Post of my blog entries are copied straight from another blog, so will just post them here, they will be somewhat out of context as I am 35 days in, but hopefully still useful!

Night 35:

200mg egcg sat and sun seemed to help a lot with energy and PEM. But while I don't have any muscle fatigue I am pretty spaced out and disorientated. But that might be the covid jab or the fact that I haven't been taking any of the reishi.

Day 36 Dose 1:

Felt a lot dizzier and more out of it after the immune herbs than I did before I took them. On the whole still feel pretty whacked today, but I did a lot this weekend so I am not exactly surprised. Concentration also went out the window once I took the immune herbs. Will see how I get on.

Thanks Johnny!

Night 36

I've had a sore throat for a few days, not the typical ME sore throat (Which I haven't had for weeks anyway), this ones been more like tonsillitis or something.  Anyway I checked my tonsils and throat last night to find it was all pretty red raw and my tonsils were quite swollen.  Fairly convinced I might have a strep infection as my throat feels sore and my tonsils are swollen and last night it was a little painful. 

Anyway I have tried everything for strep (before the eventual...call doctor...get given anti biotics), I'm also allergic to most anti biotics, apart from clindamycin.  So I have tried a lot of natural treatments, bathed the tonsils in coconut oil 3x a day for 20 minutes, tried augustifolia tincture on the offending area (I think that made it worse), I've tried andrographis to no effect and have tried several other things like garlic lozenges and the like.  The last one being disgusting to be honest.   Of course I've tried honey and lemon and all those bull**** strep treatments too.

I realised a long time ago if you couldn't stop the infection or reduce the inflammation you were kind of stuffed which got me to researching Lauricidin last night, as a very much last ditch attempt at finding something that will work.  Turns out Lauricidin is highly effective against gram positive bacteria (https://www.monolaurinandmore.com/articles/monolaurin-strep-throat) and all strep strains in Vitro.  While I can't be sure about it's in vivo effects it does produce a fairly strong immune reaction when I take it.  I've also had it work on tummy bugs and thrush before now so I figured it might work for this.  I've started to take it as of last night and woke up thismorning feeling quite a ot better.  So will continue take it for a few days.  It seems to have a half life of 2 hours and as I am sure people know dosing for bacterial infections is pretty critical so I am going to take it every 2 hours.  I even woke up at 2 am last night and took more, which reduced the swelling in the tonsils in about 30 minutes.  I am taking the max dose 3000mg monolaurin per dose.

As an aside I think if it wasn't for this infection I'd be feeling pretty good as the reishi seemed to give me an energy boost last night.  But I also had a very swollen neck, throat etc, just feels like the infection is in these tissues, but my body is gradually removing it.  So hopefully tonsils next and then that will be gone!!

The swelling in my tonsils is certainly not that noticeable today when swollowing so that's great.

So didn't sleep that well but that's because I woke up slightly sweating and a bit warm.  I also had a headache all night, which never happens, so definitely an infection.

How in the world did you get strep?  Where would you have picked it up?  I have lots of experience with this because my daughter when an adolescent used to get strep every two or three weeks.  It was awful.  Anyhow, I'm glad the monolaurin worked.

Day 38 - Dose 4

Still on the protocol at 125mg egcg followed by everything else.  I did a little summary of what I'm taking on Hip's ME recovery thread recently.  On the whole I think my ME symptoms are still in check to be honest, even though I've got fatigued it's localised to my legs whereas with ME fatigue it was basically everywhere, and all muscles would tire on exertion.  Whereas it's primarily my legs that are useless at the moment, the rest of me including my brain seems ok.

I did stop taking Lauricidin today but noticed that this just made me feel like sh** all day.  Sickness, legs very very weak, and generally very drained.  So I started Lauricidin again thisevening and I've got a low temperature now, quite a bit of phlegm in the back of my throat and I have more energy (I assume the energy comes from bacterial clearance from the body but I can't be sure) and am able to hold a conversation.  So I reckon I'll be dosing 9000mg for the next week or so to get rid of the infection, candida or strep or whatever it is.  Saying all that I am sneezing (which is not due to hay fever) and my voice is very hoarse and deep and I have a cough, so that sounds more like a virus of some sort than bacterial.  My bet is it's a bit of both.

In June 2020 I had acute ebv while also suffering from a very bad bacterial throat infection (I think that was strep, the NHS never did a culture test even in A&E).  What I found out was that normally for me at least if I get a bacterial infection ebv normally starts to run amock, so I suspect that the protocol is keeping the ebv at bay and the Lauricidin is killing the bacteria.  It's taken about 2 years of experiments to find something that kills bacteria.

I tried the following without potency or overall effect:
Cleavers tincture
Black Walnut tincture
Echinecia Augustifolia tincture
Andrographis Paniculata powdered extract
Colliodal Silver 
Japanese Knotweed

Bottom line is that none of these worked, but one of my other experiments was with Lauricidin and this has worked for 3 separate infections, two of which were thrush and the current one which I am not sure about.  So I am therefore convinced it works.   For a long time I was really annoyed I couldn't find anything for bacterial infections, so I am pretty thrilled I finally did.

However long term Lauricidin use seems to also kill good bacteria, I noticed this after my last 2-3 week cleardown brought on acute nausea and stomach pain and whenever I ate anything my stomach felt like it was burning.  Probiotics fixed this within 3 doses.
Also in Sept 2020 it gave me a rash on both under arms which presented as an erythsmasma rash and didn't respond to any kind of treatment  from my doctor.  Eventually I discontinued the Lauricidin (which I was taking at the time to lower ebv levels and give me a mental boost as I was struggling at work) and the rash disappeared.

So long term use of Lauricidin for ME appears to be contradicted at least for me, but short term (up to 2 weeks) appears to be an ok length of time to clear down nasty infections.

Hopefully I'll start to feel better in a few days and will have some strength back by the weekend.

Also this is day 10 of my covid jab (2nd) so I think my body is probably weaker currently than it would be anyway.

The protocol is definitely helping to keep me strong and prevent my ME from flaring right now.

It's occurred to me that while people with ME might be able to get better with Reishi, some pathogens will need other combinations to get rid of them.

Recently on another forum there were quite a few studies showing different types of pathogens in ME patients, one study said 98% of patients in a cohort had mold in there bodies.  There aren't too many studies showing rates this high but another contender which appears regularly is Strep bacteria.  Over my 5 years with ME I did lots of experiments.  This is a rough overview:

Andrographis: Experimented with it for 2-3 years at doses as high as 6 to 8g a day, as little as 2g a day.  It has multiple effects on the body, many of which are useful in ME.  But I found that it was primarily good for its antiviral and anti parasitic properties.  It's effect on bacteria appeared to be decent but not as potent as others.

Combination: Lomatium, Redroot, Chinese Skullcap, Isatis, Milk Thistle and Dandelion: Experimented with this for about 1-2 years.  Took it every day solidly for about 5 months, which put me into a state where I was able to start doing small amounts of exercise, running for 1-2 minutes once a week.  However I soon learnt that this was making my ME worse, ultimately it was a failure at controlling the ME.  However it did promote an immune response when there was something in my body that was making me sick.  Also it's very good at killing lots of viruses.

Lauricidin: Experimented for about 12 months.  Got me out of a few bad patches as it increases energy levels.  Not sure how it does this but it could be that once certain pathogens are cleared from the system energy levels begin to rise.  It could also be immune stimulation, which in and of itself increases energy levels slightly anyway.  Like the surge of energy before a cold, that most people probably don't even notice.  Lauricidin has killed off two candida infections that I've had, controlled my ebv levels after one acute re-activation and got rid of a bacterial infection, either strep or candida not sure which.  These are very tricky things to get rid of but Lauricidin at a dose of 9000mg a day (Monolaurin) does the trick. 

All these experiments recently made me wonder, if ME patients did have mold, strep and viruses in there systems (we know they have the last one) and the studies seem to say they definitely have the others too, then it makes sense that only a combination treatment, with the correct immune boosters and long term control of a possible seed virus (a virus that down regulates the immune system from the get go allowing all other pathogens to multiple or infect the host) might work.  A combination treatment might look like small amounts of the above 3 compounds.

Say 1400mg andrographis extract, with a tincture anti viral combination, inc an immune modulator like Josh's beta glucans and a apoptosis singaling compound like Josh's triterpenes, with half or a quarter of a scoop of Lauricidin 3x a day. 

There's also a question about ME severity.  If the bodies immune defences become so badly weakened that anything can get in or multiply, it makes sense that some patients might need to get rid of more pathogens than others.  Would this also be an indicator of severity?  The more severe the mitochondrial breakdown (as outlined in Josh's main paper) and then the longer the persons immune defence has been lowered - the more severe they are but also the more pathogens they happen to have?  Just a theory.  But we don't understand severity very well at all in ME.  Some patients work part time just fine, some full time but with difficult for years.  Others manage to exercise for decades before they become severe.  Others go into remission naturally (but they seem to be a rather small number say less than 5%).

So it got me thinking, even if we all took one treatment (one compound) and got a little benefit, maybe the reason we never get into remission is because we actually need multiple compounds to get there, not to mention the immune and bodily support that Josh outlines in his paper and protocol. 

Not sure what day it is but I've been on the protocol for about 6 months.

It's taken me from 60% to 80% hummingbird scale.  

In summary I no longer take lions mane due to terrible dysphoria, loss of libido etc.  This resolved upon stopping it.

I take b vitamins occasionally, but not all the time, as my body got to the point where taking them caused me terrible brain fog and not taking them made the brain fog better.  I have discovered an inverse relationship between glutathione nad vitamin b12.  If b12 serum is high, glutathione will use up b12 in cells and lower the serum reading.  This means if you take b12 and it causes brainfog and extreme tiredness (as it did me later in the protocol) taking glutathione to lower a high b12 serum count will lower it and then when you take b12 again you'll only get the benefits (more energy, less fatigue, sharper thinking).

I removed egcg because it makes me a bit hyper, impatient and sometimes angry.  It also was making me feel sometimes very tired, but that might have been a coincidence.  I did attempt to do more than I Was able to (push) in July 2021 which didn't work.  At the time I was taking high doses of egcg, which did not block PEM or fatigue fully and my stamina levels were overall quite low.

Every time I've had a vaccine it's caused my immune system to weaken heavily, causing return of some symptoms, but mainly dropping 10% on the hummingbird scale each time.  Dose 2 astrazeneca I lost the use of my legs for about a week.

I recently added nattokinase to my protocol.

To summarise I no longer take b vitamins every day, egcg every day and don't take lions mane at all.  I've never taken creatine, I only occasionally take glutathione.  I still pace and am very careful not to overdo it.

Prior to the flu jab I was doing 40 minute walks 3x a week with a 50 to 60 minute walk once every fortnight.  I hope to be back to a decent level of functioning in the next few months, although I am due to get a covid19 booster so I doubt that will happen.

I also take 2g of NAC 3x a day, which is higher than many people take.  I believe this to be beneficial.

And I take 3x magnesium types malate, ascorbate and biglycinate in small doses 3x a day too.