Dear Stephen,
I’ve been diagnosed with Babesia duncani, and I repeatedly see people with babesia staying on Mepron and Macrolides for months and months, only to relapse again. I want to try the herbal approach. I’ve already added artemisinin to the regimen (I have a copy of Healing Lyme), but everyone on the lyme boards keeps telling me that unless I continue the prescription drugs with the artemisinin, I will cause the babesia to become resistant and won’t get well. My insurance doesn’t want to cover the prescription drugs anymore, and I am tired of taking them. Can you please tell me if there’s an herbal combo that will prevent this resistance they keep chanting about? There’s got to be a way besides drugs to beat this, no? Thanks so much. :)
Stephen’s response:
It is extremely rare that bacteria develop resistance to herbs. They do, and easily, develop resistance to antibiotics. I discuss this in my
Herbal Antibiotics book and in
Lost Language of Plants (see bookstore) in even more detail. The resistance rumor is just that, an urban legend. I would highly suggest the use of cryptolepis in the treatment of babesia (see
Woodland Essence).
One caveat: artemisinin is an isolated constituent, taken from Artemisia annua. Babesia will NOT develop resistance to Artemisia annua but it may to artemisinin due to the simple nature of the compound. For long term use I DO NOT recommend the use of artemisinin but DO RECOMMEND the use of Artemisia annua whole herb and/or cryptolepis tincture. If artemisinin does not work with 90 days it probably will not work.
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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