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Ask the Acupuncturist

Lyme disease and Gu?

I was referred and told you did something with Gu??? I have chronic lyme disease and a lot of imbalances. I was in the peace corps in the west Indies and in Africa before I got sick. I’m not sure exactly what you do or if you can be of help. I also have worked in many developing countries and am trying to work on emotional, spiritual and physical level. I have seen a lot of practitioners but David from Apple Health said you do things a bit different.
Thank you,
Karen

Dear Karen,
“Gu” is a the Chinese character for what was once called “Spirit Possession Disease”, because victims felt as though they had lost the essence of themselves.  This category of illness includes Lyme disease.  The character for Gu, which is 3500 years old, is 3 worms in a chalice.

100’s of cases of Lyme disease and co-infections are treated with Chinese Medicine in the US every year. There is a good book, “Treating Lyme Disease with Chinese Medicine” by Yale Zhang. Zhang is in New York and has been referred to many times by Andrew Weil.

Typically I am treating a dozen or so Lyme patients at any one time, which is a very small % of my practice.  My “Gu” patients tend to do very well in general, given the severity of Lyme disease.  Many now test negative for Lyme, while some are still struggling but improving. Some patients do Chinese Medicine only, while others do a combined approach with their Western providers and myself.

The advantage of the Chinese Herbs and supplements is that they break up the biofilm surrounding the Lyme. Wester practitioners also have discovered products that do this, but my clinical experience is that the traditional Chinese formulas tend to be more effective.  This dissolving of the biofilm then allows the antibiotics or other treatments to be much more successful at eradicating the Lyme and co-infections.

David probably said the I do things a bit differently because I am an old, constantly learning, geek about this stuff.  I go back to the original western information from Lida Mattman about “Stealth Pathogens” etc. as well as the older Chinese herbal medical texts about Gu. I am a Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine.  Only about 1% of Acupuncturists have this additional education.  The doctoral program is an integrative program with about 40% Western biomedicine and 60% Chinese Medicine in concert, so I do tend to see things somewhat differently from most practitioners.

You might want to listen to my podcasts about Gu by going to: thebalancingpoint.net.

Be Happy!
John Nieters, DAOM, L.Ac.
Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine

Flu Prevention

Dr. Nieters,
If you have the information at your fingertips, I would love know the doses of Vitamin C & D to take as flu prevention so that I can include them in my newsletter.
Thanks,
Katharine
Owner, Pure Joy Bodywork

Dear Katharine,

Vitamin D
The average dosage of vitamin D to stay at the appropriate serum levels of 56-60 is about 4,000 iu of Vitamin D.  Since most of us are deficient, we should use a loading dose of 10,000 iu for about a month and then go down to 5,000 iu per month during the 6 dark months.

This level is only dangerous in Sarcoidosis patients and those with some very intense cytokine storm problems (maybe 1/1,000 people) and then it is only truly dangerous in the Sarcoidosis patients.

The Vitamin D council recommends 1000 units per 2 pounds of body weight if you think you are coming down with something.  So for 150 pound individual it would be 75,000 iu (minimum) for first three days of viral attack.  I take 100,000 units when I feel that I have been compromised.  I have not missed a day of work for illness in 27 years.

Vitamin C
I recommend a dose of about 3,000mg during cold and flu season.  At the first sign of problems go up to bowel tolerance (enough to cause diarrhea, and then reduce to eliminate diarrhea) which could be up to 100,000 mg or more.  The body needs very high doses to repair the damage done by the virus.  The greatest cause of death from the flu is tertiary level heart attack from the inflammatory damage done to the blood vessels by the virus.

Epicor
Some type of yeast extract is good to increase sIgA levels (secretory IgA levels) on the mucus membranes to increase mucosal immunity.

Mushroom
Mushroom extracts to increase lung and mucosal immunity.

Yin Qiao Plus
This is a tincture from Bioessence (the standard formula Yin Qiao + banlangen, da qing ye, and chuan xin lian would be my choice with mixed herbs) at the first sign of sore throat or viral attack.

Sleep
This is the most important factor. Sleep as much as you need to feel rested.  In January this could be 10-12 hours.  This is “normal” human physiology and not a sign of illness.

Stay healthy.

Be Happy!
John Nieters, DAOM, L.Ac.
Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine

Vitiligo treatment

Dr. Nieters,
I heard about you through a friend and heard that you have past success in treating auto-immune diseases. I have a auto-immune disease called vitiligo where I lose pigmentation in my skin. I have been getting treated for this condition with light therapy at Kaiser for many years now with limited success, but recently, the condition has spread on my face, despite diligently sticking to my doctor’s treatment regiment.

What type of experience do you have in treating vitiligo?
What kind of results have you seen?
What type of treatment is typical for autoimmune diseases?
How does your treatment help them?
Is the treatment mostly acupuncture or medicine-based?
How often would I have to come in for treatment?
How long is recovery time/ when should I start seeing some results?

To aide you in answering some of these questions, here is some information about me:
Sex: Male Age: 23 Height: 5’6″ Weight: 135 lbs

I exercise regularly. I don’t smoke, but drink on occasion. I eat all types of food, but have been recently trying to eat more raw fruits and vegetables via juicing. I don’t have any allergies other than to pollen. I don’t use any medicine other than topical steriods, which are applied to the affected areas of vitiligo. (Protopic and Fluocinide)

Thanks again for your help, and I look forward to meeting you in the near future.
Miles

Dear Miles,
I have treated a fair amount of vitiligo with very good results.  The treatments in Chinese Medicine are pretty clear. The caveat is that most of my vitiligo patients have been women.

While I do acupuncture whenever I see my patients, most autoimmune, and internal medicine conditions in general, are best treated with herbs and lifestyle adjustments.  Because of this I do not need to see typical autoimmune patients very often.

A great deal of my practice is treating autoimmune disorders.  A lot of my patients fly in from the east coast or southern California, so I do not see them often. Ideal treatment frequency would be about every three weeks for the first 4-5 treatments to see what is most effective for you, and then every 6-9 weeks until the condition is resolved.

Vitiligo takes a little longer than most autoimmune conditions to see clear results because the cellular turnover takes awhile.  Typically about 2-3 months.  If no success by that time, it will likely not work.  That being said, I have a couple of patients where we had some obvious improvement in a few weeks.  I would not count on it, but it has happened.

I hope that this information helps.

Be Happy!
John Nieters, DAOM, L.Ac.
Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine

Liver enzymes

I am concerned about my liver enzymes, is there a particular food that I should avoid, like meat protein, dairy, etc…?  I didn’t know what “high liver enzyme” mean?
Thank you,
Nadia

 

Dear Nadia,
Liver enzymes are released from damaged cells in the liver allowing the enzymes to leak out.  This damage can be from many causes such as viral infections like hepatitis, alcohol intake, pharmaceutical or recreational drugs.  Sometimes, no cause is ever found.   It could even be caused by inflammation from the high thyroid levels.

A supplement that we commonly prescribe supports the healing process of the liver by supporting the phospolipid fatty membranes around the cells of the liver to protect the liver.

Foods that support the liver:

  • high quality fats and oils (extra virgin olive, grapeseed, high quality fish, cod liver,  krill, virgin coconut, etc)
  • green vegetables
  • micro algae.

Foods that are hard on the liver:

  • Processed foods
  • drugs
  • alcohol
  • artificial sweeteners
  • high fructose corn syrup
  • pesticide residue on food
  • birth control pills

Be Happy!
John Nieters, DAOM, L.Ac.
Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine

Thrush & fungal infections

Hello John,
I’m coming in to see you tomorrow but wanted to ask you what you thought of this. Last 2 days my throat has been a little sore and it’s around the back left side of my tongue. This morning I woke up to see a film on my tongue that looks a lot like this: http://healthytonguesecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/thrush1.jpg

What should I do? I didn’t have my probiotics for a day and a half, maybe that caused it. I’ll be calling my doctor shortly.

Thanks,
Sam

Dear Sam,
I get to see these types of tongues frequently. Unfortunately it is all too common with antibiotics. One thing to remember is that it is very difficult to have thrush unless you have fungal overgrowth throughout the system. There are many good intestinal yeast killers which, will lower the load.

For your mouth specifically:

  • You can take an oral anti-fungal from you MD
  • You can get an anti-thrush anti-fungal from you doctor
  • You can get a a strong liquid natural probiotic (health food store) and hold it in you mouth as long as possible.
  • Good quality kephir or yoghurt will help some.  Drink the kefir about 3-4 ounces at a time. Hold it in your mouth and then swallow.  Repeat every 1/2 hour or so.

Good intestinal anti-fungals (may taste too bad to use orally) are Grapefruit seed extract, capryllic acid, undecyclenic acid.  I have a list of about 20 of them, but these are top notch.
Butter, ghee and coconut oil are also anti-fungal. Increase probiotics up to about 6 times per day.   Don’t take them within 1.5 hours of the antibiotics.

See you tomorrow.

Be Happy!
John Nieters, DAOM, L.Ac.
Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine

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