Dear Stephen,
Do you think garlic is an exceptional plant to add for someone with lyme? You don’t say anything about it in your book, and I keep reading so much about it. Thanks a lot!
Stephen’s response:
I have written a lot about garlic over the past 20 years, especially in my book
Herbal Antibiotics. However, for lyme I do not think it a primary herb for treatment.
It can be a useful adjunct in that regular garlic in the diet does help raise immune function. But as a direct antibacterial for lyme I think it useless. The primary reason is that lyme is exceptionally systemic and goes deep within a number of tissues. Therefore any herb to be used as an antibacterial must be able to penetrate to these difficult to reach areas. Garlic, in my experience, does not.
The primary herbs that can be of potential benefit must possess the capacity to go systemic, like malarial herbs, or to cross the blood/brain barrier, like polygonum or andrographis. A lot of people have been using garlic for lyme for at least a decade. Reports from users do not indicate it to be a primary herb for the eradication of the disease. Too many of them show no or only minor relief from its use. So, I like it as a diet adjunct for stimulating immune function and health, not as an antibacterial in this condition.
Stephen
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Stephen Harrod Buhner was an Earth poet and an award-winning author of twenty-four books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, and herbal medicine including the acclaimed book Healing Lyme: Natural Healing & Prevention of Lyme Borreliosis & Its Co-infections.
Stephen came from a long line of healers including Leroy Burney, Surgeon General of the United States under Eisenhower and Kennedy, and Elizabeth Lusterheide, a midwife and herbalist who worked in rural Indiana in the early nineteenth century. The greatest influence on his work, however, was his great-grandfather C.G. Harrod who primarily used botanical medicines, also in rural Indiana, when he began his work as a physician in 1911.
Stephen’s work has appeared or been profiled in publications throughout North America and Europe including Common Boundary, Apotheosis, Shaman’s Drum, The New York Times, CNN, and Good Morning America. Stephen lectured yearly throughout the United States on herbal medicine, the sacredness of plants, the intelligence of Nature, and the states of mind necessary for successful habitation of Earth.
He was a tireless advocate for the reincorporation of the exploratory artist, independent scholar, amateur naturalist, and citizen scientist in American society – especially as a counterweight to the influence of corporate science and technology.
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As an FYI, I hired Paul Pitchford who wrote the book, “Healing with Whole Foods” and himself had Lyme – in fact he had paralysis and was going blind for it. His protocol was a clove of raw garlic twice per day, chopped up on his food, as well as one drop of 100% pure oregano oil, twice per day in water. He said he healed himself fully of Lyme in 9 months doing this…
Wow, thanks for sharing that with us, Andrew. Are you going to follow that same protocol? Please let us know how it goes for you! Julie
Hi Andrew — Thanks for relaying how Pitchford cured his lyme. I have had lyme 4 to 5 times in the past ten years. Because I cannot tolerate antibiotics for various reasons, I use an herbal protocol only — which has been effective. It includes both garlic extract in the form of allimed (allicin) and wild oregano oil. Paul Pitchford works in traditional chinese medicine frame work but in Western language garlic is a strong anti-inflammatory and oregano oil a strong anti-bacterial. I’m surprised that Pitchford needed only these two elements to cure himself –I add on andrographis (an anti-spirochetal) and a very small amount of japanese knot-weed (immune booster) tincture made locally.
I started a protocol for Bartonella and I am feeling totally out of it.
Like I am drugged out of my mind sleepy and tired. Is this a Hercks reaction or do I have the wrong protocol. I started 6/19/16.
3/4 cups per day of Boneset Tea
30-60 drops of RedRoot 3 times a day in water
2 capsules in the morning and 2 in the evening of Resveratrol
I’m going to try the garlic and see if it helps my symptoms I don’t know what elese to do I’m not going to let this make me give up I’m a mom of 3 and the only person who works my kids need me
Dear Mr. Buhner, My wife contracted Lyme disease (Meningitis) what do you recommend, from the polygonum herd family or andrographis. We leave in Latvia.
HELLO. I’ve been researching Lyme, and listening to many sad stories about this. some people (plus myself) wonder if I had it since childhood. but this suggestion is great, and I shared this on social media. I hope you continue to research this and post. I would like to help out. heres my email…
down below.