I began with one pill, and didn't notice any particular side effects. After a week I increased to two per day and started to notice low-grade fevers and a sore throat. When I went to three per day a week later, I experienced very bad flu-like symptoms and intense fatigue. I dropped to two pills per day, but the symptoms barely abated. When I dropped to one, the symptoms were a little lower but still hard to bear, so I went off Eq altogether after five weeks.
Dr Chia finds that those who improve on
oxymatrine sometimes get worse before they get better. It seems for some you have to go through the storm before you get to the calm of better health on the other side.
Getting worse means ME/CFS symptoms like fatigue, myalgia and headache intensify, and flu-like symptoms and fever symptoms may appear after around a month or so on oxymatrine.
My understanding is that typically, when the fever symptoms kick in (which is normally after a month or two on oxymatrine), it often then just takes 4 or 5 days before the fever clears up, and that's when you will have passed through the storm, and should hopefully be feeling much better. The fever period is probably when the oxymatrine is working hardest to clear viruses from your body.
Dr Chia found that if you are a responder to oxymatrine, you may need go through the storm to get to the calm of better health on the other side. And after passing through the storm, Dr Chia found that you may have to keep taking the oxymatrine in order to maintain your gains. If you stop taking oxymatrine at that point, then your ME/CFS symptoms may return. That has been Dr Chia's experience.
However, if you did stop taking it and got worse again, in most cases (but not all), Dr Chia found that starting a second course of oxymatrine again led to an improvement in symptoms. But in some cases, you don't get a second chance (ie, the oxymatrine does not work the second time).
If you are a responder to oxymatrine, just how long you should keep taking I do not know, but I would guess at least 2 years. You'd have to make an appointment with Dr Chia to find out more about this.
With enterovirus treatments such as oxymatrine, you may have fought off most of the virus and your ME/CFS may have much improved or gone into remission. But the virus may not be fully eliminated, and may still exist in small pockets of your body. So when you stop the treatment, the enterovirus infection can grow back again from those small pockets.
Dr Chia found this even with his interferon treatments for enterovirus: lots of his ME/CFS patients responded well to interferon, and went into full remission from ME/CFS, along with a drop in their viral titers. But then some months down the line, they all relapsed back into ME/CFS, and their viral titers went up again.
This indicates that even if you clear most of the enterovirus from the body, such that your ME/CFS symptoms have largely disappeared, the virus can claw its way back if you drop your guard, so to speak. Dropping your guard means stopping oxymatrine too early.
Note that Dr Chia says oxymatrine is not recommended for people with
autoimmune tendencies or seizure disorders.
Incidentally, Dr Chia found that his Equilibrant formulation of oxymatrine (which contains other immunomodulatory herbs such as astragalus) has stronger effects that just regular oxymatrine. So given the strong reactions you have had to Equilibrant, you might be better off taking pure oxymatrine.
Some Sources for Oxymatrine
Equilibrant oxymatrine tablets (Dr John Chia's brand) available at
equilibranthealth
Alternative Medicine Solutions oxymatrine (300 mg oxymatrine per capsule) available here:
alternativemedicinesolution •
betterlife •
alchemistlab •
organicpharmacy •
amazon
White Tiger brand oxymatrine (200 mg oxymatrine per tablet) available here:
chineseherbs •
acuatlanta •
naturalnutritionals •
goldenneedleonline •
maxnature •
biomedonline (Netherlands)
Note that Dr Chia says oxymatrine is not recommended for people with
autoimmune tendencies or seizure disorders.
I did not respond to oxymatrine, but I have tried both the White Tiger brand and the Alternative Medicine Solutions oxymatrine capsules. I found the latter was much better, because it pure oxymatrine, and does not cause dizziness side effects. The White Tiger brand contains both oxymatrine and matrine, and it is the matrine that causes dizziness. Matrine is also more toxic than oxymatrine, so may put more strain on the body.
For more info on oxymatrine, see:
this post and
this post.
See also these articles on Dr Chia's oxymatrine treatment:
•
Dr. Chia On Oxymatrine, Autoimmunity, ME/CFS and FM
•
Oxymatrine
•
Summary of 4th appointment with Dr. C
Dr Chia's patent on oxymatrine treatment:
Patent US8198293 - Oxymatrine compositions and related methods for treating and preventing chronic infectious diseases. In this patent document, the section entitled "Oxymatrine Clinical Study" is worth a quick read. Some excerpts:
One hundred patients took oxymatrine at dose of 200-300 mg twice a day with or without food for a minimum of three months.
A small percentage ( 2/204) of patients had transient increase in potassium, which returned to normal without specific treatment. A small percentage of patients ( 2/204) had elevated blood pressure that prompted discontinuation of therapy.
Relapse of symptoms was common after discontinuing oxymatrine. Fifty-nine percent ( 19/32) of patients (4 male, 15 female) relapsed within two days to one month after discontinuation of oxymatrine. Eighty-seven percent ( 13/15) of patients who relapsed responded to restart of oxymatrine.
Most of the patients tolerated oxymatrine well except for variable increase of pre-existing symptoms, such as headache, myalgia, abdominal pain, nausea, insomnia and at times, fevers during the first 1-2 days of taking the maximal doses. The increase in symptoms typically lasted a few days to several weeks and was much better tolerated when the dose of medication was increased gradually over a 2-3 week period or longer.
