Anyone know about these herbs/supplements?

[kmom]

DS and I had appt w/ the nutritionist today. DD saw her last week so today we got to dive a little deeper into everything aside from having our first formal consult (we touched upon DS and me @ DD's consult last week). Aside from our abx treatment and other stuff like multi vitamin, fish oil, Vit. D3, probiotics, low dose naltrexone, milk thistle and charcoal/bentonite clay, she added some other supplements/herbs--as if that didn't make me feel like a mom/pharmacist already. She added: Calcium Lactate, Immunplex, Cat's Claw Complex, Dermacol, Superzymes, Ultra-Proteozimes and finally a shake called Ultra Infalmmax 360 mixed w/ Glutagenics. (Shake is known for healing leaky gut syndrome and inflammation which all 3 of us seem to suffer from.) Not only is all this costing a ton, I get worried. Is all this good for us? Does it make a significant difference? She makes sense when we talk about what to take and why but it's seems like so much. Just wondering if others are doing a lot of herbs/supplements and if you think it's made a huge difference. I ready a study on Cat's Claw Complex and it seems to make a huge difference but that's just what I read. Are there 5 other studies out there saying it doesn't help? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[MichaelTampa]

I am familiar with some of those, but not all. I have taken lots of supplements over time, some of the ones listed, and they really help quite a lot, absolutely. But not every supplement on somebody's standard list is going to help everybody. It is a bit individualized. This is why I think having the skill of "energy testing" each supplement is so important. It can save lots of time and money and other problems when you avoid taking something that won't help or is even bad for you.

 

The vitamin D3 is of course really a hormone and I do recommend being careful with it, as I would with any hormone. It can help your body fight the lyme, and it can also be used by the lyme to fight your body. No textbooks are out there right now that can tell you if it will help or harm your situation.

 

Probiotics, of some form, is something most people will almost certainly want/need when they are taking long-term antibiotics. Nystatin (a prescription antifungal) can also be very helpful there.

 

I have read a bit about cat's claw, and there are certainly mixed thoughts on this. Pure whole cat's claw comes with chemicals called TOA's that some say should be taken out cause they can be disruptive, so there is TOA-free cat's claw out there. Then Buhner (the lyme herb guy) recommends whole cat's claw, as that is admittedly his bias for all herbs is the whole herb. My experience puts me down more on the TOA-free side, I energy tested better for it that way, but I really never used it much either way, it didn't do much for me. That's just my experience. By the way, there are also reports that use of cat's claw can make future use of fluoroquinolones much less effective, as the bugs can adapt to it. Fluoroquinolones like levaquin and factive are used for bartonella, the coinfection frequently involved with PANDAS-like neurological-like lyme symptoms. Last I read, these fluoroquinolones are not recommended for kids. They can cause tendon damage, and perhaps that's the reason, but I have not heard the reason.