houtty and sida acuta, though, I am pretty sure if I accidentally took a dropperful, I would get hit hard. It’s been a long time now since I took enough to make me herx, but if I remember right, houtty seemed to hit nerves more and sida hit me in the head.
Posted 2/2/2020 5:25 PM (GMT -5)
Hi Cauliflower Queen and WalkingbyFaith

I still have to figure out how to do the quote text thing.

Thank you both for replying.
We started out doing the lyme protocol at the same time as doing antibiotics.
Not sure how much the herbs were helping at that time as I don’t think my wife was taking them regularly. She has a lot of brain fog and thinking issues, and I think it was confusing her trying to start out low and slow and build up. So we leaned more on the anabiotic’s at that time.
I am thinking, hoping that we have the lyme under control and now most of her symptoms seem to be Bartonella. Positive test in October.

WalkingbyFaith The protocol sounds very similar to what we are using.
Have not tried Osha root yet but actually just ordered it about three days ago And have not received it yet. Did it do anything for you?

We did Isatis, Greater celandine, Bidens pilosa along with the protocol for 3 weeks, stopped for a couple weeks and added them back in for 3 weeks and now back off them... not sure if we will add them back again or not.

Our protocol
Japanese knotweed
Cordyceps
Sida acuta
Red root
Milk thisle Standardized capsules
Hawthorn
Houttuynia
Alchornea cordifolia
Berberine - Oregon grape root
Kudzu root
Motherwort
Cryptolepis
Lions mane
Eletherococcus
Pomegranate juice
Turmeric
Wild Yam
Solomon seal
Boswellia - capsules

I think the pomegranate juice helps.. seems like if she takes it, about 2 or 3 ounces each time she takes her herbs throughout the day, I seem to think that maybe she has less inflammation.
I wonder if anyone else has tried pomegranate juice and if it has done anything for them.
Posted 2/2/2020 5:31 PM (GMT -5)
I wonder how much difference it makes to take larger amounts of herbs. If you read what different herbalists say. The dosages for the same herb will vary between herbalists.
Posted 2/2/2020 6:42 PM (GMT -5)

MKij said...
Hi Cauliflower Queen and WalkingbyFaith

I still have to figure out how to do the quote text thing.

Thank you both for replying.
We started out doing the lyme protocol at the same time as doing antibiotics.
Not sure how much the herbs were helping at that time as I don’t think my wife was taking them regularly. She has a lot of brain fog and thinking issues, and I think it was confusing her trying to start out low and slow and build up. So we leaned more on the anabiotic’s at that time.
I am thinking, hoping that we have the lyme under control and now most of her symptoms seem to be Bartonella. Positive test in October.

WalkingbyFaith The protocol sounds very similar to what we are using.
Have not tried Osha root yet but actually just ordered it about three days ago And have not received it yet. Did it do anything for you?

We did Isatis, Greater celandine, Bidens pilosa along with the protocol for 3 weeks, stopped for a couple weeks and added them back in for 3 weeks and now back off them... not sure if we will add them back again or not.

Our protocol
Japanese knotweed
Cordyceps
Sida acuta
Red root
Milk thisle Standardized capsules
Hawthorn
Houttuynia
Alchornea cordifolia
Berberine - Oregon grape root
Kudzu root
Motherwort
Cryptolepis
Lions mane
Eletherococcus
Pomegranate juice
Turmeric
Wild Yam
Solomon seal
Boswellia - capsules

I think the pomegranate juice helps.. seems like if she takes it, about 2 or 3 ounces each time she takes her herbs throughout the day, I seem to think that maybe she has less inflammation.
I wonder if anyone else has tried pomegranate juice and if it has done anything for them.

To quote: when you’re reading the post you want to quote - click on the quote button above the post.

It will put that quote into a new post. Then you can type your response after it.
You can also remove some of the text if you’re only wanting quote a part of the person’s quote
Posted 2/2/2020 7:26 PM (GMT -5)

To quote: when you’re reading the post you want to quote - click on the quote button above the post.

It will put that quote into a new post. Then you can type your response after it.
You can also remove some of the text if you’re only wanting quote a part of the person’s quote


Ok I think I got it

Thank you Girlie
Posted 2/2/2020 10:16 PM (GMT -5)
Unfortunately the recent forum upgrade doesn’t allow several quotes in a row to show up correctly.

So you quoting me after I quoted you - it’s somewhat screwed up.

You can do it manually (without the quote function tab ) but that’s a little more involved.
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