View Full Version : FDA Warns Consumers About Alternative Lyme Disease Treatment
From a post by Kerry Snow on the PATC Trails Forum:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/07/fda_lyme_disease.html
thanks for the information. good to know.
Tha Wookie
07-26-2006, 08:23
Someone told me about pokeweed tincture this morning to help with Lyme. I've seen what it can do to folks. I'd not mess around with treatment. If I thought I had it, I'd probably get the antibiotics, a gallon of yogurt, and some good books.
It sounds like the treatment isn't bad, just that those batches were mixed wrong. You don't want to know how many people die per year, because of doctor screw-ups on the traditional medicine side. It's sad, and they don't report that, because they are trying to regulate herbs and supplements to make money.
As far as Pokeweed is concerned, it is known as: pokeweed, poocan, scoke, garget, pigeon-blood, pigeon berry, poke-salat, cancer root, and cancer jalap. It is a perennial that grows from Maine to Florida, across the west, and into Mexico. For some odd reason, it isn't seen in the Dakotas. The mature plants have ruby-red stalks and stems in summer, and can grow up to 10 feet tall. In the spring, small greenish-white, petal0like sepals ripen into purple-black berries, and appear in long, curving or drooping spires. Song birds love the berries. The plant dies back to the ground in winter. There are herbs, shrubs, and treelike perennials in the poke genus.
Native Americans used to use the roots, pounded and poulticed, for wounds, tumors, bruises, rheumantic swellings, and sore breasts. It was considered essential in many cancer and diabetes remedies. Pokeberry tea was served as a tonic for arthritis, rheumatism (joint issues), and as a wash for sprains, swellings, and bruises. They also ate the young spring shoots, when six inches high, in stews. Bring to a boil, draining the dark, bitter stuff off the top periodically. The leaves and berries are also used to make inks and dyes.
This plant should be used with respect and caution, mixed correctly, and in small amounts. Today, it is mainly used to treat cancer and antitumor immunity reseach.
Tha Wookie
07-26-2006, 09:18
It sounds like the treatment isn't bad, just that those batches were mixed wrong. You don't want to know how many people die per year, because of doctor screw-ups on the traditional medicine side. It's sad, and they don't report that, because they are trying to regulate herbs and supplements to make money.
As far as Pokeweed is concerned, it is known as: pokeweed, poocan, scoke, garget, pigeon-blood, pigeon berry, poke-salat, cancer root, and cancer jalap. It is a perennial that grows from Maine to Florida, across the west, and into Mexico. For some odd reason, it isn't seen in the Dakotas. The mature plants have ruby-red stalks and stems in summer, and can grow up to 10 feet tall. In the spring, small greenish-white, petal0like sepals ripen into purple-black berries, and appear in long, curving or drooping spires. Song birds love the berries. The plant dies back to the ground in winter. There are herbs, shrubs, and treelike perennials in the poke genus.
Native Americans used to use the roots, pounded and poulticed, for wounds, tumors, bruises, rheumantic swellings, and sore breasts. It was considered essential in many cancer and diabetes remedies. Pokeberry tea was served as a tonic for arthritis, rheumatism (joint issues), and as a wash for sprains, swellings, and bruises. They also ate the young spring shoots, when six inches high, in stews. Bring to a boil, draining the dark, bitter stuff off the top periodically. The leaves and berries are also used to make inks and dyes.
This plant should be used with respect and caution, mixed correctly, and in small amounts. Today, it is mainly used to treat cancer and antitumor immunity reseach.
wow- thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.
It should also be noted that pokeweed berries are highly poisonous and the plant leaves should not be ingested after they are six inches high.
Do you know anything about the Lyme treatment with pokeweed extract?
No, I had never heard of a Lyme treatment with pokeweed, before this.
It sounds like the treatment isn't bad, just that those batches were mixed wrong.
The way I read the story, people are using bismuth, which has been used successfully as a treatment for stomach ailments, and adapting it as a treatment for lyme (for which it is not approved). But the main info I gleaned was that instead of taking it orally as intended for its original use, people are injecting it in an attempt to treat lyme disease.
I'm not a doctor and am certainly not trying to play one on the internet, but isn't bismuth the main ingredient in Pepto Bismol?