The rash and prickly heat calmed down a bit after 1pm once I took the quercitin and peppermint tea combo. I am going to get some nettle and peppermint tea so I can control that reaction for the next few weeks. The anti histamines didn't really do a thing so I'll probably give up on this completely.
My thoughts over the last few days have also asked a question about the th1 and th2 immune response. Hip does a much better job of explaining it than I can here: https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/is-th1-th2-an-outdated-model-th17.33924/
My thoughts were - if this infection is not severe and currently I feel like it is almost gone (or there isn't much left) why does it keep coming back? Taking the ME out of the equation for a moment, what if the protocol is ultimately making it worse by making my immune system th1 dominant. Ultimately this means that my immune system would never mount the right type of cellular immune defense against the pathogenic bacteria, slowing it right down, allowing it to thrive. I am convinced that when I took ginseng last year, this is why I ended up in hospital, because my body couldn't kill the bacteria and it couldn't kill the ebv reactivating and it got "stuck". So now with the reishi and the egcg and the glucans, these 3 things will increase th1. The only thing is green tea should lower th1 by inhibiting inflammation. However I prefer to go on whether something is stimulating or not in the long run.
In essence your body requires a th1 response to fight and kill viruses and a th2 response to deal with inflammation and kill bacteria. The body naturally goes between these. But almost all treatments for ME (many) focus on raising th1 to kill the viruses. Also Hip said that the th2 response is highest in the morning, funnily enough this is when my bacterial infection feels the best and I feel at my most tired. Probably not a coincidence to be honest.
Apparently NAC increased glutathione and glutathione also suppresses th2! So that might not be helping.
So I am going to remove the NAC and green tea (Josh advised against this, personally as I have no symptoms right now apart from the infection I don't think it will matter) and see how I get on this week. If those are the two "stimulatory" compounds in the protocol, I should notice a pretty big difference. I can't remove the reishi which is certainly stimulating too, because that will just bugger up the whole protocol and I'll have to start over. Removing the green tea might not be too great to be honest, but these experiments need to be done, especially as I have been sick for 3 weeks and I can barely feel this infection in my throat.
Also the day I took the anti biotics I felt like it was way better and on its way out in the evening and then I had to take my tablets and I felt like my body "woke up" - but I got the strong feeling this was actually making things worse not better. Time will tell if I'm right. I get the swab culture results on Friday.
My thoughts over the last few days have also asked a question about the th1 and th2 immune response. Hip does a much better job of explaining it than I can here: https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/is-th1-th2-an-outdated-model-th17.33924/
My thoughts were - if this infection is not severe and currently I feel like it is almost gone (or there isn't much left) why does it keep coming back? Taking the ME out of the equation for a moment, what if the protocol is ultimately making it worse by making my immune system th1 dominant. Ultimately this means that my immune system would never mount the right type of cellular immune defense against the pathogenic bacteria, slowing it right down, allowing it to thrive. I am convinced that when I took ginseng last year, this is why I ended up in hospital, because my body couldn't kill the bacteria and it couldn't kill the ebv reactivating and it got "stuck". So now with the reishi and the egcg and the glucans, these 3 things will increase th1. The only thing is green tea should lower th1 by inhibiting inflammation. However I prefer to go on whether something is stimulating or not in the long run.
In essence your body requires a th1 response to fight and kill viruses and a th2 response to deal with inflammation and kill bacteria. The body naturally goes between these. But almost all treatments for ME (many) focus on raising th1 to kill the viruses. Also Hip said that the th2 response is highest in the morning, funnily enough this is when my bacterial infection feels the best and I feel at my most tired. Probably not a coincidence to be honest.
Apparently NAC increased glutathione and glutathione also suppresses th2! So that might not be helping.
So I am going to remove the NAC and green tea (Josh advised against this, personally as I have no symptoms right now apart from the infection I don't think it will matter) and see how I get on this week. If those are the two "stimulatory" compounds in the protocol, I should notice a pretty big difference. I can't remove the reishi which is certainly stimulating too, because that will just bugger up the whole protocol and I'll have to start over. Removing the green tea might not be too great to be honest, but these experiments need to be done, especially as I have been sick for 3 weeks and I can barely feel this infection in my throat.
Also the day I took the anti biotics I felt like it was way better and on its way out in the evening and then I had to take my tablets and I felt like my body "woke up" - but I got the strong feeling this was actually making things worse not better. Time will tell if I'm right. I get the swab culture results on Friday.
