How to Build an Individualized Herbal Protocol for Chronic Infections

Introduction to Herbal Protocol Design 0:00

Hi, I'm Doctor Mariah Hinchey and I'm going to go over with you how to build an individualized herbal medicine protocol for healing any chronic infection. So treatment goals for using herbs to heal any infection are as follows. Number one, we need to understand the immune dysfunction. Meaning understand the specific immune dysfunction that's caused by the particular organism or organisms that are in the body, as well as understanding any chronic underlying immune dysfunction that you might already have.

Next, we need to understand the particular cytokine cascade that is occurring in the body. So we need to know the nature of the cytokine cascade for the particular organism or organisms in the body. Because this could be different depending on the vector borne disease or whether it's spike protein or a virus, etc. then we need to know the organs of invasion. So know which organs and tissues the infection lives. And then we need to know what nutrients do these organisms or this organism need to survive.

These organisms mostly cannot make their own nutrients, and so they have to get them from your body. So if we know where and how they get them, we can inhibit them from doing so. Then we have to understand the particular immune evasion

Lyme Disease Pathophysiology and Tissue Invasion 1:35

that that particular organism uses to hide from the immune system. So do they build biofilms? Do they travel in vacuoles? Do they go deep intracellular early? What are they doing? How do they change the immune system to evade it? Next, we need to ensure all routes of elimination are open and that we are supporting detoxification pathways. And finally, we have to choose studied and proven antimicrobials that are going to be effective for this specific type of organism or organisms that we are dealing with.

So antibacterials are only going to be effective against bacteria. Anti-parasitic are needed for parasites. Antivirals needed for viruses, antifungals needed for fungal family, things like mold and use. Now to be able to think through this, let's look deeper into the pathophysiology and immune system dysregulation. And we're going to use Lyme disease as an example. So this starts out with the presence of the spirit key or the bacteria attaching to the blood vessel wall. And now this attachment actually stimulates the release of various enzymes.

How you're gonna do is add your agar kinase and collagen is to be released inside the body. And this breaks down the extracellular matrix, lets the infection go deeper into like the joint and the tissues connective tissue spread throughout the body, as well as break down collagen to feed itself. So we can use a combination of Japanese knotweed, Chinese skullcap, and ashwagandha to inhibit all three of these enzymes that break down that connective tissue or extracellular matrix and collagen, and allow the infection to feed itself and spread throughout the body.

So that's pretty powerful. Then we have exploitation and ignition of the cytokine cascade. This starts with the protein on the tail of Borrelia, which is known as the flagellum. And this increases nuclear factor kappa beta and the map decays which basically stimulate the release of IL six Iola, IL one beta, tumor necrosis factor alpha, etc. and these inflammatory chemicals cause the immune system to react and inflammation to continue in a loop. This inflammation causes the tissues to be continually broken down, and this feeds the SPI repeats and again allows the infection to spread.

And these cytokines continue to be active during the chronic stage of a Lyme infection. It's actually what ends up driving the immune imbalance. And allows the infection to stay chronic. We can inhibit these pro-inflammatory cytokines using a combination of, again, Japanese knotweed, Chinese skullcap and cordyceps. And again, it's this ongoing inflammatory cytokines cascade that leads to an imbalance in the immune system. For some this is immunosuppression. So suppression of T cells T helper cells, B cells that make antibodies to fight and others.

It can be a T H 17 or interleukin 17 type

Cytokine Cascade and Immune Dysregulation 5:18

dominance and lead to autoimmunity and many, many other things. But I just want to impress upon you that it's these inflammatory cytokines that are really causing a lot of the damage and imbalance and immuno incompetent so early in a lime infection, we have t one dominance. And that is how the immune system is supposed to work so that it can get to the infection and kill it and resolve it and heal the cells. But what happens is with chronic or persistent Lyme disease, we end up a lot of times with a two dominant response.

This leads to immune suppression and impaired infection clearance. TH2 responses are also associated with more anti-inflammatory cytokines and the activation of B cells, which can lead to immune suppression and impaired pathogen clearance. This can also lead to the development of post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome as well as chronic Lyme. So we have to balance the two branches of this cell mediated immune system in order to recover the immune system and restore immune competence. We can do this using ashwagandha.

We also can increase natural killer cells if they are insufficient using modified citrus pectin, specifically G. And then we can also use astragalus and cat's claw as well. Now there is an additional upstream driver of inflammation that in a chronic situation, suppresses the immune system. Further causes cytokine storms. Causes mast cell activation, causes the formation of fibrosis, promotes pathogen adhesion and evasion, contributes to the formation of biofilms. It actually builds the backbone in the scaffold tang, as well as leads to autoimmunity and auto inflammation.

So the skull locked in three molecule has to be dealt with because it's causing all of these downstream effects. And we can actually use a specialized form of modified citrus pectin called G3 to do so. And this specialized form of modified citrus pectin actually inhibits. It's a natural inhibitor of galectin three. And it helps to bust up these pantomimes and break down the biofilm. The other amazing thing about modified citrus pectin is that it binds LPs. So it binds to the endotoxins that lead to Horkheimer reactions.

And the amazing thing is that because this G3M type modified citrus pectin has been modified to a lower molecular weight and goes through the specification process, it actually gets absorbed in the GI tract so it can work systemically to bind LPs. And also mycotoxins in the body as well as heavy metals. So I'm going to run over all of its effects in a minute. But it's just so important to understand. Most binders work in the gut,

Galectin-3, Biofilms, and Systemic Detox Support 8:40

in the GI tract, locally, to bind toxins that have been bound to bile. This is different. This works systemically, so you get an even greater effect, and it can actually be helpful in preventing a similar reaction. And while we're talking about her eczema reactions, inflammation plays a huge role. So it's that LPs that's triggering inflammation and it's inflammation and acidity that makes someone's symptoms so much worse during a Horkheimer reaction. So being able to bind the toxins as they're being released systemically goes a long way to prevent a similar reaction as well.

But additionally, the G3M modified citrus pectin actually decreases interleukin six and interleukin one beta two of these pro-inflammatory cytokines that are involved in the drastic increase of inflammation during a similar reaction. So again, going back to our treatment goals for using herbs to heal any infection, we need to understand the immune dysfunction caused by the organism. Know the nature of the cytokine cascade for the particular organism. In this case, it's Lyme. Know the organs of invasion, so know what organs and tissues it lives in and destroys to get its food and nutrients, know what nutrients it needs from the body so we can focus on repeating them and stop the breakdown if possible.

Like with collagen, with lime. Understand the immune evasion. So with limits, the biofilms ensure all routes of elimination are open. So we want to make sure that we are pooping, peeing, breathing and sweating. And then we want to make sure that we have all of the micronutrients needed to support phase one and phase two of the liver's detoxification system. We want to be moving our lymphatics. We want to be making sure that the cells are in a state that they can let go of toxins. And then finally, using proven antimicrobials with the case of Lyme anti-spyware Keitel's anti gram negative bacteria, we want to make sure that we are using herbs that are going to be effective against all morphological forms of Lyme.

So whether that's the modal, the intracellular and the cyst or some people call it the round body. And we need to make sure that they are effective in the stationary as well as the growing state. So if we lay it out into columns and this is what I used to do for every single patient and we think through. So for Borrelia, for Lyme we're going to modulate the cytokine cascade which means what reduce inflammation. What do we have to pay attention to. Galectin three. Interleukin six. Interleukin eight.

Interleukin one beta tumor necrosis factor alpha. Nuclear factor. Kappa beta. The mAPK phase. So again, if we combine Japanese knotweed, Chinese skullcap and G3M modified citrus pectin to gather, we will cover all of those cytokines. Then what is the immune dysfunction with lime? Well, we need to balance 1 to 2. Typically we need to increase natural killer cells and work on the lymphocytes okay. So we can achieve that again using G3 modified citrus pectin ashwagandha cat's claw.

Sample Herbal Protocol and Dosing 12:24

Then we need to protect the cells of invasion. Well, unfortunately lime can invade every cell and infect every cell, but they really, really love the connective tissue, the extracellular matrix, the collagen, cartilage, tendons, ligaments, skin, organs, things like that, of course, away from the bloodstream. If we're talking Lyme causing Borrelia and not tick-borne relapsing fever, tick-borne relapsing fever, okay, in the blood cells. But anyways are in the the blood vessels and blood supply. So we can protect all of these structures using a combination of ashwagandha, Japanese knotweed, Chinese skullcap.

And then you also could throw in cordyceps and then know what type of micro organism it is. So it's a gram negative spiral okay. And again it lives in three different morphological forms. And it is growing in non growing states. And so we want to make sure that we're using herbs that have been studied and shown to affect all the morphological forms as well as growing and not growing states as well as the persistent cyst cells. Then we need to address the biofilms. If you are using the best protocol out there and it cannot get to the bacteria to kill it because it's hiding behind a biofilm, you're not going to be effective in killing it.

And that goes for pharmaceuticals and herbs. So we need to make sure that we are breaking down the biofilm and we can hit it from a multitude of angles. So again, the G3, modified citrus pectin will help to break down the backbone of the biofilm. We can use proteolytic enzymes like lumbago kinase or natto kinase to break down the biofilm from a different angle. And then we can use other herbs and herbs that we're already using, like Chinese skullcap and grapefruit seed extract to be able to address the biofilms fully.

And then, of course, we need to be working on detoxification. So of course that is starting with elimination, right. Getting the toxins out of the physical body, then backing up to the liver, to the kidneys, to the lymphatic system, to the gut. Right. We cannot detox if we have leaky gut. And then also cellular drainage and cellular drainage comes last. We do not want to be mobilizing toxins faster than the body can process, package and clear them. And then, you know, we can also include binders in this section, but we don't want to use binders that are pulling our nutrients out of our cells or pulling toxins out of the cells too quickly.

And that's a talk for another time. So what this sample herbal protocol would look like. And these are in adult doses for children, either cut in half or we use Clark's roll. You can look that up for the sake of time, but it would be G3. One teaspoon three times a day. Ashwagandha, a fourth to a half of a teaspoon three times a day. Japanese knotweed, a fourth of a teaspoon three times a day. Cat's claw a fourth of a teaspoon three times a day. Crypto lapis a fourth to a half of a teaspoon three times a day.

Chinese skullcap a fourth to a half of a teaspoon three times a day. Black walnut a fourth of a teaspoon three times a day. Sweet nanny, a fourth of a teaspoon three times a day. And then grapefruit seed extract, 600 to 1200 milligrams twice a day. And we could consider other herbs depending on individual symptoms.

Lifestyle, Diet, and Closing Advice 16:19

So if somebody has a lot of joint pain musculoskeletal pain I will typically reach for Tesol or Dip. Saka. So that stress because it actually makes a huge difference when there's a lot of musculoskeletal issues. So I hope that this was helpful in figuring out how to think through putting together an herbal protocol. I do want to leave you with one thought herbs alone often aren't enough and we have to look to lifestyle. We have to look at the toxins in our air, in our water, in our environments, and in our food and we also have to look at how food pushes inflammation in the body.

Food is a daily input that either teaches the immune system that it's safe or that it's in danger. Food is medicine or it can be poison. We all have to pay for food. We all have to eat. And the one thing that you have full control over is the food that you put in your mouth. So get it to work for you instead of against you.