Guest guest Posted April 26, 2000 Report Share Posted April 26, 2000 Patti, Does your doctor advise you to take a particular brand of Milk Thistle? I was advised to take Thisyln Pro -- which is endorsed by Germany's Commission E. But now I just take Vitamin Shoppe. I have not discerned any benefit from it vis a vis my UC or my LFTs. Is it essential to take a high dosage? Perhaps I am not taking enough. Ezra Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 26, 2000 Report Share Posted April 26, 2000 Mike has been taking a brand from GNC, although we would like to buy a brand from Germany as I understand the quality of their product is superior...where do you buy yours? Dr. LaValley suggested to Mike taking 5/ 250 mg. tabs of milk thistle per day. Mike has been working up to that amount as we know as your body adjusts to it, it can cause loose stools (God knows we don't need that!!), anyway, Artichoke is excellent for the digestive system and also the liver...the Japanese have done extensive research into it. Patti >From: Iszat@... >Reply-To: egroups >To: egroups >Subject: Re: Milk Thistle >Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 11:40:12 EDT > >Patti, > >Does your doctor advise you to take a particular brand of Milk Thistle? I >was >advised to take Thisyln Pro -- which is endorsed by Germany's Commission E. >But now I just take Vitamin Shoppe. I have not discerned any benefit from >it >vis a vis my UC or my LFTs. Is it essential to take a high dosage? Perhaps >I >am not taking enough. Ezra ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 26, 2000 Report Share Posted April 26, 2000 The MMS Thislyn Pro is, I believe, made in Britain, though as I mentioned before it has the Commission E's official endorsement. I have found it at several stores here in NYC. If you can't find it locally, Willner Chemists is an excellent chain, with two stores in NYC and one in Atlanta. You can order a huge range of products from their website (willner.com). Their prices are competitive. Ezra Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 3, 2000 Report Share Posted May 3, 2000 Leona, Mike sees a homeopathic Dr. and this is what he recommended...Milk Thistle 250 mg. 3 caps/4 times a day...Mike is not taking that much right now, he is trying to work his way up. Milk thistle can cause loose stools in the beginning as your body adjusts because it does help increase bile flow (among other wonderful things), so I personally would suggest starting off with maybe two caps a day and working myself up to the full amount. Of course, that's just my little teeny weeny humble opinion. Glad to hear you are going to try it. Patti > >Reply-To: egroups >To: <egroups> >Subject: Milk Thistle >Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 06:41:40 -0500 > >Decided I am going to start taking Milk Thistle. What dosage are the ones >that are taking it on? > >Saw some at WalMart last night but each tablet was 4500mg so thought that >was a little high. > >My doctor wouldn't advise me and the pharmacist knew nothing so have to >rely on my knowledgeable group. > >Leona > ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 7, 2000 Report Share Posted May 7, 2000 I've been offline for awhile due to tendonitis in my leg, due to tae bo class.....anyway, I'm mending now and I will dig into my info and get back to you on that one....but I'm 100% sure of it, I would of course like to back up my comment with facts...so I'll be back to you shortly with that!! Patti >From: Iszat@... >Reply-To: egroups >To: egroups >Subject: Re: Milk Thistle >Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 19:52:31 EDT > >Patti, > >I take Milk Thistle. Where did you learn that it promotes bile flow? I have >heard of various fairly vague benefits, but never that one -- which >obviously >would be of very great value to us. Thanks, Ezra ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 18, 2000 Report Share Posted May 18, 2000 Thanks Patti you changed my mind. Guess even it doesn't help it won't hurt so why not. Someone said that you should start out taking it slowly as it can cause diarrhea. Since I started taking it I find the reverse happening.That's me, I always have to be different than others. I really do appreciate everyone's advice but sometimes after talking to my doctor get a little confused but thanks for setting me straight. Gratefully, Leona Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 18, 2000 Report Share Posted May 18, 2000 nathan, I did have UC but not any more for which I am thankful! How quickly did you increase your dose? I started with one tablet a day (175 mg.) and noticed the symptoms right away. I gave it a week to adjust and then added another capsule a day. Did I do the increase too quickly? Thanks. Barby married 20 years, mom of 5 sons- KS UC - dx in 1965 (11yo), ostomy 1972, BCIR (continent ostomy)1994 PSC- dx in 1999 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 18, 2000 Report Share Posted May 18, 2000 Nordgren1@... wrote: > > I started taking milk thistle about a month ago. I noticed not only some > diarrhea but also lot of gas and rumbling around in my GI tract. I haven't had any major problems of this sort from the milk thistle. I dont' know if you have UC, but both it and PSC can cause similar sorts of GI disturbances (as I 'm sure you know) so it's possible that it's coincidence. If it is the Milk thistle causing the problem, it may be that your body needs to get used to it. The flora in your gut has to get back into balance after it's thrown off by the change in diet. athan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 19, 2000 Report Share Posted May 19, 2000 Well, when I first started taking Milk Thistle I hadn't researched it adequately, and so was not very confident in taking it. (My grandmother sent me some and insited that I take it when she heard I had a liver problem.) I was taking about one capsule a day for probably a year or so before I increased it to about three a day. Then about a year ago I started taking six a day. I doubt you'd need to increase it that slowly, but it might help to do it a bit more gradually. athan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 22, 2000 Report Share Posted August 22, 2000 , I remember when my father was sick with cancer, our family Dr. (God love her), whisked me away to whisper to me about alternative medicines, that was 4 years ago, and we made a very amateur attempt to be holistic with him, but looking back I can see what rookies we really were. My daughter had a sebaceous cyst on her belly button, the surgeon was booking us an appt for excision, when the same Dr.....said pssst....and whispered to me to get 'on's Paste'...the cyst broke and was gone the next day avoiding unnecessary trauma for my 3 year old. I already talked about another surgeon literally sneaking in Vitamin C for a cancer patient..... If you bring up milk thistle or any other herb or alternative, most drs don't know what in the hell you are talking about...some do, Mike's G.I. is very knowledgable and gives us his stamp of approval, his Internest is from Poland and is very knowledgeable about it, his family Dr. is a good ol' boy from Cape Breton Nova Scotia and thinks it's all bull....no clinical trials, no proof, blah, blah, blah! I think, and I'm sure I'll be corrected, that Medical Dr.'s are not allowed to advise their patients on the use of alternatives, I would also think that it is not in the best interest of a medical Dr. to condone the use....we can't deny the powerful force that pharmeceutical companies have in the medical society or their obvious distain towards any alternatives or attempts by the public to 'help themselves'...afterall, there is no profit in a person who can help themselves by natural means is there? Anyway, it has been my personal experience that the subject of alternatives is still taboo among most medical Dr.'s......to most, pharmeceuticals are still where it's at. Patti > >Reply-To: egroups >To: <egroups> >Subject: Re: Milk thistle >Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 17:15:41 +0200 > > >I was just wondering.... Milk thistle has proven to be so good for the >liver, there has been lots of research to prove that, so how then is it >possible that doctor's don't prescribe milk thistle for us just as a >medicine? Now I only know that I can take this, thanks to this group, but >all those others out there, some of them will be excluded form the >possitive >effect because your doctor doesn' tell you. >Is the job of a doctor only restricted to pharmaceutical medicin's and >operations or what? Or should they just make you better? (Me being naive >again?) > >Does anybody know why it works this way? > > > ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 22, 2000 Report Share Posted August 22, 2000 I did NOT say Dr.'s were in this for profit, I said the pharmaceutical companies were, perhaps you should re-read my post. I think you would be hard pressed to find a Dr. who will advise you to try herbals or alternatives as opposed to writing a prescription, because afterall, if they were going to prescribe herbals or alternatives they would have been a naturopath or a homeopath. I don't imagine your Dr. will tell you to try garlic as a natural antibiotic as opposed to actually prescribing you one, nor would I expect him or her to. I would take great offence to the comment that the surgeon I mentioned isn't doing his job correctly or that the hospital I work in is negligent. First off, the surgeon I speak of is remarkable, and has performed surgeries on people that shouldn't even be alive, but he took the pro-active approach and instead of writing them off, did his best to help , we are very fortunate as a health care facility to have him. I only wish he had of been here when my father was sick, maybe the outcome wouldn't have been different but at least he would have been treated with dignity and his last shreds of hope wouldn't have been stripped away from him from the first moment. My experience with pharmeceutical companies and the Emergency Drug release program of Canada is entirely negative for that incident. This Dr. has spoken to me on many occasions about alternatives, he is NOT allowed to push them on his patients. The hospital is not negligent, they are simply a hospital, not a naturopathic centre....he independently and with consent of the patient suggested Vit. C, the pharmacy would NOT dispense it, so he (guess sneaking was a wrong choice of words), brought it in himself and dispensed it to her personally. The head pharmacist herself told me that NO hospital is allowed to dispense alternatives as an official form of medication, they are afterall, natural and not prescription and only now are being recognized by the medical society as a valid form of health care, I suspect with time and education, more Dr.'s and health care professionals will benefit their patients by 'marrying' the two forms of medicine. I appreciate your comments, but I feel you read my post wrong. Patti > >Reply-To: egroups >To: <egroups> >Subject: Re: Re: Milk thistle >Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 11:47:00 -0500 > >Patti, >I think you are a little off base here. All of the doctors I have known >are " allowed to advise patients " about any thing they want to. It has been >my experience that Dr.s really do care about their patients and are not >into it for profit only. After many years of school, than serving as >interns , long hours and tons of debt to be repaid, I can't believe they go >through all that to deny people the best care where ever it comes from. If >a doctor you know is " sneaking in vitamin c " for someone I suggest he isn't >doing his job right or the hospital is negligent. Can't blame that on drug >companies. > Barb > Re: Re: Milk thistle > > > > > I already talked about another surgeon literally sneaking in Vitamin C >for a > cancer patient..... > > I think, and I'm sure I'll be corrected, that Medical Dr.'s are not >allowed > to advise their patients on the use of alternatives, I would also think >that > it is not in the best interest of a medical Dr. to condone the use....we > can't deny the powerful force that pharmeceutical companies have in the > medical society or their obvious distain towards any alternatives or > attempts by the public to 'help themselves' > > ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 22, 2000 Report Share Posted August 22, 2000 I was just wondering.... Milk thistle has proven to be so good for the liver, there has been lots of research to prove that, so how then is it possible that doctor's don't prescribe milk thistle for us just as a medicine? Now I only know that I can take this, thanks to this group, but all those others out there, some of them will be excluded form the possitive effect because your doctor doesn' tell you. Is the job of a doctor only restricted to pharmaceutical medicin's and operations or what? Or should they just make you better? (Me being naive again?) Does anybody know why it works this way? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 22, 2000 Report Share Posted August 22, 2000 You know what? Before pharmaceuticals were established, the Native Americans and their Medicine Man collected herbs and plant roots and that was their medical bag of tricks. I happen to be part Native American, Indian, whatever term you want to apply...and I remember collecting sasafrass root and boiling it down to make tea for bladder infections. Although I have not tried any of these herbals for PSC, I am very close to trying Milk Thistle. I do want to see the liver specialist at Cleveland and see what his input might be before I decide on my own accord to give it a try. I'm frustrated because my current doctor is doing absolutely nothing to assist me with my itching escapade. I am trying things on my own...tanning, hot baths, questran and atarax (well, he did prescribe these meds, but only after I pointed to him that they are widely used by PSCrs.) I believe there are several components to surviving or recovering from an illness. 1. medication and/or herbal compounds 2. surgical intervention 3. positive attitude and the will to survive 4. spituality from Michigan where it's raining today! Re: Milk thistle >Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 17:15:41 +0200 > > >I was just wondering.... Milk thistle has proven to be so good for the >liver, there has been lots of research to prove that, so how then is it >possible that doctor's don't prescribe milk thistle for us just as a >medicine? Now I only know that I can take this, thanks to this group, but >all those others out there, some of them will be excluded form the >possitive >effect because your doctor doesn' tell you. >Is the job of a doctor only restricted to pharmaceutical medicin's and >operations or what? Or should they just make you better? (Me being naive >again?) > >Does anybody know why it works this way? > > > ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 22, 2000 Report Share Posted August 22, 2000 Patti, I think you are a little off base here. All of the doctors I have known are " allowed to advise patients" about any thing they want to. It has been my experience that Dr.s really do care about their patients and are not into it for profit only. After many years of school, than serving as interns , long hours and tons of debt to be repaid, I can't believe they go through all that to deny people the best care where ever it comes from. If a doctor you know is "sneaking in vitamin c" for someone I suggest he isn't doing his job right or the hospital is negligent. Can't blame that on drug companies. Barb Re: Re: Milk thistle I already talked about another surgeon literally sneaking in Vitamin C for a cancer patient.....I think, and I'm sure I'll be corrected, that Medical Dr.'s are not allowed to advise their patients on the use of alternatives, I would also think that it is not in the best interest of a medical Dr. to condone the use....we can't deny the powerful force that pharmeceutical companies have in the medical society or their obvious distain towards any alternatives or attempts by the public to 'help themselves' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 22, 2000 Report Share Posted August 22, 2000 Hi Patti: My doctor did tell me to take garlic pills not as an antibiotic but to lower my cholesterol .She showed me an article in a medical magazine that said garlic was good for lowering cholesterol. The next check up my cholesterol was lower and I said it must be the garlic. She denied telling me to take it but the magazine was still in her office in the same place and I pointed out the article to her. By the way I am still taking garlic and have not been told since I have a problem - that has been for three years now. Leona Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 22, 2000 Report Share Posted August 22, 2000 * * wrote: > I think, and I'm sure I'll be corrected, that Medical Dr.'s are not allowed > to advise their patients on the use of alternatives, I would also think that > it is not in the best interest of a medical Dr. to condone the use....we > can't deny the powerful force that pharmeceutical companies have in the > medical society or their obvious distain towards any alternatives or > attempts by the public to 'help themselves'...afterall, there is no profit > in a person who can help themselves by natural means is there? There may be some doctors who think like this, but I think that for the most part that's not the case. A medical doctor has a responsibility to provide information that is, as much as possible, based on verifiable facts rather than on guesses or personal hunches. The fact is that, although milk thistle has been shown to be helpful in certain liver conditions, there really is no good evidence that directly shows it to be helpful in PSC. (By the way I take Milk Thistle and I believe it has helped me). So if a doctor does recommend it, he has to be sure that the patient understands that it may not help at all, and there's even a small chance (very small in my opinion) that it will cause harm. My GI Doc (who's president of the American College of Gastroenterologists) approved my use of Milk Thistle, and even recommended taking Garlic for my high cholesterol, so some doctors at least will give opinions, and sometimes make recommendations of alternative medicine. Of course there are doctors who are dead set against any alternative medicine, and I think this is mostly due to 2 things: 1. There is a large amount of quackery--people who prey on the sick with supposed cures that are either bogus or downright dangerous--who use the term " alternative " or natural medicine to describe themselves. (not that all of it, or even most of it, is bogus, but enough is to give some people a bad idea of it) 2. There is so much information to keep track of these days that it's hard for a doctor to track down the reliable information about all the various " natural " cures and make a decision about whether some specific thing is good, bad, or indifferent. Anyway, I guess I've rambled on long enough for now! athan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 22, 2000 Report Share Posted August 22, 2000 In a message dated 8/22/00 8:27:59 AM Pacific Daylight Time, user05@... writes: > I was just wondering.... Milk thistle has proven to be so good for the > liver, there has been lots of research to prove that, so how then is it > possible that doctor's don't prescribe milk thistle for us just as a > medicine? The key word is " proven. " Ezra has provided us all with some excellent articles about Milk Thistle. But upon reading the abstracts, all the research was done on rats with induced liver pathology. One cannot automatically extrapolate form those studies that Milk thistle should be used by PSC patients for 2 reasons: 1) the induced liver pathology my produce similar symptoms as PSC but it is still very different in cause, and 2) animal models can be very different from human models. Milk thistle MAY be helpful though it can't be " proven " until large controlled studies verify its efficacy for PSC patients. This being said, the articles help us make informed choices and allow us to understand how Milk Thistle may work. Also, it seems that it does no harm. Therefore, if one can afford the cost of the medicine and is making an informed choice, there is nothing wrong with trying Milk Thistle--in my opinion. Adam (getting geared for start of a new school year) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 23, 2000 Report Share Posted August 23, 2000 Adam, saw your signatures at the end of your notes. I admire middle school science teachers. I had a great teacher and learned alot. It takes alot of dedication to teach a subject that alot of kids, especially girls, yuck about! Adam (getting geared for start of a new school year) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 7, 2011 Report Share Posted April 7, 2011 Does this aggrivate Spirochetes, similarly to that of Abxs (pushing them into cyst form)? I want to avoid that obviously! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 8, 2011 Report Share Posted April 8, 2011 Not that I am aware of. It supports the liver to help it work better, so it is a detox help rather than a killing herb. Sherry > > Does this aggrivate Spirochetes, similarly to that of Abxs (pushing them into cyst form)? I want to avoid that obviously! > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 9, 2011 Report Share Posted April 9, 2011 Milk Thistle to my knowledge is not an issue with spiro's... Just a good liver detoxer... Jim > > Does this aggrivate Spirochetes, similarly to that of Abxs (pushing them into cyst form)? I want to avoid that obviously! > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 9, 2011 Report Share Posted April 9, 2011 Which is correct Jim! However one wants to make sure that if on medications they don't interfere. Blessings, BiancaConnected by DROID on Verizon Wireless Re: Milk Thistle Milk Thistle to my knowledge is not an issue with spiro's... Just a good liver detoxer...Jim>> Does this aggrivate Spirochetes, similarly to that of Abxs (pushing them into cyst form)? I want to avoid that obviously!> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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