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Powdered oxymatrine more potent than tablets?

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,820
Powdered Oxymatrine (in Capsules) More Potent Than Oxymatrine in a Tablet?

Powdered oxymatrine seems to be more potent than oxymatrine tablets, according to an account I received from one user.

This may be because powdered oxymatrine is better absorbed in the gut than a solid tablet of oxymatrine.

The oral bioavailability of oxymatrine is very low anyway (ref: here), so it is important to try to maximize the absorption of oxymatrine as much as possible.



The "Dizziness Test" May Demonstrate That Powered Oxymatrine is Better Absorbed than Oxymatrine Tablets

You can perform a test yourself indicating that powered oxymatrine is better absorbed than oxymatrine tablets: a "dizziness test".

If you crush your regular oxymatrine tablet into a fine powder, and then swallow this power with some water (it tastes yuk!), or preferably put the powder into an empty capsule and swallow that (so that you don't have to taste the oxymatrine), you will likely find that you get mild dizziness symptoms within an hour. You'll probably find this mild dizziness does not appear when you take oxymatrine as a tablet, but this dizziness will appear when you take same amount of oxymatrine as a fine powder.

This would appear to demonstrate that powdered oxymatrine is better absorbed than oxymatrine tablets, because dizziness is a known side effect of higher doses of oxymatrine.


(EDIT: note however that another interpretation of this "dizziness test" is that with the powdered oxymatrine, you get the whole dose absorbing very quickly, leading to high transient blood levels and the dizziness symptom; but with the tablet, the absorption is slower, so you don't get such high transient blood levels, and this may be why you don't get the dizziness so much with tablets).



Dr Chia's Studies on Oxymatrine for ME/CFS

Dr John Chia reported he obtained good results with oxymatrine tablets in about 25% of the ME/CFS patients that took them (with another 25% of his patients getting some mild improvements, and the remaining 50% getting no improvements with oxymatrine).

Could it be that the patients who did not respond to oxymatrine simply had problems with absorbing oxymatrine in the gut? If these non-responders tried powdered oxymatrine in capsules instead of oxymatrine tablets, then they might also obtain benefits from oxymatrine.

Since ME/CFS patients often have weak digestion, this may make absorption of solid oxymatrine tablets even harder, but powdered oxymatrine in capsules may be easier to digest. So if you have tried oxymatrine tablets and obtained little effect from them, consider trying powdered oxymatrine in capsules.

It may also be an idea to take stomach acid boosting supplements (like betaine HCl) at the same time as taking oxymatrine, as many ME/CFS patients have low stomach acid levels, and this can result in inefficient absorption of supplements and nutrients.

Note that people who have strong reactions to oxymatrine should be careful when trying powdered oxymatrine, as you will be absorbing a higher dose.

Incidentally, if the mild dizziness symptoms of powdered oxymatrine are a concern, just take the oxymatrine before bed, and you won't notice the mild dizziness as you fall asleep. The herb ginger is also good at eliminating dizziness, and 5 to 10 drops of lemon (Citrus limonum) essential oil (diluted in 15 ml of cooking oil) is a very powerful blocker of dizziness and nausea symptoms (lemon essential oil is a potent 5-HT3 antagonist, and this is how it eliminates nausea).




Some Sources for Oxymatrine

Equilibrant oxymatrine tablets (Dr John Chia's brand) available at equilibranthealth

Alternative Medicine Solutions oxymatrine (300 mg oxymatrine per capsule) available here:
alternativemedicinesolutionbetterlifealchemistlaborganicpharmacyamazon

White Tiger brand oxymatrine (200 mg oxymatrine per tablet) available here:
chineseherbsacuatlantanaturalnutritionalsgoldenneedleonlinemaxnaturebiomedonline (Netherlands)

I found the White Tiger brand (which contains both matrine and oxymatrine) caused dizziness for an hour or so after taking each tablet, whereas the Alternative Medicine Solutions brand (which contains only pure oxymatrine) did not cause this side effect.

Note that Dr Chia says oxymatrine is not recommended for people with autoimmune tendencies or seizure disorders.


More info on Dr Chia's research on oxymatrine for ME/CFS given in this post.


Thanks go to wjrf for bringing this info about powdered oxymatrine to my attention.
 
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Ocean

Senior Member
Messages
1,178
Location
U.S.
Powdered oxymatrine has a much more potent effect, compared to the same dose of oxymatrine in a tablet

I recently discovered that powdered oxymatrine seems to be considerably more potent than oxymatrine tablets. I am assuming this is because powdered oxymatrine is absorbed better in the gut compared to a solid tablet of oxymatrine. This may make powered oxymatrine (in capsules) a better treatment for ME/CFS.


You can test this for yourself

You can test this yourself: if you crush a regular oxymatrine tablet into fine powder, and swallow this power with some water (it tastes yuk!), or preferably put the powder into an empty capsule and swallow that (so that you don't have to taste the oxymatrine), you will likely find that you get mild dizziness symptoms within an hour. This mild dizziness may have never appeared when you took oxymatrine as a tablet, but this dizziness suddenly appears when you take same amount of oxymatrine as a fine powder.

Dizziness is a known side effect of taking higher doses of oxymatrine. So the fact that I found this dizziness only appears with the powdered oxymatrine, and not with the same dose in tablet form, suggests that the gut much better absorbs powder compared to tablet. Another person who tried this experiment also found that powdered oxymatrine from a crushed tablet causes the dizziness side effect, but same dose as a solid tablet does not.


Dr Chia's Studies

Dr Chia reported he obtained good results with oxymatrine tablets in about 25% of the ME/CFS patients that took them (with another 25% of his patients getting some mild improvements, and the remaining 50% getting no improvements with oxymatrine).

I am now thinking that perhaps Dr Chia's patients that did not respond to oxymatrine just had problems with absorbing oxymatrine in the gut! Perhaps if they tried powdered oxymatrine instead, then these non-responders would also see benefits?

Since ME/CFS patients often have weak digestion, this may make absorption of solid oxymatrine tablets harder, but powdered oxymatrine in capsules may be easier to digest. So if you have tried oxymatrine and found little effect, consider trying powdered oxymatrine in capsules.

Note that people who get strong reactions from oxymatrine should be careful when trying powdered oxymatrine, as you will likely be absorbing a higher dose. Try low doses first.

Incidentally, if the mild dizziness symptoms of powdered oxymatrine are a concern, just take the oxymatrine before bed, and you won't notice the mild dizziness when you fall asleep. The herb ginger is also good at eliminating dizziness.


Some sources of oxymatrine:

White Tiger brand oxymatrine tablets containing 200 mg oxymatrine can be found here: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Equilibrant (Dr Chia's brand) oxymatrine tablets are available here.

Oxymatrine capsules (containing 300 mg of oxymatrine powder) are available here.

Note that Dr Chia says oxymatrine is not recommended for people with autoimmune tendencies or seizure disorders.

Thanks go to wjrf for bringing this info about powdered oxymatrine to my attention.

Is there a way to know if we have autoimmune tendencies? Don't some consider CFS to possibly be autoimmune? Is this an immune modulator, or booster? So many questions I have, sorry!
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,820
Is there a way to know if we have autoimmune tendencies? Don't some consider CFS to possibly be autoimmune? Is this an immune modulator, or booster? So many questions I have, sorry!

"Autoimmune tendency means a strong family history of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, autoimmune thyroiditis (especially Graves disease), multiple sclerosis, and if the patients have joint pain with positive rheumatoid factor and persistently positive ANA." Ref: here.

Nobody really knows for sure how oxymatrine works, but it is most likely a Th2 > Th1 immunomodulator.
 
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Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,820
Just found a study (see below) showing that the oral bioavailability of oxymatrine in dogs is quite low, around 19%.

I do wonder whether the non-responders to oxymatrine might just be individuals who don't absorb enough oxymatrine from their guts. Injectable forms of oxymatrine are on sale in China, such as on this website here. Might non-responders to oral oxymatrine (I am one of them) do better on injectable oxymatrine?
Pharmacokinetics of oxymatrine in Beagle dogs by LC-MS

Chinese Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics

AIM: To establish LC-MS method in determination of oxymatrine in plasma of Beagle dogs and to investigate its absolute bioavailability.

METHODS: According to a randomized two-period crossover design, the Beagle dogs were iv 6 mg·kg -1 and ig 30 mg·kg -1 of oxymatrine, respectively. Drug concentration in plasma was assayed by HPLC/ESI/MS.

RESULTS: The linearity of oxymatrine ranged from 2 to 5 000 μg·L -1(r= 0.9990).The detection limits of oxymatrine was 0.6 μg·L -1. The values of RSD of within day and between day were less than 4.2%.The recovery of this method was more than 96.7%. The disposition was conformed to a two-compartment model. The C max, T max, T 1/2β, AUC 0→∝ and absolute bioavailability of oxymatrine were 2.42± 0.97 μg·L -1, 1.0± 0.3 h, 5.54± 1.58 h, 6.12± 1.08 μg·L -1·h -1 and (19.4± 9.0)%, respectively.

CONCLUSION: This study provides a simple, reliable and special method for determining concentrations of oxymatrine in plasma of Beagle dog. Oxymatrine shows low absolute bioavailability in Beagle dogs.

Source: here.

Note that some translations of the above paper are slightly different (including the one on PubMed), and for some unknown reason, omit the bioavailability data.
 
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Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,820
Any success with the powdered oxymartine @Hip?

No, and neither with transdermal oxymatrine. Because of oxymatrine's low oral bioavailability of 19%, I decided to try opening up the Alternative Medicine Solutions oxymatrine capsules, dissolving the oxymatrine powder therein into around 20 to 30 ml of water, and applying to the skin of my body, where it should be absorbed transdermally.

Compounds with a molecular weight lower than around 500 daltons are absorbed transdermally (ref: here), and the molecular weight of oxymatrine is 264 daltons, so well below the 500 dalton limit.

However, even using transdermal oxymatrine, it did not lead to any improvements in my ME/CFS. But note that only 25% of ME/CFS patients trying oxymatrine get a good response, according to Dr Chia's research, so I may just be a non responder to oxymatrine.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,820
Sophora is not the only herb that can inhibit enteroviruses. Houttuynia is one but not the only.

Houttuynia cordata (Yu Xing Cao) is effective against enterovirus 71, but the enteroviruses associated with ME/CFS are different enteroviruses, namely coxsackievirus B (CVB) and echovirus (EV), and Houttuynia cordata may not work for CVB and EV.

At lot of time, herbal antivirals are very specific in the type of enteroviruses they can target: they may work against one type of enterovirus, but not another. Although sometimes you get a herbal antiviral that has broad spectrum anti-enterovirus activity. You can see in my list of anti-enterovirus herbs and drugs that the viral targets are quite specific.

Although interestingly, Houttuynia cordata does fight the intracellular component of various infections, including dengue virus, Salmonella, and Bartonella. I tried 1 heaped teaspoon of Houttuynia cordata for 10 days, but did not notice much.
 

Biarritz13

Senior Member
Messages
699
Location
France
Right, thank you.

I guess you did try them (or the most potent ones). Could you rule out an active enterovirus in your case then?
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,820
I guess you did try them (or the most potent ones). Could you rule out an active enterovirus in your case then?

I am still in the process of trying these. My viral tests showed I have high titers (active infection) with coxsackievirus B4, so that is the virus I want to target.
 

Deltrus

Senior Member
Messages
271
Sublingual is probably a good idea. I know several drugs that I didn't respond to orally that I did sublingually. 200 mg probably wont fully absorb though.
 

consuegra

Senior Member
Messages
176
No, and neither with transdermal oxymatrine. Because of oxymatrine's low oral bioavailability of 19%, I decided to try opening up the Alternative Medicine Solutions oxymatrine capsules, dissolving the oxymatrine powder therein into around 20 to 30 ml of water, and applying to the skin of my body, where it should be absorbed transdermally.

Compounds with a molecular weight lower than around 500 daltons are absorbed transdermally (ref: here), and the molecular weight of oxymatrine is 264 daltons, so well below the 500 dalton limit.

However, even using transdermal oxymatrine, it did not lead to any improvements in my ME/CFS. But note that only 25% of ME/CFS patients trying oxymatrine get a good response, according to Dr Chia's research, so I may just be a non responder to oxymatrine.

What about trying
liposomalized oxymatrine?

Chris