Dear Stephen,
I have been using your protocol for about a year and a half now. I am taking 1-4x a day of knotweed, red root, stephania, and recently I’ve started on cryptolepis again (I took two teaspoons a day for three months six months ago.) I have trouble taking more pills than that because I have trouble with vomiting. My biggest problem right now is that I can’t sleep some nights from 9pm to 5am. It’s exactly those hours. Give or take five minutes of 5am I can sleep again and I can sleep anytime before 9pm. I have to do things most of those hours, though, so I’m getting only several hours of sleep a day.
I have been using your protocol for about a year and a half now. I am taking 1-4x a day of knotweed, red root, stephania, and recently I’ve started on cryptolepis again (I took two teaspoons a day for three months six months ago.) I have trouble taking more pills than that because I have trouble with vomiting. My biggest problem right now is that I can’t sleep some nights from 9pm to 5am. It’s exactly those hours. Give or take five minutes of 5am I can sleep again and I can sleep anytime before 9pm. I have to do things most of those hours, though, so I’m getting only several hours of sleep a day.
I weight 320 pounds, and I’m trying to lose weight. I’ve done so by reducing calories and eliminating grains and dairy, and a I’ve also tried limiting my food to exclusively meat and green veggies with a little salt. I have success when I start, but I get really, really sick. I feel creepy crawlies all day, and my sleep problems are every single night when I’m following any sort of diet. I’ve tried all the regular sleeping herbs, and after taking them I can’t sleep for two days straight. Same thing with Ambien and Lunesta (which has a possible side effect of “death”). They seem to do the opposite to me. I’ve seen a sleep doctor multiple times, and he basically gave up.
The only thing that helps sometimes (and this is backwards) is if I take the HerbPharm eleuthero tincture right before I try to sleep, however, it doesn’t always work. I should mention that I have pretty bad type 2 diabetes as well, and the diets above that I mention control my blood sugar. I have symptoms of babesia, bartonella, really bad depression, extreme fatigue, extreme dizziness, and my head feels swollen all the time.
When I work to resolve the blood sugar problems, my sleep problems get worse and all the rest of my symptoms get worse, and if I ignore the blood sugar problems and weight, then I can sleep. Any ideas on what I can do?
Stephen’s response:
I would highly suggest that you use melatonin liquid right at bed time and again if you wake in the night. Eat some carbohydrates right before bed, such as a sweet roll and yeah, I know it sounds strange and is completely politically incorrect but it does sometimes help immensely. I would highly suggest you switch to liquid herbs if you have trouble with the pills AND I would highly suggest you add Sida acuta to the regimen given your coinfections (woodlandessence.com). Cannabis can also help with sleep if you are in a state where it is medically available.
I would highly suggest that you use melatonin liquid right at bed time and again if you wake in the night. Eat some carbohydrates right before bed, such as a sweet roll and yeah, I know it sounds strange and is completely politically incorrect but it does sometimes help immensely. I would highly suggest you switch to liquid herbs if you have trouble with the pills AND I would highly suggest you add Sida acuta to the regimen given your coinfections (woodlandessence.com). Cannabis can also help with sleep if you are in a state where it is medically available.
Stephen
Hello Stephen,
I started losing weight when I started using steroids, cortef and then medrol. I was bedbound and needed some hormone therapy. Which helped slightly but now I can’t wean off and I’m stuck with losing ALOT OF MUSCLE and tendon loss it seems.
I haven’t lost fat, just muscle. but I’m at 116 now and usually am at 160 lbs healthy. I think maybe the lyme spirochetes are digging into my muscle tissue and collagen due to the immune system being suppressed. What are your thoughts on this and recommendations. I’ve read your book by the way.