froufox
Senior Member
- Messages
- 440
Hi anniekim, sorry my brain isnt working very well at the moment so I wasnt thinking very straight when I replied to your previous post. Forebearance and Garcia are right about the GcMAF not containing macrophages, rather it activates them, presumably after it is absorbed through the gut.
Re the GcMAF injections I actually found it quite hard going and had a lot more fatigue/exhaustion, inflammation in my brain, including severe depression after most of the injections. The side effects would normally last about 2 weeks after each injection. I could only tolerate a low dose and even had to space them out to once a month, but I found it still quite difficult to tolerate. In fact I seemed to get more sensitive as time went on....there is some research that suggests that microglia (macrophages in the brain) can be "primed" as a result of prior trauma (injury/infection), and as result they overreact and produce a much stronger pro-inflammatory response when there are continued "triggers" as time goes on. I feel that this was what was happening in my case. However, I also did sense that at times that the GcMAF was doing something good eg I would get what I felt were positive signs of immune activation and because of that I thought that I should just push through, and so I continued to do the injections for 9 months in total. My doctor also told me that the increase in inflammation was a good thing, though I dont think that he realised how bad it was! Obviously we can expect to experience some inflammation as the immune system is activated but it can get out of control and feel like its causing more harm than good, and it felt more like the latter in my case. I think i did about 23 injections in the end (stopped September last yr).
I should add that I started taking Nexavir/Biopressin after I had been on the GcMAF for a few months and that *did* seem to help rather than make me worse eg it would seem to lower inflammation, so my "progress" at that time was both good and bad.
After getting tested for nagalase which was found to be within range my doctor told me that I didnt need to take GcMAF anymore, even though overall I hadnt really improved. As I have also tested positive to lyme my doc advised me to next focus on getting treatment for the lyme. We know that those of us who have more coinfections are likely to experience more severe side effects from the GcMAF, and I am certain that this explains my poor tolerance to the GcMAF.
Overall I really dont know if the GcMAF has led to any long term improvements. My doctor at the time said that it can take a year after stopping GcMAF for significant improvements to show. I did have some improvements in some of my test results eg increased number of lymphocytes (I dont know if that was due to the GcMAF, Nexavir or both), although other markers got worse eg C4A and IL-6. I have improved more this year partly from doing HBOT, but I dont know if the GcMAF and/or Nexavir have contributed to that in any way. I still take Biopressin.
So a confusing picture but I hope all that makes some kind of sense!
