Archive for the ‘Sleep’ Category

Virus Prevention/Treatment Review

Interview with Dr. Saul

Transcript here

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • Initial predictions called for 2.2 million COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. alone. According to the latest models, an estimated 60,000 Americans may die from COVID-19 complications
  • Some doctors are promoting the use of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin for seriously ill COVID-19 patients. Apparently, many are seeing good results, although not universally. Some Swedish hospitals have stopped using chloroquine due to severe side effects in some patients
  • Northwell Health, New York’s largest health care provider, is using vitamin C at its hospitals in conjunction with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin
  • Some doctors have noted their patients’ symptoms have more in common with altitude sickness than pneumonia. In the final analysis, it may turn out that ventilators are inappropriate for a majority of patients. A better alternative may actually be hyperbaric oxygen therapy
  • Preventive methods you can use at home include taking vitamin C to bowel tolerance; zinc, vitamin B1 and melatonin supplementation; nebulized hydrogen peroxide; ozone therapy and nitric oxide boosting exercise

From Dr. Joseph Mercola

Since COVID-19 first entered the scene, exchange of ideas has basically been outlawed. By sharing my views and those from various experts throughout the pandemic on COVID treatments and the experimental COVID jabs, I became a main target of the White House, the political establishment and the global cabal.

Propaganda and pervasive censorship have been deployed to seize control over every part of your life, including your health, finances and food supply. The major media are key players and have been instrumental in creating and fueling fear.

I am republishing this article in its original form so that you can see how the progression unfolded.

Originally published: April 19, 2020

In this interview, recorded April 7, 2020, Dr. Andrew Saul, editor-in-chief of the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, brings us new updates and insights into the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since our March 17, 2020, interview, which focused on the use of vitamin C, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, made the prediction that SARS-Cov-2 would kill anywhere from 100,000 to 240,000 Americans,1 which is still far less than the original prediction of 2.2 million.2

However, even that prediction has since been revised downward. April 8, 2020, a new model referred to as the Murray Model3 predicts COVID-19 will kill 60,000 in the U.S. by August.4 There’s no doubt in my mind that there will be more deaths from the financial collapse than there will be from the actual infection. So, it’s a sad state of affairs. As noted by Saul:

“Folks need to remember that in any given year, influenza escalating to pneumonia is a killer. And in any given year, there’s around 40,000 to 65,000 deaths, depending who you listen to, from pneumonia.

This is an awful lot of people dying every year. COVID-19 is a serious disease, but it’s not worth shutting down the world for. The stress from that is going to be a killer …

The people who die from COVID-19 are dying basically from SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or pneumonia. So, it doesn’t really matter what virus does that. It matters if you die or not.

Many people are going to get COVID-19, and they’re going to have a mild case. And, for those who have a typical case, they’re going to have a miserable flu. They’re going to be sick as a dog for a couple of weeks.

Well, welcome to humanity, because how many times have we all had a miserable flu in our lifetimes? Those who are really at risk from COVID-19 usually have multiple pre-existing health problems, or they have a demonstrably poor lifestyle.

They’re overweight or they’re smoking, or they have an impaired immune system, or they’re elderly. And if you have a combination of those, anything can take that person out. So, we have to have perspective here.”

Google, Facebook Censor Real Data

Unfortunately, if you’re still using Google or social media platforms like Facebook, you’re unlikely to locate sensible information about how to protect yourself from COVID-19.

I believe suppressing access to the truth — the information you need to upregulate your innate immune system — is part of the plan to control the discussion about treatment options. Clearly, Fauci is promoting a pharmaceutical agenda when he says there’s nothing anyone can do until there’s a vaccine or antiviral drug available. Saul provides the following real-world example:

“This is something you can verify with your own Facebook account. Try this little experiment. If you post the meme I have at DoctorYourself.com on Facebook, it will immediately be blocked.

Here’s what the poster says: ‘Dr. Enqiang Mao, who is chief of emergency medical service at Ruijan hospital in Shanghai, China, treated 50 patients with high dose intravenous vitamin C. They had moderate to severe COVID. 50 out of 50 recovered. There were no fatalities.’

This is a report from a senior physician, right from China, to my contact in China, Dr. Richard Cheng, who is a board-certified himself and a Chinese-American, right there, reporting in firsthand. And this is labeled false news, fake news. This is demonstrably oppressive.”

The good news is Cheng is presenting his evidence before the National Institutes of Health. “I’ve seen his PowerPoint,” Saul says. “He’s going to run down why vitamin C is an antiviral, and how it can be used, and what doctors are doing.”

Aside from Mao, Dr. Zhiyong Peng, chief physician at Zhongnan Hospital, who is doing a major COVID-19 trial in Wuhan City, China, has stated that intravenous vitamin C is successful. “The number of new cases of COVID in China is very low, it’s gone way down, almost to the vanishing point,” Saul says. “Yet this information, somehow, is not on the news. And this is the very thing America and the rest of the world so needs to know now.”

Immune-Boosting Supplementation Regimen

Some New York hospitals are using vitamin C, though. A Northwell Health spokesperson has reportedly confirmed that vitamin C treatment is being “widely used” against coronavirus within the 23-hospital system.

According to Dr. Andrew G. Weber, a pulmonologist and critical-care specialist affiliated with two Northwell Health facilities on Long Island, vitamin C is being used in conjunction with the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin, which have also shown promise in coronavirus treatment.5 Saul notes:

“Northwell, which is the largest health care provider chain in New York state, [has] over 20 hospitals. It’s difficult to get information out of them, but to their credit, their spokesperson has announced that vitamin C is being used. And Weber … has reported that the vitamin C works. He said, basically, as close as I can quote him, ‘It’s not getting more publicity because it’s not a sexy drug.’ I love that …

If you have vitamin C for prevention, you are much less likely to have a bad case of any kind of viral infection, including COVID-19. Doesn’t mean you won’t get it; it means that your immune system will be able to handle it, and that’s what your immune system does …

In fact, people now are being told if they can manage this at home, [then] please stay home. Leave the hospital beds for those who really need them, and reduce risk of infection.

Remember, a hospital, by definition, is where we have our very sickest people with the greatest load of viruses and drug-resistant bacteria that you’ll ever find … We don’t live in a bubble, we live in a world of viruses, and they’re constantly mutating, and they’re constantly developing …

So, for prevention, the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service Editorial Review Board and the Japanese College of Intravenous Therapy both recommend 3,000 milligrams (mg) of vitamin C a day in divided doses, 400 mg of magnesium … 20 mg of zinc … 100 micrograms (mcg) of selenium … and 5,000 units of vitamin D, scaling down to 2,000 units of vitamin D a day after the first week.

That is a big difference. So, between the vitamin D and the vitamin C, we have something that will strengthen the immune system. When a person is in hospital, they are less likely to have access to supplements, at a very time when they’re going to need them more.

This is why we have to push, and the only way to do that is for the family to get in there and make it happen. More and more doctors are willing to do it because of the studies … in New York … So, the cat’s out of the bag … and it’s not going to go back in. There is a precedent. Just say to your doctor, ‘I want you to do what they’re doing in New York’ …

What we should learn from history is “have a strong immune system and you will survive.” This is the way it works. And the emphasis now is on scaring people, and actually telling them in the media, “Don’t take vitamin C, it won’t help you. Don’t take extra vitamin D, you don’t need it. There’s nothing you can do to build your immune system.”

You’ll actually see this on some news reports, and some newspapers. But, you’ll also see others that are reporting that it’s working in China and other parts of the world.”

Zinc With Hydroxychloroquine

Some doctors are promoting the use of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) combined with azithromycin (Z-Pak) for seriously ill COVID-19 patients. Apparently, many are seeing good results, although not universally.

According to Newsweek, some Swedish hospitals have stopped using chloroquine due to severe side effects in some patients.6 That said, it appears one of the reason quinine drugs work is because it allows zinc to enter the cells. Saul comments on the use of hydroxychloroquine saying:

“I think if you can use a nutrient with a drug, you get better results than if you use the drug alone. Dr. Abram Hoffer, who was my personal mentor … said, ‘Sometimes you need a drug. Sometimes the drug will get you that immediate result that you’ve got to have, but you have to have nutrition if you want it to stick.’

So, if you use medication and the nutrient, you’re going to do better than if you use the medication alone … If the drug will help get the zinc to where it needs to go, that just makes good sense to me.”

Since the drug is now being rationed to those who need it most, you’d be wise to take zinc preventively. Your body only needs a small amount of it, and knows exactly what to do with it. Your immune system, for example, requires it to function. The elderly, who tend to eat less and eat less wholesomely, have a greater need for zinc supplementation.

“This is in every nutrition textbook ever written,” Saul says. “So, what we want to do right now is tell people, ‘Don’t worry about the drug unless you really need it. It’ll be at the hospital pharmacy. But for the rest of us, let’s stay out of the hospital by taking a step so we won’t need the drug.’

It’s not about avoiding doctors; it’s about not needing them. And that means you have to get on the wagon here. We have to do this every day. We have to be sure we take our supplements and eat a good diet, and avoid the junk and continue to get our fresh air and exercise.”

Ventilators May Do More Harm Than Good

In recent days, we’re seeing more and more reports of doctors saying the use of ventilators may be misguided.7 According to Business Insider,8 80% of COVID-19 patients in New York City who are placed on ventilators die, causing some doctors to question their use. As reported by STAT News:9

“What’s driving this reassessment is a baffling observation about Covid-19: Many patients have blood oxygen levels so low they should be dead. But they’re not gasping for air, their hearts aren’t racing, and their brains show no signs of blinking off from lack of oxygen.

That is making critical care physicians suspect that blood levels of oxygen, which for decades have driven decisions about breathing support for patients with pneumonia and acute respiratory distress, might be misleading them about how to care for those with Covid-19.

In particular, more and more are concerned about the use of intubation and mechanical ventilators. They argue that more patients could receive simpler, noninvasive respiratory support, such as the breathing masks used in sleep apnea, at least to start with and maybe for the duration of the illness.”

Some doctors have noted their patients’ symptoms have more in common with altitude sickness than pneumonia.10 This situation highlights the problems inherent with strategic standard of care. We thought we had a serious ventilator shortage and industries such as the auto industry redirected their manufacturing capacity to making ventilators.

In the final analysis, it may turn out that ventilators are inappropriate for a majority of patients. A far better alternative may actually be hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

“Making the oxygen available in a way that’s appropriate to the severity of the patient is the answer,” Saul says. “We have to remember that our body is singularly good at taking in oxygen or we wouldn’t be here. And our lungs have a huge amount of absorptive space. I mean, that’s what they do. It’s just an extraordinary system that we have.

Oxygen goes in by diffusion. You don’t push it in; the body sucks it in because if you have more oxygen outside than you do inside, it just goes through. All you do is give a lot of absorptive surface. And if you flattened out all the little alveoli in the lungs, you’d have an enormous area …

So, by providing the oxygen and then see if the body will take it up, you’ve made the first step. That can be done preventively by fresh air and exercise and going out and playing …

If somebody needs more oxygen, and you want to give them a little pressure, if that makes the patient better, then you do it. But the idea that you’ve got to ram this oxygen like a supercharger on a Mustang is, I think, a little bit, shall we say, industry friendly …

[The alveoli] are tiny, tiny little sacks. They have some of the thinnest little membranes you’ve ever seen. Look at them under a microscope. They’re very delicate. So, the last thing you want to do is add injury to insult.”

Hydrogen Peroxide Therapy

Saul, along with Dr. Thomas Levy, recommend nebulized hydrogen peroxide therapy. Similarly, Dr. Robert Rowen has published a commentary11 about the use of ozone therapy against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Both of these treatment alternatives are inexpensive and safe, and could be administered at home.

One point I want to stress after looking more deeply into this is that you may want to be careful about using regular 3% hydrogen peroxide, as they use proprietary stabilizers. By law, they’re not required to disclose those chemicals. So, ideally, you’d want to use food grade hydrogen peroxide and carefully dilute it to a 3% concentration.

What to Do if You’re Feeling Under the Weather

So, to recap, what can you do if you’re suddenly feeling under the weather and suspect a viral infection? Saul recommends taking vitamin C to bowel tolerance.

“Take enough C to be symptom free, whatever the amount might be. Dr. Cathcart would say take vitamin C to bowel tolerance, and that’s exactly what you think it means. The sicker you are, the more you hold. So, if you are really facing an influenza outbreak, you’ll hold a lot of C before you get to bowel tolerance.

This is something that everyone can do at home. My grandchildren can do this. When they get sick, they manage their own case by taking vitamin C until they get to bowel tolerance. Use whatever kind of vitamin C you can afford … [and] take enough C to be symptom free.

The more frequently you can take the vitamin C, the better off [you’ll be]. Vitamin C being water soluble is constantly lost … The more often you take it, the better results you will have, and you will need less to do so.

So, taking a small amount of vitamin C every half-hour is actually much better than taking a large amount of C twice a day. And taking a large amount of C twice a day is better than taking a huge amount of C every other day. So, the more often you take it, the friendlier it is for your body.”

For acute infection, you may need to increase your dosage somewhat beyond bowel tolerance. Keep in mind that taking it more frequently, such as every half-hour, will allow you to take more before you hit bowel tolerance. Other alternatives include taking a liposomal vitamin C or getting an IV infusion of vitamin C. Liposomal vitamin C can achieve intracellular levels very similar to IV vitamin C at a fraction of the cost and inconvenience.

B Vitamins (Thiamine)

Thiamine (vitamin B1) is also important, and works synergistically with vitamin C. Any infection increases your body’s need for thiamine. You can read more about this in “Vitamin B1 Is Vital to Protect Against Infectious Disease.”

The recommended daily allowance for thiamine is well below 2 mg. For acute illness or short-term prevention, Saul suggests taking 50 mg to 100 mg of thiamine per day, ideally in divided doses.

“Thiamine is the vitamin that smells funny,” he says. “When you open the bottle of your multiple vitamin, or your B complex, that smell is thiamine. So, when your urine smells like thiamine, you’re probably getting more than you need, but that’s not a problem.

Thiamine is safe, and you can excrete that. The excretion is an indicator of saturation. Thiamine, really, is best taken with the entire B complex. The B complex vitamins work better together.

For prevention, most people will get a B complex, B50 … Generally speaking, what I would tell people to do is take a look at the RDA, and you can do that on the internet in seconds, and take more than that. A B complex is this cheapest and safest way to do that.”

Melatonin for COVID-19

Another strategy that appears useful against both bacterial and viral infections is hormone melatonin. I review this in greater depth in “Melatonin for Sepsis.” Saul comments:

“Melatonin is a wonderful thing, because the safety studies are very encouraging. If you want to hurt yourself, melatonin will not do the job … Melatonin is inexpensive, it’s non-prescription and, obviously, something that safe deserves a try … And a little bit of melatonin can go a long way.

The older you get, the less you make. Now, if you keep your bedroom dark at night, you will make more melatonin. I’m about to impart a piece of wisdom that makes me very unpopular very quickly with a large number of people, and that is if you go to bed early, you will make more melatonin, and you will sleep better.

If you go to bed at 7:30 or 8:00 o’clock at night, you will have a far better sleep than if you go to bed later, even if you have the same number of hours. The old adage is, each hour of sleep before midnight is worth two hours of sleep after midnight. There’s something to that.”

Nitric Oxide Helps Inhibit Viral Replication

Another strategy worth mentioning is nitric oxide, which appears to inhibit viral replication. To boost nitric oxide, you could use precursors such as arginine or citrulline, but exercise and near-infrared radiation (such as a near-infrared sauna) will also do the trick.

“Exercise is absolutely crucial. I’m so big on that, and I would like to underscore that this is something that doesn’t cost a dime,” Saul says. “What is missing from most discussions on COVID-19 is an appreciation of how far we have let ourselves go. We’ve been eating crummy food for a long time.

We’ve been doing behaviors for a long time that don’t work. And sooner or later, the body is going to be weakened by that. Too much of the wrong thing, not enough for the right thing, and the immune system is going to be weak. And viruses, unfortunately, to put it very coldly, will thin the herd.

This is the way nature works … Now, this is a very harsh lesson from nature, but we would do well to learn it. If we let ourselves go, as my mother would say, ‘If you do this wrong, and you know it, don’t come crying to me afterwards.’ We have to take responsibility, and right now the COVID-19 epidemic is pointing that out in a very, very strong way.

It is most unpleasant to see this, but bearing in mind that we are not a healthy nation, we have to immediately take steps to become one, or there will be another virus, because this is not the first, and it is not the last … It just makes my day when I learn about people that … are not watching the news, they’re going out and they’re getting well.”

+ Sources and References

Category:

Activism, Sleep, Supplements, Treatment, Viruses

FREE: Ross Lyme Support Protocol

https://s3.amazonaws.com/hoth.bizango/assets/24360/Ross_Lyme_Support_Protocol.pdf  Protocol Here

The Ross Lyme Support Protocol

By Dr. Marty Ross

The Ross Lyme Support Protocol includes essential steps to begin and continue a chronic Lyme disease treatment. It is designed to:

● boost the immune system

● improve detoxification

● speed recovery

● kill the infection(s)

● protect and repair from the harmful effects of the infection(s) and the herbal or prescription antibiotics.

While the following Lyme disease treatment approach focuses on a limited number of areas, it may correct most of the problems, such as: low energy, pain, insomnia, brain, neurologic, and thinking problems (brain fog), and immune compromise and suppression.

Table of Key Supplements and Herbs in The Core Protocol

What’s New: Ross Protocol 3rd Edition

________________

For more:

Category:

Detoxing, Gut Health, Herbs, Inflammation, Lyme, Sleep, Supplements, Treatment

ACTION ALERT: FDA Trying to Ban CBD

https://www.paintreatmentdirectory.com/posts/the-fda-is-trying-to-ban-cbd-supplements

The FDA is Trying to Ban CBD Supplements

The FDA is Trying to Ban CBD Supplements

By: ANH-USA

Editor’s note: The following article and call to action about the FDA’s efforts to ban CBD supplements is being reprinted from the Alliance for Natural Health website. This is not the first time the FDA has tried banning natural treatments relied on by millions of Americans, but part of a long and corrupt history. The FDA has also been trying for several years to ban kratom, an herb being successfully used by millions of Americans to treat pain, opioid addiction and withdrawal, anxiety and more. Recently, the FDA has also taken action against homeopathy, a safe, natural system of medicine used worldwide since its development in 1810. The FDA has been trying to get stronger regulatory authority to take vitamins and other supplements off the market. It seems the FDA is leaving no stone unturned in its efforts to protect the profits of the pharmaceutical industry instead of protecting the health of the public.

The FDA Misleads on CBD Safety

…providing further evidence that the agency is trying to engineer a ban on affordable CBD to protect drug industry profits. Action Alert!

As the evidence of CBD’s myriad health benefits continues to pile up, it increasingly looks to us like the FDA is preparing to issue a ban on CBD supplements. We must support bills in Congress that take the issue out of the FDA’s hands by allowing the sale of CBD in supplement form.

Lawmakers do appear to be taking this issue seriously. In addition to the bill introduced by Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA), another similar bill has just been introduced by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Rand Paul (R-KY), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) to allow the sale of CBD in supplements. Additionally, Congress is holding a hearing on July 27 during which members will formally scrutinize the impact of the FDA’s failure to develop a regulatory pathway for the sale of CBD in supplements and food. Let’s show the FDA the scale of our opposition to its unjustified plan and demonstrate the huge level of grassroots support for CBD supplements ahead of the hearing.

We want to make it crystal clear what we face if we don’t stop the FDA in its tracks. CBD, or cannabidiol, is one of over 100 natural compounds called cannabinoids found in a wide range of plants, most notably the hemp plant. The cells of our bodies are laced with cannabinoid receptors that form part of the endocannabinoid system that is essential to life and to robust health. We produce cannabinoids internally (endocannabinoids) and we also consume them in some foods (exocannabinoids). Most of these cannabinoids, including CBD, are not psychoactive – THC being an exception – but they all offer profound benefits. CBD is one of the most well researched non-psychoactive cannabinoids and it has an incredible array of health benefits, with evidence showing that has profound anti-inflammatory and immune modulating effects and can help with pain, anxiety, depression, certain cancers, and even heart health.

Let that sink in for a moment. The opioid epidemic is killing an astonishing number of Americans every year; rates of anxiety and depression are reaching new highs, particularly among young people; heart disease is the leading cause of death for adults in the US. CBD has been found to help with all of these conditions, but instead of working to make this compound more widely available as a supplement, which is the way it should be sold according to the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), the FDA wants to stop all supplement sales of CBD. The FDA’s justification is the protection of the profits of one pharmaceutical company that has a CBD drug that will cost patients a stunning $32,500 per year. It will also mean citizens who have been benefiting from low-cost health support from CBD supplements since they became widely available a few years ago will have no further access to the supplements they have relied on. There is something deeply wrong with this picture.

How did we get here? For starters, the FDA says that CBD can’t be a supplement because it has approved a drug version of CBD called Epidiolex that is used to treat two rare forms of epileptic seizure, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS) or Dravet syndrome, in children over 2 years. This ability for FDA to rule in favor of drug companies has to do with the FDA back-channel that we’ve written about many times before. In short, if a substance is studied as a drug (i.e. a drug company has made an Investigational New Drug application) before there is evidence it was sold as a supplement (i.e. evidenced by a supplement company’s New Dietary Ingredient notification), then the drug company can ask the FDA to ban the supplement form of that compound.

Yet, as pressure mounts from Congress and a variety of stakeholders to make CBD more widely available, the FDA has been reviewing scientific information on CBD. Earlier this year, the agency released a statement explaining that the “existing regulatory framework” for foods and supplements is not appropriate for CBD and that a new regulatory pathway is needed.

One of the main issues raised by the FDA is that of safety. The agency claims that CBD presents various safety concerns, specifically the potential for harm to the liver and the reproductive system and concerns for vulnerable populations such as children and pregnant women.

These views are articulated in a review article authored in part by FDA staff. To support the assertion that CBD can pose threats to the male reproductive system, the authors cite a 1981 animal study in which monkeys were administered 30, 100, or 300 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day (mg per kg bw/day) of CBD orally. But consider that 300 mg per kg bw/day for a human weighing 154 pounds would be 21,000 mg, or 21g, of CBD—far, far more than anyone would ever take as a supplement!

This is emblematic of a larger problem we’ve discussed before: the deeply flawed risk assessment models used by federal bureaucrats to prevent us from utilizing natural medicines to stay healthy. These types of models have been used by European regulators to set absurd limits on supplement dosages (known as tolerable upper limits, or ULs). ANH’s founder and Executive and Scientific Director, Robert Verkerk, PhD, has published several papers critiquing this approach that was originally developed by the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine), pointing to a fundamental flaw: in trying to restrict vitamin or other micronutrient dosages in this way, regulators completely ignore the fact that risks vary greatly depending on the form and dose of a nutrient used, and for most populations you’ll find overlap in the doses that cause health benefits for the majority and risks for a few. So if you then create a law that aims to eliminate a potential risk for everyone, you actually deprive the vast majority access to the micronutrient and all the benefits it offers.

Bringing it back to CBD: the fact that the FDA is, in part, using a decades-old animal study in which an absurdly high CBD dose was used to demonstrate that CBD has safety concerns once again demonstrates that the federal approach to assessing risk and benefit is fundamentally broken. It’s based on a defunct toxicological model that should have no place in modern day food or supplement law-making. The agency is also not giving proper weight to the incredibly favorable safety record of CBD used as a supplement or the multitude of benefits we can get from using CBD as a supplement. Instead, the FDA has chosen to focus on old evidence of harm that was only found when absurdly high doses were taken experimentally. To us, it seems like the agency is simply grasping at any information it can to demonstrate harm so it can justify its proposed ban on CBD supplements. The driver? Nothing less than preventing competition for the pharmaceutical drug version of CBD, given its the drug companies that are the FDA’s principal paymasters.

And, indeed, the FDA’s view on CBD’s safety is not supported by experts in the industry and elsewhere. A 2020 meta-analysis looked at human trials to assess CBD efficacy and safety. The authors concluded that most studies reported no adverse events with acute administration of CBD and mild to moderate effects with chronic administration, with the most common side effects being tiredness, diarrhea and changes of appetite/weight. Again, these side effects must be weighed against the benefits of CBD use for combatting opioid misuse, heart disease, anxiety, and depression. Harvard Health Publishing, the publication of the Harvard Medical School, states simply that, for adults, “CBD appears to be very safe.”

We cannot allow the FDA to cater to the drug industry at the expense of public health.

Action Alert! Write to Congress in support of bills that allow the legal sale of CBD in supplements. Please send your message immediately.

The FDA has said that they will not be allowing CBD to be in food or supplements, explaining that the “existing regulatory framework” for foods and supplements are not appropriate for CBD. The agency denied three Citizens Petitions requesting the agency issue a regulation that would allow CBD to be sold as a supplement. Clearly the FDA is more interested in protecting Big Pharma profits than with promoting consumer access to a product that can benefit their health. We need Congress to take the issue out of the FDA’s hands to create a legal pathway for CBD supplements.

Write to Congress and tell them to support the Hemp and Hemp-Derived CBD Consumer Protection and Market Stabilization Act of 2023 and the Hemp Access and Consumer Safety Act to protect access to CBD supplements.

Sign the Petition Here

_________________

**Comment**

The FDA wants patients between a rock and a hard place.  On one hand they state extended antibiotics are not to be used for Lyme/MSIDS because they are unsafe, and then they also want to remove important supplements that help us, but when the agency is alerted to the fact doctors have never witnessed so many “vaccine”-related injuries and VAERS reports are higher than any other vaccine in its history, after the mRNA gene therapy injections……crickets.

Something doesn’t smell right.

If the FDA had their way we’d just all die already.

For more:

The FDA has a long & sordid history of attempting to ban anything it views as competition to its lucrative drugs & vaccines due to its vested interests with Big Pharma.

Category:

Activism, Herbs, Inflammation, Pain Management, Sleep, Supplements, Treatment

Can Microdoses of Psychedelics Effectively Treat Neuro-Lyme?

https://www.lymedisease.org/microdosing-psychedelics-lyme/

Can microdoses of psychedelics effectively treat neuro-Lyme?

Dr. Dan Kinderlehrer

By Daniel A Kinderlehrer, MD

Those of us dealing with Lyme disease are well aware that most symptoms reside in the musculoskeletal and nervous systems. And for many of us, the worst symptoms in the nervous system are neuropsychiatric. The severity of anxiety, panic attacks, depression, irritability and rage can be overwhelming.

Chronic tick-borne infections can also cause bipolar disease, addiction syndromes, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder and psychosis.1-8 And of course, it is all compounded by impaired sleep, brain fog, fatigue and chronic pain, not to mention physician ignorance.

Neuroinflammation

It turns out that these mental health symptoms are primarily caused by inflammation from infection outside the nervous system.9

For example, kids with PANS—Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome—have infections in which antibodies to different microbes cross the blood brain barrier and attack the brain, resulting in severe mood and behavioral disturbances.10 A similar process occurs in adults with neuropsychiatric Lyme disease.11-13

There is increasing recognition that many mood disorders are linked to infections and autoimmune disorders, and the common link is neuroinflammation—brain on fire.14

It is no surprise that people with neuropsychiatric Lyme disease have elevated levels of inflammatory mediators including antineuronal antibodies, cytokines, chemokines and inflammatory lipoproteins.9  Think of neuropsychiatric Lyme disease as autoimmune inflammation of the brain. The primary legs of treatment are antimicrobials, psychotropic medications and anti-inflammatory agents. Ideally, an anti-inflammatory agent will decrease inflammation but not suppress immune function.

In March 2023, I published a report describing a patient with long standing Lyme disease, Babesia and Bartonella infections in which the primary symptoms were neuropsychiatric.15 He experienced anxiety with panic attacks, depression with suicidal ideation and sleeplessness.

These symptoms gradually came under control with appropriate treatment, but a change in his regimen resulted in a severe relapse. He could no longer tolerate even low dose antimicrobials without Herxheimer reactions, Zoloft was not helping and he could not tolerate Ativan for anxiety. In fact, any benzodiazepine increased his suicidality. That is when his daughter suggested he try microdosing.

A new approach: psychedelic microdosing

This is from the case study that I published:

After a 40-year prohibition in the US of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin, there has been renewed interest in their potential for therapeutic benefit. The preponderance of research in the past two decades has been in controlled clinical settings in which subjects are administered a single high dose of a hallucinogen while under the supervision of a therapist/guide. In 2018 the US Food and Drug Administration categorized psilocybin as ‘a breakthrough therapy’ in the treatment of depression, a designation the agency applies to drugs that in early trials demonstrate substantial improvement over existing treatments.16

There is compelling evidence that psilocybin has potential value in the treatment of some mental health conditions. Multiple studies have documented its effectiveness in patients with depression, anxiety syndromes, end of life anxiety, and suggested benefit in OCD and addiction disorders.17-23

Microdosing is the practice of consuming very low, sub-hallucinogenic doses of a psychedelic substance on a regular basis. The intention of microdosing is to offer similar benefits to full dose psychedelic therapy, but without perceptual distortions, the need for clinical oversight, or the risk of a bad trip.” 24

Microdosing has become increasingly popular. In one online microdosing forum that was begun in 2013, the number of subscribers rose to 40,000 in 2018 and 219,000 in October 2022.25 LSD and psilocybin continue to be listed as schedule I controlled substances, meaning legally they have no accepted therapeutic value. Nevertheless, possession of psilocybin has been decriminalized in many US cities and is on the ballot of many states to be legalized in clinical therapeutic settings; Oregon and Colorado have already done so.26

No longer suicidal

The subject of my case history began microdosing three times weekly at doses one-fiftieth of a typical hallucinogenic journey. Within two days he was no longer suicidal and within two weeks he felt well. He continues to microdose and feels well three years later.

No wonder they call psilocybin magic mushrooms. It is a potent stimulator of serotonin and may also have some influence on dopamine.27 But what may be more crucial is its anti-inflammatory action. It significantly inhibits pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukins IL-1b, and IL-6, and cyclooxygenase-2 concentrations in human macrophage cells.28-30

It turns out that most mental health disorders are caused by neuroinflammation. That’s right: most patients with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and even psychosis have inflammation in their brains driving their mood disorders.31

Neuroinflammation in these patients may be caused by undiagnosed tick-borne infections, but there are multiple other drivers of inflammation. Autoimmune diseases such as lupus, Sjögrens syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis are well documented causes of neuropsychiatric illness.32-37  Stress by itself can result in inflammatory conditions.38 People with childhood histories of adverse events such as physical or sexual abuse have an increased risk of autoimmune problems.39

Patients with PTSD—Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—don’t just have hypervigilance and anxiety disorders. They develop the same nervous, immune and endocrine system dysregulation as patients with persistent tick-borne infections and neuropsychiatric disease.40

The role of genetics

Meanwhile, genetics plays a significant role in the development of autoimmune conditions. Add to this epigenetic transmission that alters gene expression without changing the underlying DNA expression, and allows for trauma to be handed down from one generation to the next41—just ask children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors.

Microdosing psilocybin holds the potential to help patients suffering from these mental health issues. Numerous studies suggest that microdosing is effective in the treatment of anxiety and depression.42-46 Unfortunately, these studies are not controlled and are reliant on subject reporting—it is impossible to separate benefits from placebo effect. We clearly need better research on microdosing.

Presently Johns Hopkins University is recruiting for a study in which patients with PTLDS—Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome—are treated with full hallucinogenic doses of psilocybin under the supervision of a therapist/guide.47 These ‘journeys’ last four or more hours in controlled settings. I hope this research finds positive benefits of treatment, but full dose psilocybin treatment demands excessive resources that will never be available to most patients with Lyme.

Those of us with “Chronic Lyme” know that PTLDS is actually persistent infection with Borrelia burgdorferi complicated by the existence of co-infections resulting in systemic inflammation—it is an autoimmune illness.48 In a review of the physiological effects of psychedelics, the authors Caitlin Thompson and Attila Szabo “…propose that psychedelics hold the potential to attenuate or even resolve autoimmunity.”

The bottom line is that microdosed psilocybin may be an important adjunct to the treatment of mental illness. It is time that we find the resources to perform properly controlled double-blind investigations into the impact of microdosed psilocybin on patients with neuropsychiatric Lyme disease as well as those suffering from the ever-increasing numbers suffering from mental health disorders.

Click here to read the entire case report.

Dr. Daniel Kinderlehrer is an internal medicine physician in Denver, Colorado, with a practice devoted to treating patients with tick-borne illness. He is the author of  Recovery From Lyme Disease: The Integrative Medicine Guide to the Diagnosis and Treatment of Tick-Borne Illness.

References
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Category:

Inflammation, Lyme, Psychological Aspects, research, Sleep, Treatment

LDN For Lyme

https://www.treatlyme.net/guide/low-dose-naltexone-lyme-disease

Updated: 3/21/23

About Low-Dose Naltrexone for Lyme

Low-dose naltrexone (LDN) is very useful in Lyme disease. This low-cost medicine can

  • improve nerve, muscle, and inflammation pain,
  • decrease autoimmune illness triggered by Lyme,
  • improve mast cell activation symptoms,
  • lower cytokine inflammation, and
  • improve immune system function by increasing TRegs to balance Th1 and Th2.

In this article, I review the science and method for how LDN works. I describe how to use it in Lyme disease, and I review potential side effects.  (See link for article & video)

________________

For more:

Category:

Inflammation, Lyme, Pain Management, Sleep, Supplements, Treatment