Dear Stephen,
Within about one week of starting your herbal protocol after doing antibiotics the past month, I came down with the flu of all flues: All the joints aching, splitting headache, stiff neck, fever of 102 every night. My LLMD is away and my family doctor, who supports what the LLMD is doing, sees this as a bad virus of some sort and prescribed tamiflu. Could this be a bad Herxheimer reaction? I have been too sick to take any pills. I can barely walk. I am getting better, but wonder if this is something other than the flu.
Stephen’s response:
Tt does not sound like a herxheimer reaction. You can try stopping the herbs and see if that helps. You can try using fresh ginger juice in hot water and see if that helps (1-2 ounces fresh juice in 8 ounces hot water with honey, lime, cayenne) 4-6x daily. You can try adding Sida acuta tincture and see if that helps. You can try hot boneset tea 4-6x daily. I have used all these things for that situation in myself and they have helped. And, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. It may just be the flu. Let me know how it goes.
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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I have had the exact same reaction, stopped the A Bart I was taking untill the symptoms subside then I will lower the dose, skipped a dose of my supplements also. I am wondering if I can hold down my job whilst being treated.
I had same symptom 1 month into treating my lyme disease. Intense joint pain, body having hard time just getting warm enough to sweat, hyperventilating with the pain and shaking with ever chills. I was health as a horse and feeling strong the day before and that morning. HIt me out of the blue. Seems like a healing crisis to me