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Just a few sprays of a home-made Dr Brewer antifungal nasal spray for nasal mold triggered significant PEM

hb8847

Senior Member
Messages
432
Location
United Kingdom
Here is Dr Myhill's article on Lugol's iodine. The way she talks about it makes it sound incredibly safe.

Iodine is another tool that has revolutionised my practice! Like Vitamin C it contact-kills all microbes. It is the only agent that is consistently active against gram positive and gram-negative bacteria, mycobacteria, spores, amoebic cysts, fungi, protozoa, yeasts, drug-resistant bacteria such as MRSA and viruses. In the doses below, it is non-toxic to the immune system cells responsible for healing and repair – indeed studies show it enhances healing. This is why the surgeons love it. Skin painted with iodine before incision does not get infected and heals perfectly.

And here is a website she links to which talks about it further.
 
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hb8847

Senior Member
Messages
432
Location
United Kingdom
Then again she did have her medical license revoked for a while.

Yes I was aware of that. My understanding was that it was quite controversial though. Also, since then I think one of the parameters of the charges being dropped was that she had to have more oversight over her practice. In light of that I think it's probably unlikely her website would contain information regarding Lugol's iodine that was dangerous to the patient.

That said, she certainly divides opinion amongst the ME/CFS community. Here is a PR thread discussing her, it's quite interesting. Most of the criticism seems to be about her approach to CFS, which is quite experimental. And she has some fairly dogmatic views about what sort of diet and supplement regime we should be on. Indeed, I had a few issues with her when I was a patient of hers - she completely missed that I had MCAS and instead prescribed medication and a diet that things worse, and I ended up having to find another doctor. But to date she's still the only doctor that's helped my ME/CFS at all, and in my opinion a significant part of that was due to her willingness to experiment a bit with different medications.

I'll just have to take it slowly and hope she's right.

Sounds like a good plan.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Regarding the safety of iodine vapour and the respiratory tract. It's definitely something I should take into consideration as I go. But the factsheets around it are likely based around chemists using elemental iodine in significant quantities, which vapourises through sublimation. A drop or two of a 15% solution surely does not compare to these quantities. That's what I hope anyway!

Yes, I would not have thought that one or two drops of Lugol's would create toxic levels of iodine gas. But worth bearing the symptoms of iodine toxicity in mind, just in case.

Where did you buy your 15% iodine solution, by the way?
 

seamyb

Senior Member
Messages
560
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seamyb

Senior Member
Messages
560
There's been a gap in the updates because it's always easier to report when things are good.

I took a turn backwards. Had a few brilliant days and then the air hunger was just getting too much. Decided to try a few aspirin to see if it was mast cell related and as I did that I began to get fatigue and feeling ill again.

Either
1) It was the aspirin that made me fatigued and ill
2) It was a herx reaction beginning
3) It was completely random and nothing I've been doing has affected my illness.

I've stopped everything but the iodine now and have started taking it differently - I only take two inhalations up each nostril at a time, but I do it every hour now as opposed to 3-5 times a day. Today is the first day of doing so and it has been a good day for air hunger (i.e. very little of it). I used to go to town on the pipe each time I took it.
 

GlassCannonLife

Senior Member
Messages
819
Are any of you (eg @Hip @seamyb @hb8847) concerned about killing off your sinus microbiome with this approach?

I have previously seen people describing that the nasal sinus has its own good bacteria etc in a somewhat similar way to the gut. This type of treatment would completely destroy everything, right? Thoughts?
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
I have previously seen people describing that the nasal sinus has its own good bacteria etc in a somewhat similar way to the gut. This type of treatment would completely destroy everything, right? Thoughts?

Have you come across any studies indicating nasal spray antimicrobials might have negative effects on the sinus microbiome?

I don't think much of the spray will enter the sinuses, in any case.

The nasal use probiotic Lactobacillus sakei was mentioned earlier in this thread.
 

GlassCannonLife

Senior Member
Messages
819
Just had an interesting conversation with myself:

You're going to sniff lines of probiotic, aren't you...

I actually tried snorting probiotics before - quite painful.. Although I've never snorted anything else so maybe that's always how it feels? Lol.

@Hip sorry I haven't read into this for over a year, I just remembered seeing it when I was first researching nasal rinses.

There was a discussion comparing intranasal probiotics with more aggressive cleansing eg using baby shampoo in saline to try and clean your sinus more comprehensively. I haven't checked the literature at this time, I asked in case you guys had checked it prior to doing this.

I'm not an expert on the sinus by any means, but I would assume the standard inhalation method of a nasal spray (finger over one nostril, head slightly down, slow long breath in and spray during the inhalation) would indeed deliver the product within the sinus where whatever microbiome would exist. Isn't that the whole idea of nasal sprays?

Anyway yes, I will need to check the literature, please share anything interesting you may find if you (or others) take a look.
 

Lieselotte

Senior Member
Messages
250
Location
Orange County, CA
So just a follow up - I tried nebulizing iodine. I got some 2% Lugol's iodine as it was available at the local health store. I filled the nebulizer with 5mL of saline and put one drop of iodine and there were no issues, so I did 2 drops afterwards (closest to the one drop of 5% in the Mercola link I shared).

There were no issues with nebulizing the iodine. No pain or irritation etc. I did the 2 drops three days in a row and didn't feel my sinuses clearing or herx or anything like that. So either it takes longer or it's not helping my problem. Or maybe I could try more iodine.
 

hb8847

Senior Member
Messages
432
Location
United Kingdom
Interesting @Lieselotte , let us know how you get on.

Out of interest, do you have any results confirming presence of mould/mycotoxins or are you just experimenting?

As for the Herx, I think Brewer noted that only around a third of his patients experienced any side effects so I'm not sure a Herx reaction is guaranteed, even if it's helping. Might be worth sticking at it a bit longer and seeing how it goes? I'd be very interested to hear how you get on.
 

Lieselotte

Senior Member
Messages
250
Location
Orange County, CA
@hb8847 I did the MicrobiologyDX culture test but haven't gotten the results yet. Probably will have them in a few weeks.

The only stuff I have to go on now is the muscle test that was done on me showed Candida or mold (some sort of fungus) in my nasal area, but not in my gut. Given that I repeatedly have positive IgM for Candida, it could be that. So, worth looking into as I've been looking for the cause of my constant stuffed up nose for years. And worth doing a longer trail too, thanks!
 

seamyb

Senior Member
Messages
560
So just a follow up - I tried nebulizing iodine. I got some 2% Lugol's iodine as it was available at the local health store. I filled the nebulizer with 5mL of saline and put one drop of iodine and there were no issues, so I did 2 drops afterwards (closest to the one drop of 5% in the Mercola link I shared).

There were no issues with nebulizing the iodine. No pain or irritation etc. I did the 2 drops three days in a row and didn't feel my sinuses clearing or herx or anything like that. So either it takes longer or it's not helping my problem. Or maybe I could try more iodine.

What does a nebuliser actually do? How does it actually get the stuff into gas form?
 

GlassCannonLife

Senior Member
Messages
819
How are you all going with the iodine nasal spray treatments? @Hip @Lieselotte @seamyb @hb8847 (not sure if I missed someone, please feel free to share if you are trying this).

I'm going to get my house mould tested tomorrow, looking forward to finally ruling this out/diagnosing a large contributor.
 

Lieselotte

Senior Member
Messages
250
Location
Orange County, CA
@GlassCannonLife going alright, but no major change here.
I'm only doing once per day, and have missed a couple days. I even bought some kimchi to take some of the kimchi juice and put it in my nostrils on a cotton swab. (I love kimchi, so I thought it as a bonus to be able to eat the stuff in addition to putting it up my nose!)

I watched a mold and mycotoxins summit online. Only some of the presenters were asked about sinus mold, so not too helpful on that front. And there seemed to be some consensus about MARCoNS being super difficult to get rid of.
Here are the sinus treatments that were discussed for nasal molds:
  • Amphotericin B or Nystatin nasal sprays
  • kimchi juice or L. Sakei
  • ozone (very dangerous to breathe into your lungs: take a syringe of less concentrated ozone, hold your breath and squirt it in one nostril. Then exhale, breathing all the ozone out. repeat on other nostril)
  • Nebulized H2O2 or Iodine
  • Salt water Iodine rinse like this:
 
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