L-arginine contraindicated with lyme?

by | Jul 23, 2012 | bartonella, Co-Infections, Herbs, interactions, miscellaneous, The Basics | 7 comments

Dear Stephen,
Thank you so much for your insights and wonderful books. I am battling both lyme and bartonella and recently started your core protocol, some of the extended herbs (stephania and teasel), as well as your recommended aggressive treatment for bartonella. You recommend a fairly high dose of l-arginine when treating bartonella. However, I have also read many accounts of those with lyme having high amounts of ammonia (produced by the lyme bacteria), and that taking l-arginine can exacerbate symptoms related to high ammonia. I’m especially curious as I tend to get a burst of symptoms (hot flush, dizziness, foggy brain) whenever I consume high-arginine foods like coffee, sesame seeds/tahini, sunflower seeds, large quantity of chocolate, etc. What are your thoughts on this? And, is it safe and recommended (unless one has a significant viral load) to take l-arginine if one is infected with both bacteria? Thanks so much! I eagerly await your forthcoming books.
Stephen’s response:
I would recommend lowering the dose of l-arginine. I try to emphasize that these protocols are generic and really do have to be altered for each person but my hope was to give a starting point for people so that they at least had something to work with as a beginning. Although the herbs I suggest are generally very safe, there are people who are more sensitive to some of them and just can’t use them or use any kind of large dose. So, if something disagrees with you, lower the dose or don’t use it. As to the ammonia thing, I am not sure about that, but as I get deeper into a revision of the lyme book, not due now until 2014, I will most certainly look at it.
Stephen

7 Comments

  1. Gina

    Thank you for your info on L Arginine. My own experience with L Arginine is unexplained substantial weight gain. I have tried 1 g per day of L Arginine from a good source and always I gain about 1/2 per day. Its amazing, and would be helpful if I needed to GAIN weight, unfortunately its the opposite. I am considerably over weight, and I have read back to Pearson and Shaws protocol and have tried it for as much as 3 weeks with a nice 15 pound weight gain and after 2 weeks, I did seem to redistribute the weight from my waist, but I couldn’t afford the weight gain. When I went off of the supplement, I didn’t lose the weight. Would love to hear if there is any research to this issue.

    Thanks

  2. vickie

    My 13 yr old daughter is on your protocol for lyme, babesia and bartonella. She is on antiflammatory supplements as well as detox supplements. Along with bolouke. Her lyme literate psychiatrist wants to put her on lamictal for the anger and extreme mood swings anxiety and panic. Which I am not opposed to as she is suffering a great deal. Is it ok to take lamictal with your herbal protocol.

  3. Karen

    My daughter was the same; anxiety, moodiness, outbursts. We checked our methylation, and found she is not able to detox properly with MTHFR gene mutations. So, after figuring all that out, i treat her with the proper Metholated b12, B6, and 5-MTHF. Also, GABA, valerian root and melitonin to help her sleep. She is much better now.

  4. Mary

    Please check your kids for any dental materials. Have them removed and replaced with ONLY the ones on the Holistic List. Anything else has metal…yes…metal. Aluminum most often and no they don’t tell you, dentists don’t tell you, even the company won’t tell you because they claim it is proprietary, and it’s not on msds,.
    I have had lyme for 20 years and NOT the neuro type. … It is so advanced into my skin that most neuro lymies don’t even live long enough to see how bad your skin gets. Anyway that all changed when a dentist put some toxic material in my mouth that I didn’t agree on. Then I was a textbook neuro lymer for 4 months. Heed my warning if you care about your kids. I had it removed and I am back to myself again.

  5. Mary

    Could it be that the increase in Nitric Oxide of the l-arginine is KILLING the Lyme and bart and the resulting by-product is ammonia???

  6. Jane Harris

    Subject: Fwd: Mechanisms of epithelial dysfunction in giardiasis

    Hi! Today I stumbled on the above article. It is relevant as this is how I got sick back in 1979 originally and I must be a “ chronic giardia-ist “ as I have never recovered healthy bowel function. I bring it to your attention as it appears I should take more rather than less arginine in this article , contrary to what some might suggest and likely some of your other customers will need to do the same so there probably should be a caution for those people or they could get much sicker.

    I, in the other hand have giardia, Lyme, Bartonella, Epstein Barr, Aspergillus (2 flavors), lichen sclera, high serum ferritin, O-Care crystals and possibly Morgellon’s- I will find that out Monday. All ( except Motgellon’s- who knows about that yet) have problems with Tyrosine kinease, so I am on a low protein, low tyrosine, low phenylalanine, Whey based, glutin free diet. Woohoo?! It helps, but not enough!

  7. Remus

    Take quality probiotic supplement for at least 12 months and avoid refined added sugar, red meat, cold meats, processed food, junk food, fast food, fried foods, dairy. I recommend jarrowdophilus or omnibiotic6 as probiotics. I highly recommend to check intestinal flora status.

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