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marshall protocol

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
Yes, I was on it for about 9 months under the tutelage of KDM.

The antibiotics helped my guts in the first 2 months, after that it was downhill all the way for me. (To be fair the biggest factors in my catastrophic relapse were other meds he added in that were poisoning me, not part of the classic Marshall protocol).

Avoiding vitamin D was a big blunder, you need to increase it.

It is also my considered opinion that, if you have infections that can actually be eliminated by antibiotics, then you should not faff about taking them for a little while and then stop so they can regain their strength and numbers again. You take the dosage and the length of treatment that you need to knock them on the head. You don't win wars by stopping for tea breaks. The attack has to be relentless.

You need proper tests to find out what bacteria you are fighting, then get prescribed a solid treatment that will kill them.

I have been on four antibiotics continuously for the last year and I feel much better on them.
 
Messages
92
Location
Holland
Thanks for response.

How did your treatment plan looks like?? How long antibiotics?

And where do you follow your treatment now?? Still at KDM??
Do you take the antibiotica everyday for 1 year???

Sorry for all my questions.

But in the marshall proctols they say that you cant have any vit d.
Do you have a high th1 also?
 

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
Hi Nabo,

I took antibiotics for 8 days at the start of each calendar month, then the rest of the month I took probiotics.

My treatment is now with a doctor at a clinic specialised in tick borne diseases (I have 4 of them) and chronic fatigue causd by other long term infections. And yes, I have taken antibiotics every day for a year and I am still taking them.

At the time I was following the Marshall protocol with KDM, I had to avoid foods rich in vitamin D and stay indoor all the time, or cover myself up when I went outside to avoid getting vitamin D from the light. So you are right, no vitamin D.

When I changed doctor, I asked about vitamin D, and he said it would be very helpful for me to takle a D supplement as well as starting a sunbathing programme! And I can feel that my immune system is stronger since I have been doing this, despite the antibiotics which often weaken our immune systems a bit by lowering the number of white blood cells. I also have lost other signs of vitamin D deficiency, for example I was unable to lose weight despite eating very little food, and I was also unable to get any suntan at all... these are signs of vitamin D deficiency and they have gone now, I am thinner and I have a suntan!
 

Dreambirdie

work in progress
Messages
5,569
Location
N. California
The Marshall Protocol is something I would avoid at all costs. From everything I have read and heard, and from personal contact with one of the "devotees" of this protocol (who was a coach to many patients on it), I think it's very extreme and very risky, and I think many of the people involved in it are rather fanatic and cultish.

Mercola has a good article about why he does not recommend it.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...y-I-Dont-Recommend-the-Marshall-Protocol.aspx

And here's a list of the Marshall protocol risks:
http://lassesen.com/cfids/MarshallProtocolRisks.htm
 

mellster

Marco
Messages
805
Location
San Francisco
Agree with the posters - likely avoid. Two signs of a protocol to question more than thorougly in my non-medical opinion only are avoiding Vit D and (even worse) sunlight and antibiotic combos (ABx can be useful but combos should be used very carefully only as antagonisms might quickly outweigh synergisms).
 
Messages
92
Location
Holland
thanks for responding.

I am goning to read the articles, thanks!

I am also on antibiotica for 1 week and the rest of the month probiotics.
That is what every patient of KDM does.
 

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
My doctor used the marshall protocol for some cfs patients. I dont think it was that successful or no more successful then normal abx treatment but this is just a guess. I remember when i asked him about it, he was against it for men and said that for some unkown reason that men who had tried it have a higher chance of kidney problems. In saying all that, abx have helped me at certain times with my cfs symptoms as well as sinus issues that greatly helped.

cheers!!!
 

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
My doctor used the marshall protocol for some cfs patients. I dont think it was that successful or no more successful then normal abx treatment but this is just a guess. I remember when i asked him about it, he was against it for men and said that for some unkown reason that men who had tried it have a higher chance of kidney problems. In saying all that, abx have helped me at certain times with my cfs symptoms as well as sinus issues that greatly helped.

cheers!!!
 

helios

Senior Member
Messages
136
Location
Brisbane
I did the Marshall Protocol about 3 yrs ago. Because I had had great but brief bursts of health when on abx the protocol appealed to me. It was quite difficult to find a doctor to support me on this, but I did eventually find one. I did the MP for a bit over a year and had mixed experiences on it. In phase 1 I felt slightly better but not by much. In phase 2 I ended up feeling really good, and was keen to start on phase 3 asap. When I added the clindamycin even at very small doses I felt rotten. When ever I slowly increased the dose I felt worse each time, and would have to drop back to the lowest level, this went on for 8 mths and I was really having a lot of difficulty coping with everyday life and was very depressed. I had been on clindamycin before by another CFS doctor for about 10mths and felt rotten for much of that time, and when I started to read more comments from other advocates of the protocol now extending the time for which one has to persevere the herx for 2-3-4 yrs, I realised I could not do that and avoid the sun for that long, so stopped it. I continued on with the benicar for a bit longer, but possibly not enough as my health never recovered to the level I was before I staretd the MP.
I also think avoidance of Vit-D is not the right thing to do for non sarcoidosis patients. I also think for CFS patients anyway, dropping all your other supplements is not a good idea. The advocates say dont worry you wont need them as your body recovers under the MP, but then they keep extending the recovery time out to years. IMO If someone is on hormone replacement therapy, going off that for a longtime while waiting for the MP to work is not going to help your recovery. I was also put of by the cultish nature of MP devotees and how anytime anyone had problems with the MP, that was consdered herxing and a good thing,
 

helios

Senior Member
Messages
136
Location
Brisbane
Athene
what bacteria you are you fighting, is it Lyme? I have had a number of tests for common pathogens but all I get told is that I am fighting an infection/virus of unknown origin, which makes it very hard to get a doctor to devise a specific ABx program. I had a blood test for rickettsia but they were negative, but had bioresonance testing show I had 2 strains with high readings. bioresonance is hardly considered a legit diagnostic tool except in Germany (but I was amazed at the accuracy on some things I had tested using biocom machine).
You say you take the Abx for just 8 days a month. Do you take the 4 ABx each day or alternate them each day or cycle them each month? how long before you started to notice a difference?

Heapsreal
Your doctor is it GD?
 

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
Hi Helios,

On the KDM version of the Marshall Protocol I took the abx one at a time for 8 days a month.

Then I got better testing to find out exactly what bacteria I was treating, since that had never been established. They are borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme), babesia, chlamydia pneumonia, mycoplasma pneumonia, erlichia (thought that has probably been cured by now) and a few virusus, mainly epstein barr and HHV6.
I got my tests at Infectolab in Germany. They use conventional testing methods but refined to be more sensitive than most labs.

I am taking all the antibiotics every day and have done for the last 13 months. I started out on IV treatment with abx and this gets results very fast, in 2 weeks I already had a much higher level of functionality. I have had plateaus but generally made steady continuous imrovement.

Some treatments do take years. eg Lyme treatments often do, but, my doctor was most emphatic that you should feel steady improvement and if you ever feel worse not better then the treatment is not right and your drug regime needs changing. The only exception to this is a herx reaction, which only happens at the start of treatment, within a few days, and cannot last more than 4 days.
 

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
Hi Helios,

On the KDM version of the Marshall Protocol I took the abx one at a time for 8 days a month.

Then I got better testing to find out exactly what bacteria I was treating, since that had never been established. They are borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme), babesia, chlamydia pneumonia, mycoplasma pneumonia, erlichia (thought that has probably been cured by now) and a few virusus, mainly epstein barr and HHV6.
I got my tests at Infectolab in Germany. They use conventional testing methods but refined to be more sensitive than most labs.

I am taking all the antibiotics every day and have done for the last 13 months. I started out on IV treatment with abx and this gets results very fast, in 2 weeks I already had a much higher level of functionality. I have had plateaus but generally made steady continuous imrovement.

Some treatments do take years. eg Lyme treatments often do, but, my doctor was most emphatic that you should feel steady improvement and if you ever feel worse not better then the treatment is not right and your drug regime needs changing. The only exception to this is a herx reaction, which only happens at the start of treatment, within a few days, and cannot last more than 4 days.
 

MDL

Messages
80
Hi Athene,

That's quite a line-up. Are you saying that you were treated with antibiotics without knowing the specific infections present?

I always appreciate your posts.
Marian
 

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
Hi Athene,

That's quite a line-up. Are you saying that you were treated with antibiotics without knowing the specific infections present?

I always appreciate your posts.
Marian

Yes and no.
KDM did know exactly what was in my intestine, I had the Redlabs fecal test which quantifies everything in there. So from his point of view, that was what needed treating and he knew exactly what he was dealing with.
But no, since he did not know I had any of the bacterial infections I have listed above. He tested me for two of those infections but they came up negative in his test. He just uses the local phlebotomy lab in Brussels which does not have any specialised testing for such infections. Nearly all the infections I have listed above are notoriously difficult to detect in tests and so the initial negative is not surprising. The test they used for Lyme (ordinary ELISA) is a particularly useless one.
 

xrunner

Senior Member
Messages
843
Location
Surrey
My view on the Marshall protocol is quite cynical.
Their presentations (available online) are 99% about Dr Marshall's theories which appear mostly based on what he calls in-silico models i.e. computer models. They have been running some sort of voluntary study for years but never presented any serious data of the results. Oout of the dozens slides that make up their presentations I've only seen one slide with some high level reference to some of the results but no details at all, for e.g. people dropping out, people getting worse, side effects etc.
The improvements people experience may be due to the Benicar which may act as an anti-inflammatory (down-regulates NFkb and TNFalpha according to them) but I'm not convinced about the effectiveness of micro doses of abx.
 

xrunner

Senior Member
Messages
843
Location
Surrey
Some treatments do take years. eg Lyme treatments often do, but, my doctor was most emphatic that you should feel steady improvement and if you ever feel worse not better then the treatment is not right and your drug regime needs changing. The only exception to this is a herx reaction, which only happens at the start of treatment, within a few days, and cannot last more than 4 days.

My experience is the exactly the opposite and matches what Dr Burrascano describes in his Guidelines on Lyme disease (and Dr Nicolson in articles about other chronic infections). When abx work I start feeling worse after four five days but then there's an improvement after finishing the course. Herx responses can go on for weeks.
On a couple of occasions in the past, I felt better on abx and on both occasions I slipped back to where I was when I went off, which I assume it was because of their anti-inflammatory effect, rather than causing any apparent bacterial killing.
On the other hand, if one feels worse straight away or in the first few days, it's likely to be either an allergic response or sensitivity to an abx /some kind of autonomic reaction to the drug, in my opinion.

http://www.ilads.org/lyme_disease/B_guidelines_12_17_08.pdf
Several days after the onset of appropriate antibiotic therapy, symptoms often flare due to lysis of the
spirochetes with release of increased amount of antigenic material and possibly bacterial toxins. This is referred
to as a Jarisch Herxheimer-like reaction. Because it takes 48 to 72 hours of therapy to initiate bacterial killing,
the Herxheimer reaction is therefore delayed. This is unlike syphilis, in which these reactions can occur within
hours.
It has been observed that symptoms will flare in cycles every four weeks. It is thought that this reflects the
organisms cell cycle, with the growth phase occurring once per month (intermittent growth is common in
Borrelia species). As antibiotics will only kill bacteria during their growth phase, therapy is designed to bracket
at least one whole generation cycle. This is why the minimum treatment duration should be at least four weeks.
If the antibiotics are working, over time these flares will lessen in severity and duration. The very occurrence of
ongoing monthly cycles indicates that living organisms are still present and that antibiotics should be
continued.
With treatment, these monthly symptom flares are exaggerated and presumably represent recurrent
Herxheimer-like reactions as Bb enters its vulnerable growth phase and then are lysed. For unknown reasons,
the worst occurs at the fourth week of treatment. Observation suggest that the more severe this reaction, the
higher the germ load, and the more ill the patient.
 

MDL

Messages
80
Yes and no.
KDM did know exactly what was in my intestine, I had the Redlabs fecal test which quantifies everything in there. So from his point of view, that was what needed treating and he knew exactly what he was dealing with.
But no, since he did not know I had any of the bacterial infections I have listed above. He tested me for two of those infections but they came up negative in his test. He just uses the local phlebotomy lab in Brussels which does not have any specialised testing for such infections. Nearly all the infections I have listed above are notoriously difficult to detect in tests and so the initial negative is not surprising. The test they used for Lyme (ordinary ELISA) is a particularly useless one.

I see. It is good that you have uncovered these other pathogens, even if you had to find them on your own.
Marian
 

helios

Senior Member
Messages
136
Location
Brisbane
Hi Helios,

On the KDM version of the Marshall Protocol I took the abx one at a time for 8 days a month.

Then I got better testing to find out exactly what bacteria I was treating, since that had never been established. They are borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme), babesia, chlamydia pneumonia, mycoplasma pneumonia, erlichia (thought that has probably been cured by now) and a few virusus, mainly epstein barr and HHV6.
I got my tests at Infectolab in Germany. They use conventional testing methods but refined to be more sensitive than most labs.

Hi Athene
thanks for answering my earlier post. I have a few more questions for you.
Did your doctor give you a hardtime when you insisted on using this German Laboratory?
How do you know this German Lab is better than anything in Nth America?
My doc was fairly sure I had ricketssia, but I somehow expect he would be annoyed if I said this German Lab was better than the premier Australian Analytical Laboratories, and requested to have another blood test shipped to the otherside of the world.
Has anyone else here used Infectolab?
 

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
Hi Athene
thanks for answering my earlier post. I have a few more questions for you.
Did your doctor give you a hardtime when you insisted on using this German Laboratory?
How do you know this German Lab is better than anything in Nth America?
My doc was fairly sure I had ricketssia, but I somehow expect he would be annoyed if I said this German Lab was better than the premier Australian Analytical Laboratories, and requested to have another blood test shipped to the otherside of the world.
Has anyone else here used Infectolab?

Hi Helios,
No, my doctor was not at all bothered about my using this German Lab. Italian doctors in general take the view that you should pay for the best you can afford, and they certainly don't live under the delusion that that is always going to be in Italy. (Here in Europe everyone knows German healthcare is the best, I doubt anyone would attempt to dispute that view). My doctor already knew there was nothing in Italy that could compare to their standards in Lyme or other specialised testing - Lyme disease and many other tick borne diseases here are pretty much off the radar scale, in Italy ticks usually give people Mediterranean spotted fever and they die in days without emergency treatment, so that's where they focus.

When I suspected I could have a tick borne disease I contacted Ilads to ask where to get tested, and they said it is the best lab in Europe. They also said specifically there is no doctor or lab in Italy they could recommened. They didn't say it was better than anything in America, I would doubt that is the case. They've just developed a new test in America which is going to become the gold standard of Lyme testing (according to Burrascano), but so far only available at one lab and only for local people. This German lab teaches their testing techniques to labs in America and vice versa - I think they are all trying to improve tests and share their expertise.

What I would suggest is that you email ILADS, and ask them which lab or doctor they can recommend nearest to you - you can trust what they come up with. If they tell you your only hope is America or Europe, at least that might have some weight with your doctor.