Thanks! Lots to read and digest.
And I AM reading, and making notes on stuff to research later, if/when I can find the time. Unfortunately, we're having a winter of "pneumonia weather" here and I'm getting lots of calls for help for both people and animals. I'm giving thanks that several of my regular clients listened to me and vaccinated their entire herds for the common respiratory viruses... it was really driven home when I saw a herd last week which had 15 calves with temperatures ranging from 104 to 107°... at least two of them had lungs so consolidated with crap that it's unlikely they'll survive. The owner "thought about it, but didn't get around to" vaccinating (that's often code for "it just looked like too much money")... I'm hoping he did get some vaccine and give every animal not currently ill their first dose, because that sort of thing tends to spread to every animal in the barn. They don't have any mechanical ventilation, and with the weather going from 3° (with a windchill of -23) two nights ago to 46° today (and expected single digits again tonight!), respiratory illness is pretty much inevitable.
Anyway...
I see that curcumin is noted to have significant effects on cytokines... I can say from personal experience that it does.
This (post 15) bothers me:
Scuttellaria (Skullcap) – Antiviral. A herb used as a tea. It has no side effects and is also a mild tranquilliser. Research suggests neuraminidase, which is a substance needed by the H5N1 virus to reproduce, may be inhibited.
First, it's Scutellaria. Second, they haven't defined WHICH Scutellaria species, and they are seriously conflating two of them, at least in terms of effects!
Baikal (or Chinese) Skullcap is Scutellaria baicalensis. This is the one which is a potent antiviral. However, it has little to no effect on the nervous system, and wouldn't ever be used as a "mild tranquilizer".
Virginia Skullcap is Scutellaria lateriflora. This species is also called MadDog Skullcap, from when a very early doctor used it on putative rabies patients. *Supposedly* with great success, to the extent that it was reported that he "cured" over 400 cases!!! Let's just say I take leave to GREATLY doubt those "facts"!! However, just the idea tickled my brain, and since it obviously had significantly helped a bunch of people (even if he exaggerated numbers, etc, he wasn't run out of town as a quack!) with what must have been serious central nervous system symptoms. I researched rabies symptoms, and decided it might be worth trying for serious headaches, muscle spasms, "restless legs", etc.
My best friend had a daughter who had survived brain cancer and multiple brain surgeries over the previous 25 years, and she lived in constant pain. She was on high doses of morphine, and got *some* relief, but nowhere near total. Especially debilitating were the headaches which seemed to actually be "brain pain"... directly related to the swelling and scar tissue of her brain. I sent her a bottle of Virginia skullcap tincture, not expecting much... and was absolutely stunned when she called a few days later, in tears, saying "it worked!" The young woman (she'd been 12 when she had her first surgery, and was the ONLY person to ever survive that particular type of brain tumor) had gotten more relief from the skullcap than she had from any Rx medication over 20 years. No, it didn't replace the morphine, but she actually had cut her morphine dosage down, as adding a teaspoon of skullcap tincture apparently reduced her pain levels from the headaches lower than she'd experienced in many years.
VERY interesting herb, is skullcap!
Virginia skullcap is also a potent "nervine". Now, herbalists define "nervine" as different from "tranquilizer". They often are potent tranquilizers, and in larger doses can be mildly to strongly sedative, but a true nervine also "feeds the nerves"... IOW, helps a naturally anxious person calm down and even learn better thinking pathways over time, and helps people overcome "nervous exhaution" (which likely is related to adrenal fatigue). I've given it to people (who found it effective) for everything from test taking anxiety, to overall "free floating anxiety" attacks, to "white coat hypertension". In the latter, a friend of hubby's was facing the loss of his CDL license, because every time he went for his physical, his blood pressure was elevated beyond the extent they would allow. At home, it was normal.
He took a teaspoon of the skullcap tincture an hour before he went to the doctor, and passed his physical with flying colors!
Oh, it also works amazingly well on dogs with severe thunderstorm phobias. An aging Border Collie/Blue Heeler cross we had was getting progressively worse during storms, to the point where she was frantically trying to chew and claw her way through our (metal) house doors to get inside... but she was never a house dog, and in fact wasn't comfortable inside in normal times. Once we let her in, she'd dash from room to room, running into furniture, trying to hide under beds, but never finding a "safe place" away from the storm noise.
I gave her a couple capsules of dried skullcap leaves as an experiment, and within 30 minutes, she was sacked out under the kitchen table, sound asleep, although the storm was still raging overhead!
I also found THIS tidbit in post #14 interesting:
Indendritic cells, the gram-negative bacteria Escherichia coli upregulates proinflammatory cytokines,
This is something I've seen firsthand... all too often. A severe E.coli infection causes overwhelming damage inside the body, often within hours of infection. In calves, it wasn't uncommon to find them dead in the morning when they'd eaten just fine the night before, or when the night before they'd been slightly picky about drinking their milk, but showed nothing else to the casual eye. If you checked their temperature, it often was sky high (106° or even higher). Once they actually started breaking with the characteristic diarrhea, it was almost always far too late to save them.
We started using high doses of colloidal silver, plus high doses of licorice root powder. 2-4 ounces of colloidal silver, along with an ounce of licorice root orally twice daily quite often stopped the scours, and even more amazingly, increased the survivability rate from less than 2% to over 70%. The only thing I can figure is that licorice root is actually a corticosteroid... one reason doctors and non-herbalists throw a fit about anyone taking it is due to it's potential, in large amounts over a long period of time (ounces per day for weeks, in humans) to cause pretty much all the symptoms that Rx steroids cause- weight gain, water retention,
reduction of immune system response, potential kidney damage, etc.
I finally had a chance to speak to a vet who wasn't completely against anything unusual, and he told me the colloidal silver- licorice combination seemed to be acting in the exact same way as a no-longer-available Rx combination called Azimycin. Azimycin was simply a 9:1 combination of procaine penicillin injectable and dexamethasone injectable (2 mgs per cc). He said they'd use it both by IM injection, and orally, both at the same time and repeating it for 3 doses every 12 hours. And the mortality rates were nearly identical to my "home brew" combination.
Now, I recently read a Medscape article that seems to say that giving steroids to people with septic shock does NOT reduce overall mortality, however, it DOES get them feeling better and out of the ICU faster. (I know, that doesn't make much sense. What it sounds like to me is that those who are going to survive, would have anyway, but the steroids speed their improvement)
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/891552
So...
My protocol for influenza, assuming a strain that is known to cause potential cytokine storm, would be *immediate* use of elderberry plus resveratrol, unless the person was already displaying symptoms of a high viral load. If they are already running a fever over 100.5°, have serious muscle aches or headache, or are showing clear lung involvement... it's probably wise to skip the elderberry at that point. I would also add 2-4 grams of licorice root (4 capsules, twice a day), and 1/2 gram curcumin every 4 hours, regardless of whether you use elderberry or not. I would give 10 mgs of black pepper extract (piperine) with the first dose of curcumin for the day, but that's all.
If you want to add Baikal skullcap to the anti-viral mix, go for it. Also, Star Anise is an herb from which Tamiflu was extracted/synthesized.
I also would run a humidifier/steamer and add tea tree oil, plus eucalyptus essential oil, in the sick room.
And if the patient is agitated or anxious, either from the pain and effects of the virus, or because of worry that they need to be at work, or even that they're afraid they could die, Virginia skullcap would be a good adjunct. I suspect it might work better on the "flu headache" than almost anything else, except possibly curcumin.
I still need to research olive leaf extract, as that is also a potent antiviral that we've used before with good effect.
As always, do your own research. DO NOT use licorice root on someone who is already suffering from congestive heart failure, kidney disease, edema or other water retention problems. Of course, anyone with those issues who contracts influenza NEEDS to be in the hospital! Home care is for helping healthy people!
Also, make sure the patient is drinking plenty of fluids, and don't have them drinking strictly water!! Very easy to deplete electrolytes in that situation. I always keep a few gallons of Gatorade on hand... I'm going to be experimenting with a homemade "clone" using fresh fruit juices with the WHO rehydration formula added to it. At the least, it won't have high fructose corn syrup!!
Honestly, except for the possible use of IV fluids if someone gets dehydrated (which shouldn't happen unless they are vomiting), and the use of ventilators, there isn't a whole lot a hospital can do for a patient that we can't accomplish at home with influenza. Obviously, I'm not saying "don't go to the hospital" if you are very ill, especially if someone is showing signs of cyanosis (blue lips or nailbeds), or is obviously short of breath, or is hallucinating (usually caused by a shortage of oxygen). This is where a home O2 meter (finger tip meter- you can get them at Amazon reasonably priced). But for plain old severe influenza, bed rest, good nutrition (generally, that would mean light foods that are easily digested... good old homemade chicken soup, with plenty of pepper and maybe even some cayenne is excellent, but any nutritious food that the patient wants is better than letting them go hungry), plenty of fluids, and appropriate herbals are going to do as much- or more- than an overworked hospital will. And you won't be exposed to OTHER nasty bugs floating around!
Summerthyme