I always get headaches, top of spine pain and eye pain/uveitis when I take reishi/lions mane.
I know I mentioned this much earlier but I have found the blog by the German researcher a few years ago that maybe of interest:
http://meversuscfs.blogspot.com/
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...n-treating-icc-me-with-antiretrovirals.60633/
@godlovesatrier I have been having recurring uveitis for a year now so am unable to take the mushroom products. I just can't get the pain and neuropathy under control so am very reluctant to provoke more immune activity. However I am very interested in your self-experimenting.
Thank you! I'll check these links out.
What you've described is the paradox - the pain / headaches / inflammation is caused by the immune response, rather than the infection itself. Therefore, if you didn't trust that the process was effectively solving the issue, you'd avoid going near it as part of normal pain-avoidance behaviour and sanity preservation.
The key issue is that the infected cells are still happily replicating in the background via latent transcytosis and lytic phase activity (the latter triggers an immune response, the former doesn't). This is why HSV-1/2 causes lesions by lytic activity - the immune system detects the activity and attacks the cells. This causes pain and inflammation.
The game-changer here is the triterpenes and beta-glucans.
The triterpenes allow the immune system to "see" the "hidden" latent cells - which they normally cannot. Those infected cells signal for apoptosis, so when WBC, etc inspect them, they get consumed and replaced.
[ Imagine the "joy" (pain) you'd normally experience when your immune system attacks a smaller number of lytic cells... and then imagine what happens when suddenly all of the latent cells are subject to the same process, too. Now imagine how many latent cells there are, after decades of silent replication throughout the host... ouch. The longer the infection has persisted, the more inflammation / immune remediation work is needed. ]
This immune activity is metabolically quite costly and normally not something the body will actively sustain unless provoked. Beta-glucans from lion's mane and oats, etc provoke a sustained, intense immune response.
Suspending dosing the beta-glucan sources
only can provide a temporary suspension of the intense immune response.
The combination of these two aspects is very, very effective by all reports. I'm hearing that ibuprofen is useful for most people (unlike other pain killers) and topical lignocaine is very impressive for people with serious VZV / HSV-1/2 infections. Those people report a LOT more inflammation, pain, etc - and since it's largely nerves being remediated... it's really, really unpleasant.
Day 12
On Day 10 I was feeling good, energy levels seemed much improved and I exercised without PEM and most of my symptoms had dissipated. I seemed mostly to still just be dealing with joint issues. I started the GI recovery aspect of the programme with prebiotics, probiotics and introduced of the 4 foods, all of which I am intolerant to.
Lots of GI and liver bloating, headaches, pressure, brain fog, sleeping through the day and struggling to sleep through the night and temperature fluctuations. Big headache, feel terrible but I don't necessarily feel sick, I feel like my ME when its worse.
Feeling properly rubbish and in pain at the moment and had to take some anti constipation meds to try and get my bowels moving again, it does not like rice! Not much fun today, this phase is as predicted all be it a little late and it needed the foods to kick me off.
Here's my personal update -
Started on the LEF reishi two days ago.
About 18 months ago, my left leg (vastus lateralis) got inflamed from an infection and I grew what appeared to be a 3rd knee. I went to a local doc, who gave me a script for cipro.. which I decided I’d keep for a bigger emergency, or a last resort and try to soldier through the leg pain. It went down over a week.
On the first night of LEF reishi, that same muscle got inflamed again.
The next morning, I was feeling mildly sick, fatigued and dizzy. Dropped my daughter to school and got "hit by a tonne of bricks". I got stuck in my car - dizzy, wiped out and sleepy. I couldn't drive home in that condition.. so I waited for a while, trying to figure out if it would pass, or whether I should try walking home, or get an Uber and get the car later.
The major dizziness and fatigue lifted after about 1.5 hours and I managed to continue with my day.
In the evening, I got a solid headache.
This morning, the left leg inflammation is better. My headache is much better, however I now have some neuritis in my left eye.
On the assumption this is thanks to the reishi and based on this response, I've increased my doses. Let's see where this rabbit hole goes.
Now I've been on "an hero" doses of raw reishi powder, lions mane and oats for over a month and only saw some minor immune activity in the beginning.
Here's a comparison between the raw reishi powder (left) and the LEF reishi extract (right).
The raw powder (left) tastes a bit "nutty" or "wooden" and slightly bitter. The alcohol extract (right) tastes like bitter dark chocolate. For science, I emptied a capsule into my mouth and I was concerned it actually was dark chocolate. Consequently, I've started adding this to my morning coffees and enjoying it.
Continuing our collaborative efforts to better understand the contents of reishi products available, some of my new favourite people have been contributing their research and photos -
and
.. so already we can see a huge variation between various reishi products.
Different parts of reishi have different colours and different triterpene content.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92757/table/ch9-t1/?report=objectonly
(from:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92757/#!po=0.381679)
The spores and the fruiting body contain the most triterpene content.
Overall, this creates a significant problem for ensuring that you're buying a product that contains sufficient triterpenes to provide the desired physiological response.
https://www.realmushrooms.com/usp-say-reishi-products-not-authentic/
The basic tests (and I'm organising independant lab tests for a wide range of reishi products) are - needs to be alcohol extract, dark, bitter and taste like cacao. At this stage, only a couple of products meet this initial criteria.
