Herbal/chinese medicine recommendations?

[77thDirector]

I have already tried ginseng but unfortunately does not agree with me. I am very curious about this field, as several posters here have said they achieved some success with herbal medicine. If anyone has improved using herbal supplements, could you please share what helps you in this thread?

 

[Wishful]

Cumin! That's cuminum cyminum, the common spice found in curry, and the active molecule is most likely cuminaldehyde. It blocked my PEM 100%, and eventually resulted in a permanent cure of PEM. Sadly, no one else has reported major benefits from it, crushing my hopes for major awards and global recognition.

I think there's a lot of potential treatments for ME in botanicals, but they'll mostly be effective for a few individuals, and not effective for anyone else. If cumin worked great for me, and some mushroom worked great for someone else, the chances of them working for you or any other specific individual may be about the same as any bottle of spice picked at random off the grocery shelf. The only way to know if something will work for you is to try it yourself. Some of us end up with a pile of potential treatments that didn't work, but some of us do get lucky and find something that works. It's like a lottery: if you buy a ticket, you have only a tiny chance of winning, but it you never buy a ticket, you're guaranteed to never win.

BTW, with ME it's common to find something that works well ... for maybe a few days, but then it stops working and never works again.

 

[Judee]

The earlier years of my disease I was so super sensitive to many things. I would say for anything you try, just do tiny amounts of them or make them into weak teas.

I do agree with Wishful. If you have a spice cupboard, maybe start there. I found some benefit from making thyme tea (from dried organic thyme) and drinking it. Then I found that Ken Lassessen rates it highly on his site too: https://cfsremission.com/treatment/antibacterial-herbs-for-cfs/
https://cfsremission.com/2019/07/10/user-results-from-new/

 

[Rufous McKinney]

I get alot of help with reducing intense symptoms using chinese traditional herbal medicine and I also use some b-caryophyllene. I've cleared some bad symptoms that never came back. I take a mix of about 37 herbs in one mix, and I see an expert CTM herbalist. 600 raw herbs in that office, plus gobs of other forms.

I consumed raw herbs, that I cooked up for about ten years, and now I am lazy and use "powdered" versions of the same herbs. its all tested by labs in the US.

I also use topical products with THC and CBD are helpful for me. Veins swell up in my hands: abruptly and it feels AWFUL. I apply these topical products and it's better in 5 minutes. So for me, something in these substances helps with peripheral neurological issues and cold/wind/inside joints.

(then somebody else reports that THC/CBD cause their veins to the exact opposite, making no sense, which is often how this illness is)

 

[maddietod]

I've experimented with herbs off and on through these 38 years of cfs, mostly for insomnia. I have had no luck, but that means nothing for you. I agree to just look things up for whatever you want to target, and give it a try. I just got interested in Stephen Buhner's work, and I'm putting together his 13- herb blend for chronic fatigue (not cfs). I'll try it until it runs out.