Lots of questions here but I'll do my best.
I've only used two brands of OLE, Nature's Way (20% oleuropein) and NSI--the generic brand from Vitacost.com. The NSI brand seemed to not work and also upset my stomach more. I think it's made in China. I don't know where Nature's Way is made. As far as the expense, yes it is on the expensive side, however there are places online that you can buy bulk olive leaves or bulk olive leaf powder. You can then put it into capsules or make your own extract by steeping it in warm water.
This page from the Keep Hope Alive site that you mentioned has some instructions for making it (under the heading, "HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN OLIVE LEAF EXTRACT" a little more than a quarter down the page). I've seen bulk olive leaf just under $10/pound which is a significant savings. I haven't tried this method yet but would like to soon.
You said you are taking 6 caps a day. Are you spreading that out over the course of the day? I think this is important, so I take mine every 6 hours. I have tried setting my alarm so I can take it on schedule during the overnight hours but I usually just shut it off and fall asleep again, so I usually only take it 3 times per day.
You also said you had flu symptoms and cold sores. Do you mean cold sores of the herpes simplex kind? There is a person on the HHV6 Foundation forum, timaca, taking acyclovir. She said she gets cold sore outbreaks whenever she raises her acyclovir dose. I think someone posted here that they thought LDN makes olive leaf extract work better, not sure why.
As far as my herx, it was quite surprising. About 24 hours after starting the Nature's way brand, 2 capsules every 4 hours, I got an extreme headache, and eventually pain in the back of my neck, like my brainstem hurt. My jaw and other joints start popping and it hurt to turn my head (many of these same symptoms were reported by a few people when they started Valcyte). The scariest part was the extreme TMJ I got, it felt like electrical impulses zapping my jaw and making it open and close! (No on else reported this to my knowledge). About 5 days later, extreme fatigue set in and lasted for about 3 days. My headache began to subside slightly, but I raised the dosage several times and this pattern repeated. I eventually came to the point where raising it even further did not produce any additional "herx" so I stayed on a maintenance dose of about 18 caps/day until, as I posted, I decided to try to stop it for a few weeks and start it again. About 48 hours after stopping it, it was like I began herxing in reverse. Once I started taking it again it took another 48 hours for my "reverse herx" to subside.
You mentioned that your adrenals feel shot. I believe that this treatment made my adrenals worse as well, especially during the 3-day periods of extreme fatigue (which I'm actually going through again with Tagamet, see the Tagamet thread in the general treatment section). But I suspect this would happen with any antiviral treatment. I had been taking adrenal supplements for years and stopped all of them when I shifted to an antiviral approach so that probably compounded the problem.
Overall I really don't feel any better or worse than I did a year ago, but there must be SOMETHING happening. I hope what's happening is that my viral load is slowly decreasing and it will eventually make a difference--like you said it took your former practitioner 2 years so that gives me hope! I has been almost one year for me. About 11 months I think. So maybe it will take another year.
