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Embarrassing newbie question


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Non embarrassing answer: We've all wondered that at some point..

 

A Herxheimer reaction (herxing) is basically a reaction that occurs when bacteria or yeast die off and the body cannot absorb the toxins quickly enough - resulting in a reaction. Often, the reaction looks like an intensified version of whatever the original symptoms were. Many people use various agents, such as charcoal and bentonite clay to try to absorb some of the toxins in the gut to reduce herxing. You will find many other remedies for herxing on this forum as different treatment seem to help different people.

 

Here is some more on herxing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herxheimer_reaction

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This is short for the Herxheimer Reaction - when there is die off of bacteria etc and the body can't detox quickly enough.

 

Hi kimballot - posted at the same time :)

Edited by Ozimum
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A Herxheimer reaction (herxing) is basically a reaction that occurs when bacteria or yeast die off and the body cannot absorb the toxins quickly enough - resulting in a reaction. Often, the reaction looks like an intensified version of whatever the original symptoms were. Many people use various agents, such as charcoal and bentonite clay to try to absorb some of the toxins in the gut to reduce herxing. You will find many other remedies for herxing on this forum as different treatment seem to help different people.

 

 

just wanted to mention that we had what we (and our dr) believe to be an extreme herx reaction to an antiviral treatment that included severe symptoms we had never seen before. food restrictions and food contamination issues. our dr commented that these may have come out in the future as general symptoms. they left without much influence from us -- which makes me further think it was a herx. it was not something i would have liked to go through without close guidance from our dr.

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To answer the next question that you didn't ask - what do you do for a herx?

As Kimballot said, it's caused by the body not being able to get rid of toxins released by dying bacteria.

 

So the first thing is to add detox aides - such as activated charcoal, bentonite clay - which absorb toxins. But these absorb everything, not just toxins, so they need to be taken hours apart from other things like abx, probiotics, supplements...

 

The second thing to consider is adding anti-oxidants. When toxins are in the body, they can cause cell damage and death. Antioxidants attach themselves to these "oxidized" cells and transport them out of the body. They are the body's scavenger janitors. The mother of all anti-oxidants is glutathione, which the body produces as part of the methylation cycle. But extrenal sources of glutathione are poorly absorbed. So you can take a pre-cursor - something that helps the body make more of its own glutathione. These would include alpha lipoic acid, CoQ10, NAC and others I can't think of right now. Resveratrol is a great antioxidant that comes from the skins of grapes (which is the thing that makes red wine "good for you") and a plant called japanese knotwood.

 

The third thing for detox is to do things that help the body with elimination. So magnesium to help "transit" time (magnesium is also great for the brain), Milk thistle or other supplement for liver support (the liver and kidneys are the body's main filtering systems), water to flush the kidneys, epsom salt baths, and plain 'ol sweating.

 

Finally, if a detox plan helps but not enough, you can consider scaling back on the dosing or frequency of the abx or herb that's doing the killing. Lower the abx or take it less frequently (with doctor's approval of course). No point in killing the bacteria if you kill the patient in the process. Slow and steady. If the body is telling you it can't handle the load, sometimes it helps to reduce the load for a time.

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