Holy Basil

[Christopher]

Want to quickly give my experience trialing holy basil. Holy basil had helped a friend of mine closeby with her CFS symptoms, so I figured I'd try it out. What I took was Holy Basil Force from New Chapter which is holy basil extract. My friend who experienced positive results took a milder form in the form of tea bags.

So a couple hours after my first dose of it, I felt a big difference in that my mild anxiety was much better, and I was also feeling a pretty severe sore throat, more severe than my chronic mild sore throat. I also had a big increase in energy and stamina.

So this lasted about a week, and roughly a week after starting it, I had a pretty big crash - poor strength, sleeping all the time. I stopped for a while and then tried it again - that time it again caused a sore throat but then I felt coldness in my hands and feet which is very unusual for me.

So, either the holy basil itself does not agree with me, or that I was taking it in extract form instead of a gentler form caused the problems. So just in case anyone is thinking about trying holy basil, that is my experience!

 

[Esther12]

A bit OT: I love Holy Basil in Thai stir-frys, but it's difficult to get, so normally just use standard basil. No idea about any health benefits, but anyone trying to consume holy basil would do well trying this meal!

I botch my own recipe, but this looks like a good guide. (I think that sliced red (bell) peppers is a good addition):

http://www.templeofthai.com/recipes/basil_chicken.php

Pork shoulder is really cheap in the UK right now, so I've been using left over pork to make this most weeks recently. Delicious.

Sorry to hear your health is worse again Christopher. Could it be that you pushed a bit hard during the week of feeling a bit better?

 

[Tammy]

I think that holy basil decreases cortisol.............don't know if that had anything to do with it?

 

[Christopher]

I don't think it was from overdoing it. I tend to stay pretty closely within my energy envelope and avoid PEM - it also didn't feel like PEM either. My best guess is that however it affected my immune system it was too strong. I may in the future take it in tea form to see if I tolerate better, because it did help tremendously initially.

 

[Seattle Sue]

I've recently been learning about essential oils and I wonder if they've got holy basil in that form.

I never paid any attention to essential oils in the past, and it turns out all the oils you buy in stores are cut with "carrier" oils. Pure essential oils are pricy.
I've learned about a company called, "Doterra" that sells only pure essential oils.
I've used the orange oil for depression and it has been a big help. (2 drops in a glass of water a day, sometimes two times a day).
Some of the stronger herbs they recommend rubbing the oil on the bottom of our feet because our feet have the largest pours in the body. If you have a strong reaction to ingesting it, rubbing holy basil oil on the bottom of your feet might be something to try.
http://doterra-essential-oils.com/doterra

Looks like they have a "Basil" but not a holy basil. Still might be worth trying in this pure form.
They say using the essential oils Orange is like using over a hundred oranges. It would be interesting to see what the basil oil would do. Perhaps I'll try it when I get some more money.

 

[Christopher]

Thanks Sue - on cpnhelp.org there is a man who improved his symptoms using essential oils. most people there use a combo of doxy, zithro, and metro.

 

[Marlène]

FYI: http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/medicinal/basil.html

Ocimum basilicum (sweet basilicum) is also adviced when you have herpes, adeno, hepatitis B or coxsackie B1
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16173941

 

[Guwop2]

Ive recently started a Coding Bootcamp (part-time) as an attempt to rejoin society, despite my mild-moderate M.E not having improved (in fact worsened a fair bit as a direct reaction to a single shot of Astra Zeneca). After the first session I crashed pretty bad and immediately (desperately) ordered a bunch of cortisol-dampening herbs. Ashwaghanda, Holy Basil, Grapeseed oil and Panax Ginsing. Most noticeable for the symptoms is the Holy Basil (Ocimum Sanctum, 450mg/900mg). It dramatically reduces my crashing during class and gave me energy. However the side effect was that I was waking up after 4 hours sleep each time I took it (despite taking it first thing in the a.m), then struggling to get back to sleep for a few hours, also slight anhedonia if I take too much. ALSO have been recenlty feeling pretty physically drained I think as result of taking it, bordering on borderline-crash state more and more.

As with any big reaction to a new supplement I think it's worth asking here what this response could mean (if anything), and are there any other supplements I could twin with this to offset the bad effects? Perhaps I should try a different type of Holy Basil??! Any suggestions welcome