Helpful Hints for Battling a Herxheimer Reaction - or - my adventures with Teasel
Posted Jul 04 2010 10:00pm
After reading the book Healing Lyme Disease Naturally , I was inspired to add teasel root tincture to my Lyme treatment protocol. Teasel is a plant with powerful anti-Lyme properties, and is successful in killing the Borrelia bacteria. I spoke to my naturopath about it at my appointment a couple weeks ago, and we decided to go with it. I started taking the teasel root tincture, slowly building up the dosage, and just waited to see what would happen. My naturopath had warned me that people Herx badly on this stuff, and I'd read it on the book and online.
About 36 hours later, it hit me: a got whalloped with a nasty Herx.
I love it when my medicine comes with a handwritten label. There is so much power in this little bottle.
A Herx, more formally known as a Herxheimer reaction, is when there is a massive die-off of bacteria and your body is suddenly overrun by toxins. Your system freaks out, because you are filling up with toxins faster than your body can purge them. Your liver gets overworked, your symptoms flare up, and you basically feel like you have a super flu times 80 million. In short, it sucks, and you never know how long it is going to last. Eventually, things even out, and then you come out the other side feeling better. But the journey stinks, and it is easy to think about quitting. This is why so many Lyme patients never make it through treatment - it is sometimes rather intolerable.
After reading the book Healing Lyme Disease Naturally , I was inspired to add teasel root tincture to my Lyme treatment protocol. Teasel is a plant with powerful anti-Lyme properties, and is successful in killing the Borrelia bacteria. I spoke to my naturopath about it at my appointment a couple weeks ago, and we decided to go with it. I started taking the teasel root tincture, slowly building up the dosage, and just waited to see what would happen. My naturopath had warned me that people Herx badly on this stuff, and I'd read it on the book and online.
About 36 hours later, it hit me: a got whalloped with a nasty Herx.
A Herx, more formally known as a Herxheimer reaction, is when there is a massive die-off of bacteria and your body is suddenly overrun by toxins. Your system freaks out, because you are filling up with toxins faster than your body can purge them. Your liver gets overworked, your symptoms flare up, and you basically feel like you have a super flu times 80 million. In short, it sucks, and you never know how long it is going to last. Eventually, things even out, and then you come out the other side feeling better. But the journey stinks, and it is easy to think about quitting. This is why so many Lyme patients never make it through treatment - it is sometimes rather intolerable.