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possible to build tolerance to buhner type herbals?

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Posted 10/28/2021 8:40 AM (GMT -5)
my llmd has me on alternating 10 day pattern with 2 days of rest to prevent acclimating. I've never seen anyone else have breaks in their schedule so;

question one: does constant herbals cause resistance or impede efficacy

question two: if such an acclimation is to occur is it reversible? if treatment was abated for 3//6/12 months etc would it's potency be restored?

thanks
Posted 10/28/2021 9:40 AM (GMT -5)
Interesting question. One time I had a family member on Houttuynia, and she seemed to have productive herxing for about a week or so but then seemed to hit a brick wall. Maybe it's because she has other issues combined with whatever the Houtt was hitting. I dunno. She appears to herx at times and other times just worsens on it. Might try Houtt and Sida Acuta together.

I think most people take the herbs every day and don't pulse.
Posted 10/28/2021 10:01 AM (GMT -5)
Buhner has been asked this question and always responds that herbs are different to antibiotics in that the plants have many many different chemicals in each one - rather than a single chemical as in most abx - such that microbes are not able to build tolerance via genetic adaptation to create resistance to herbs - as it would require many different genetic adaptations to happen at once - which doesn't really happen.

this is the same argument used when multiple antibiotics are used in treating certain infections to prevent bacteria types that are known to develop resistance to single agents from doing so.

antibiotics are really just natural compounds that are isolated and given in mega doses compared to what is seen in nature - so the same general principals should apply.

Note - not all bacteria have been shown to develop genetically adapted resistance however - borrelia burgdorferi has never been demonstrated to do this for instance - whereas many of the alpha proteobacteria group ( that includes bartonella, rickettsia, q-fever, etc ) are known to.

in lab studies with antibiotics - they can force resistance to develop by optimising growing conditions - then giving a non-bactericidal dose of a single antibiotic - and then taking the surviving organisms to fresh media without abx and growing these on and then repeating the process over and over ( thereby selecting the bacteria that have adapted via random mutations to survive the antibiotic better ) until they get a population that grows freely even with the antibiotic present. it typically takes many cycles.

some species do this more readily than others - typically fast growing ones with more replication cycles per day and more random mutations - than the slow growing ones i think.

i doubt this research has ever been done on herbs - or will be v limited if it has
Posted 10/28/2021 10:23 AM (GMT -5)
IrishLymie,

Hi! I can confirm what Garzie said regarding Buhner’s opinion on the matter.

That said, 10 days on 2 days off doesn’t sound like a bad idea, and I have thought about doing that myself with some treatments. Acclimating could mean something other than resistance of the microbes to the herbs. Acclimating could mean how your body responds to treatment.

Having a 10/2 schedule could also really help your body keep up with detoxing and reduce herxes and the necessity of stopping/restarting or backing off on doses that many people end up having to do when they get caught in a perpetual or particularly severe herx.

——-
question one: does constant herbals cause resistance or impede efficacy

- none that I know except artemisinin (not whole herb artemisia)

question two: if such an acclimation is to occur is it reversible?

- I don’t know. Probably but possibly not but maybe not for the reasons it seems.

if treatment was abated for 3//6/12 months etc would it's potency be restored?

- Iffy. I have been on this forum daily for years. I can attest to hearing reports of people who relapsed and went back to what worked before (herbs and/or abx) to no avail.

I would not recommend stopping treatment for that long a period. A week or so - okay. Not months. Changing treatment is fine if something is no longer working, at any point in time. The rule of thumb that I have heard consistently is treat 2-3 months after symptoms are gone.

I am of the persuasion that our bodies are host to all sorts of pathogens, and we all have a load of whatever toxins we have accumulated from our environment, combined with our genetics and genomics (gene activations). All these things are dynamic, moving parts. Treatment or not affects those dynamics. That often necessitates changes in treatment.

While we know a lot more than we did 10-15 years ago, there’s still a whole lot of guessing going on about what we don’t know. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Intuition can be a better guide than science in many cases.

Just my 2 cents worth.
Posted 10/28/2021 11:30 AM (GMT -5)
yep - the artemisinin loses effectiveness quite quickly - but not because of bacterial / parasite tolerance - rather because the body ramps up excretion buy the liver - so that on day 8 the blood levels are approx. 20% of day 1 despite constant dosing - ref Buhner's book
Posted 10/29/2021 11:25 PM (GMT -5)
thanks guys
Posted 10/30/2021 6:17 AM (GMT -5)
As mentioned by Garzie and WBF, microorganisms have a harder time gaining resistance when multiple agents are involved.

In fact, there is one study that adds herbs to antibiotics to prevent the microorganisms to become resistant to the antibiotics. As the herbs and antibiotics will work synergistic.

Quotes:

" In some cases, MDR microorganisms, which are called “pan-resistant organisms”, have become resistant to all the available antibiotics and cannot be treated with any single antibiotic alone "

[...]

"One such novel therapeutic strategy involves the use of natural antimicrobial compounds such as plant-derived products such as spices, essential oils, the extracts or the consumption of herbal teas alone or in combination with antibiotics."

[...]

"Antibiotic and herbal tea combinations may be recommended for severe infections in order to rapidly enhance bactericidal activity and help prevent or delay the emergence of resistance."

[...]

"The most desirable targets for combination therapy is synergistic drug interactions followed by the prevention of resistance and minimization of toxicity and cost."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc5533155/
Posted 10/30/2021 1:40 PM (GMT -5)
I think its just too much stuff. When you take 3 antibiotics its 3 chemicals. If you were to take 3 herbals its way more then 3 chemicals. Each herbal is not just chemical X. Its chemical x,y,z and many more. Even if some have little effect on a organism they are still helping to avoid resistance.
Posted 10/30/2021 4:47 PM (GMT -5)
LLMD MR re: Artemisinin

“ Artemisinin resistance can occur for two reasons. First, the liver learns to clean artemisinin out more quickly after a person is on it for a few days. The other mechanism could be similar to what happens in malaria. In malaria, partial resistance develops in the germ after a few days. In malaria, it is shown that artemisinin works best by pulsing on and off the drug like I recommend above.”
Posted 10/31/2021 12:42 PM (GMT -5)

Girlie said...
LLMD MR re: Artemisinin

“ Artemisinin resistance can occur for two reasons. First, the liver learns to clean artemisinin out more quickly after a person is on it for a few days. The other mechanism could be similar to what happens in malaria. In malaria, partial resistance develops in the germ after a few days. In malaria, it is shown that artemisinin works best by pulsing on and off the drug like I recommend above.”

yep - just as a point of clarification though
Although its based on a compound found in a herb - artemisinin is a single chemical - not a herb - so the same rules as other pharma antibiotics apply - some organisms do develop resistance to single chemicals.
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