Good herbs for immune system

[Teljkon]

adas

Edited December 19, 2021 by Teljkon

[Legba]

Eat raw garlic. put it in ur ears in chunks that wont get stuck down there. Let the fumes infuse you. I have found that this has reduced symptoms for me. best to do it the moment you sense the flu coming on. The little bug-gers reproduce like crazy.

[Yeti101]

Ive had a cold for about 3 weeks now when I first got it put me down for 2 full days with the worst chills and caugh ive ever had couldnt even move from the bed sometimes because I would get the shakes while walking around. The bad stuffs over but the caugh wont go away and it screws with my ability to breath any ideas of a herb that would help with this caugh. also while im askin about it dose any one know what geting chest pains when U take asprine could be

Chest pains after asprin probably (hopefully) not due to heart problem as asprin should relieve rather than worsen heart issues due to blood thinning. Might be an allergic reaction that's normally latent but brought up by the irritation that the cold/flu is causing your lungs. It could also be due to reflux or heartburn. You should get yourself checked out, chest pain is not something that you should ignore.

Yarrow always sets me right when I have a bad cold, and tonics like Ashwagandha and Holy Basil will help recovery. If you can get someone to cook you lots of home made french onion soup (with lots of garlic), you will have a meal that's both tasty and therapeutic. Keep your fluid intake up.

If it is not a dry cough, you may not want to suppress it too much.

[Teotzlcoatl]

Good herbs for immune system?

"Cat's Claw" = Uncaria tomentosa.

Edited January 2, 2009 by Teotz'

[Torsten]

It doesn't matter what strain of flu virus, I find them all completely susceptible to extreme doses of echinacea. The trick is to take a high dose every 4 hours - EXACTLY! If you take it a little later then the virus has recovered and you lose about a day of recovery. One major side effect from the high doses is that your lymph nodes swell up real bad due to all the dead virus material I presume. I found that >2000mg of ascorbate will reduce this to bearable levels.

So, I take 10,000mg of echinacea [equivalent extract] every 4 hours with >2000mg calcium ascorbate at the same time. Also, your body will be weak so get several naps.

This treatment eliminates almost all of the awful flu symptoms like sore throat, runny nose, sinusitis, muscle aches, headaches, etc. It will not eliminate lethargy [in fact it will increase it a little] nor will it allow you to simply go about a normal days work. But I prefer to have a few lazy days without the symptoms than having the same useless days with all the pains.

Your tight chest may be due to aspiring triggering asthma which it is well known for.

The cough that follows a flu is usually not caused by the virus itself, but by bacterial inflammation. ie, the bacteria uses the opportunity of a stressed immune system to invade. This frequently causes bronchitis which can drag on for weeks or months. In some cases it can also cause pneumonia [which can be fatal] so it is always a good idea to get a medical diagnosis for such coughs. Both bronchitis and pneumonia can be cured with antibiotics. Bronchitis can often cure itself if you look after yourself, but pneumonia usually doesn't.

If it is just bronchitis then try herbal inhalations, cat's claw, vitC, stress formulas, garlic and any of the many other remedies that support the immune system.

[Teljkon]

asda

Edited December 19, 2021 by Teljkon

[_e_]

Its not necessarily the cold that is giving me problems with the Asprin I was having chest pains after a physical injury and thought that the pain was from that but I latter took some other pain medicin for a time and when that ran out I took asprine and I had the pains again so I dont its more likly something to do witht the blood thining or a alergic reaction. But this Broncial problem is rediculus its like im fine and then it sneaks back up on me every time Im not talking for a long time the French onion soup with plenty of garlic is going to be in the woorks.

i usually go hard on echinacea, fresh garlic, horseradish, cats claw, and OLIVE LEAF EXTRACT (surprised no ones mentioned it)

theres heaps of herbal and 'essential oil' inhalation recipes online... u know the good old pot of boiling water + remedies and towel over ya head and breathe deep. coltsfoot tincture is good and chewing some ellercampane(spp) wil flush out all the mucus .

[Frut]

My family and I find Andrographis (paniculata?) useful in colds and flu. It is very bitter though.

I remember reading a Swedish study that validated this with a double blind trial I think

However, given the cough I would take Torstens advice and get a decent doctor to check it out. As the scenario Torsten described with secondary bacterial infection, can get out of hand and need antibiotics. I dont want to scare you but I think it is worth getting medical advice early if you have a persistent cough after a cold, particularly if you start getting thick discoloured (greenish?) sputum.

Going to a conventional doctor doesnt mean you have to take their advice on treatment, but I find they are good for giving a diagnosis. If they are wholistic minded then their advice on treatment may be good as well as they will be less likely to put you on antibiotics unless it is necessary, which sometimes I believe it is.

[MrPotato]

Not an herb, but Guaifenesin to thin out the mucus will help you cough up the sputum and clear your chest. If sinuses are clogged, inhaling salt water is the best for clearing that up quickly. If you are hard-core, snuffing extra finely powdered goldenseal root can do amazing things too. For sore throat, an alcoholic tincture of echinacea will totally numb your whole head and throat if you let a dropperful sit in your mouth for about 5 minutes and will also stimulate your immune system a bit. Organic powdered Echinacea purpurea above ground parts or Echinacea angustifolia roots seem to be the best for stimulating the immune system, but you have to take lots of it like Torsten said and you have to catch it early on at the first stages to be really effective.

I was involved in some research studies a few years back where we tested every kind of Echinacea preparation on mouse macrophage cells to see which were the best at stimulating both immune cell proliferation (reproduction) and the stimulation of tumor necrosis factor and interferon (indicate a stimulated immune system) and the best was organic whole Echinacea purpurea above ground parts. It did better than the extracts, although different extracts were found to have other properties related to colds and flu. For example, the extracts standardized to phenolic compounds had more of an antiinflammatory action but didn't stimulate the immune syatem too much (the antiinflammatory action would reduce symptoms but not really stimulate the immune system). The alcoholic extracts have a strong local anaesthetic property and are really good for a sore throat, but they didn't stimulate the immune system as much as the whole herb. We found that if you made a water extract of the Echinacea you could get good immune syatem stimulation but only if the water wasn't too hot. It seems that the water soluble polysaccharides are antigenomimetics and triggered an immune system response but they weren't stable to heat. They basically ended up degrading into other polysaccharides that weren't as effective. This is why most extracts weren't as effective as whole herb, because they all relied on heat as part of the process whenever water was involved and when water wasn't involved the water soluble polysaccharides didn't get extracted. The extracts end up being rich in either phenolic compounds with antiinflammatory properties or solvent soluble compounds that have anaesthetic and antihyaluronidase activity (prevents cells from being damaged during infection which can help prevent the infection from spreading and can also protect cells from being damaged by certain insect venoms). If you wanted to, you could actually make three totally different Echinacea medicines with three different properties by making fractions using 1) water only with minimal heat (polysaccharides), 2) hydroalcoholic extraction with heat (mainly phenolic compounds with some of the anaesthetic stuff) 3) Alcohol or even Hexane extraction for mainly the Alkylamides with their anaesthetic and antihyaluronidase properties) or something along those lines. But only the whole herb would have them all, albeit not as concentrated in whatever fraction of compounds was in whichever type of extract. Anyways, I am starting to ramble.

I also like yarrow tea. Early on in a cold or flu a warm yarrow tea and bundling up makes you sweat like crazy and seems to sometimes knock out the infection.

Edited January 4, 2009 by MrPotato

[_e_]

awesome post !

[indigo264nm]

As mentioned Echinacea is an essential.. garlic oil capsules will help but you can always just eat raw garlic chunks but it essential to crush it first. Also agree with Yarrow and Calandula.

Vitamins are your most important ally in my opinion. A good multi vitamin combined with extra vitamin C doses of course, but taking extra iron and especially zinc are useful in fighting infection.

As Torsten mentioned the biggest problem with influenza is secondary infections in the lungs, and that is when it is most crucial to continue resting. Fenugreek and Lobelia are useful at this point as they act as an expectorant, and flax seed oil is a demulcent as well as being full of good ole omega 3s.

Also even if you don't have asthma, get your hands on a ventalin puffer if you feel rails at the bottom of the lungs... a pharmacist gave me that advice.

If the flu fever and symptoms have gone and a few days later you get a sudden high fever and\or notice blood in your sputum, it is very important to get to a hospital straight away. Secondary pneumonia infections are the main reason why so many people die during influenza outbreaks so how you treat yourself when recovering from the flu is crucial.

[MrPotato]

I was just editing to correct my post above for typos and looked up alkylamides and found the following at http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/abstract/M601074200v1

"Alkylamides from Echinacea are a new class of cannabinomimetics - CB2-receptor dependent and independent immunomodulatory effects"

Hmmm.............

[MrPotato]

I was curious about the alkylamides being cannabinoids so I dug a bit further. The research I was involved with in Echinacea was in the mid 1990s, and I haven't kept up on new Echinacea research since then, but in 2004 or so some scientists in Switzerland started studying the alkylamides and found them to be cannabinoids. Here's some of what I found at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stori...008/2400515.htm

"Echinacea has been around since...North American Indians used to use it for toothache to chew on it, and of course it's been used as a popular herbal medicine, and some people use it as an immune stimulant. And we know it is an immune stimulant because it is in fact contraindicated. People who are taking certain drugs, like HIV drugs, shouldn't take it. So it's been a mystery why it works or what it does and what are the active chemical ingredients. In just the last few years a group in Switzerland have isolated some compounds from Echinacea which looked very similar in their chemical structure to some of the body's own internal cannabinoids. These drugs, it turns out, are very selective in their activation of the CB2 receptors.

So you can't get high on Echinacea because it doesn't stimulate the CB1 receptor, but it may have these therapeutic effects that CB2 activation does, and it's already been shown in some pain trials that it does have analgesic effects, and now we're trying to see whether Echinacea compounds will help with neuropathic pain. The excitement whenever you get a natural compound or a natural product extract like this is it's more straightforward to get through into the clinical development process than a completely new synthetic compound because it has been tried in people in various ways for a long time, so the toxicology safety profile of it is somewhat established and the ethics behind pushing it forward is a little bit easier. So we're quite excited about where that's going."

The only thing is, the research abstract at http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/abstract/M601074200v1 states "that A1 and A2 specifically bind to CB2 and CB1" and that A! and A2 refer to "the alkylamides dodeca-2E,4E,8Z,10Z-tetraenoic acid isobutylamide (A1) and dodeca-2E,4E-dienoic acid isobutylamide (A2)" Does this mean that some of the alkylamides could stimulate the CB1 receptors?????

I vaguely remember attending an Echinacea conference in about 1998 or so in the state of Washington here in the US where a native american healer mentioned that some people used to smoke Echinacea preparations for varous reasons, but I can't remember the details.

Edited January 4, 2009 by MrPotato

[MrPotato]

Sorry about going off the original topic of the thread

Edited January 4, 2009 by MrPotato

[Teljkon]

asdasd

Edited December 19, 2021 by Teljkon

[MindExpansion]

Dude chest pain is not something to ignore, as Yeti said, go get a doctor to listen to your chest.

Symptoms like yours could be far more significant than you realise, i can think of a few worst case scenarios but even if it is probably nothing i recon you should go get a check.

Peace

[Teljkon]

asda

Edited December 19, 2021 by Teljkon

[Teljkon]

adasd

Edited December 19, 2021 by Teljkon

[C_T]

Vit C and Magnesium.

Magnesium is a huge immune supporter.

[WoodDragon]

Around the same time that MrPotato was doing his echinacea work on murine monocytes I was working on garlic and haemostasis, and was about to investigate echinacea effects on monocytes and lymphocytes in human volunteers. Alas, a relocation of our lab 600km away forced me to another job, so I can only drool at the lost possibilities...

One thing though initial working-up seemed to show, was that extended exposure to echinacea led to refractory responses. That is, the immune system may over time 'reset' itself back to relatively baseline activity, even with sustained exposure to echinacea. If this was actually the case then it would indicate that echinacea should be regarded as an 'acute' therapy, rather than an ongoing one, else there is a risk of it becoming ineffective. It certainly raises questions about using it as a prophylactic (no, not that kind!).

I haven't kept up with the state of knowledge on phytoimmunotherapy as I changed horses and did postgraduate study in ecology, but I would be interested in knowing if anyone has substantiated knowledge of this phenomenon.

[t st tantra]

the best I could do for know is a Echinacea tea I found out the whole food store I could have got ground up caps but all they had in actual plant material was tea. I talked to the lady that takes care of the plants about ordering some in for me shes going to gett back to me. Im curious if I should eat the tea and not just steap it???

when i made echinacea tea i was told to put one tsp in a cup,add hot water and top with a saucer.

after about 10 minutes it should have a blue ring visible around the rim if its still fresh enough to be active[so i was told]........i used root only.

t s t .

[Teljkon]

asdasd

Edited December 19, 2021 by Teljkon