Cat's Claw - An Alternative Med

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

Here's an update to my Cat's Claw post from August last year.

Inspired by a post in this group a while back from someone who got relief

from the herb Cat's Claw, and after doing some web research of my own, I

tried the herb Cat's Claw to deal with PA in my toe. The web research taught

me that Cat's Claw is a medicinal herb from the rainforests in South

America. According to those web articles, Cat's Claw works on P and PA by

regulating TNF, the same chemicals inhibited by Enbrel and Remicade that are

at the root of P and PA. A processed from of Cat's Claw is sold as a

prescription med in Austria.

I've been on Cat's Claw for about six months now and am pleased to report

that I no longer have any PA symptoms. I don't take or need any

anti-inflammatories or other PA drugs. Unfortunately, on my own, I'm not a

scientific sample to know for sure that Cat's Claw is my cure or what dose

might work for anyone else. I just know that I read a note like this from

someone who said it worked for them, tried it, and it seems to work for me.

Background: I used to have pretty bad PA in both feet, but after 2 years on

Remicade, I felt great and decided to check if I was in remission. After 6

months feeling great with no meds, one of my toes got sore again. I am not

opposed to taking the best pharmaceuticals when necessary, but I feel that

Remicade or other biologics are kind of overkill for just one toe. With

Mobic/acetaminophen not getting the job done, I decided to try Cat's Claw.

The nuts and bolts: I take 1 to 2 grams of GNC brand Cat's Claw capsules per

day these days. I started six months ago at 500mg/day for the first month or

so and then ramped up slowly to 3 grams per day over the next couple months

until my PA symptoms faded. Now I take 1-2 grams per day for maintenance. I

never had much P to begin with, but when I took 3 grams per day of Cat's

Claw, my P was gone too. With my current dosage, I have some minor P.

I chose the GNC version of Cat's Claw as I read that some companies sell a

similar, but less effective root as Cat's Claw and I wanted a trustworthy

brand (GNC says, " herbs are positively identified by the sophisticated Thin

Layer Chromatography (TLC) technology...as accurate and reliable for

identifying true herbal species as human fingerprinting " ). GNC Cat's Claw is

US$8 per bottle at GNC stores. That's about half a month's supply at 3 grams

per day. Cheaper than most prescription copays. There are plenty of other

brands of Cat's Claw at health food stores for about the same price.

My rheumy was very cool and I found her very knowledgeable about PA and the

common pharmaceuticals, but she had never heard of Cat's Claw so I struck

out on my own on this one.

Check with your doc too if you're interested. I'm no doctor or expert, but

happy to follow up with people about my experience or information that I

found about Cat's Claw.

Also, I'd be interested to hear from any one else who has tried Cat's Claw.

-

[Editor's Note: It's great that you have had such wonderful success with Cat's

Claw. There is no scientific evidence to support that it works for the general

population, so yours may be an isolated case. ALL people who try it, should do

so only after consultation with their doctors as the ingredients may pose a

conflict with some medications - and produce disastrous results. So, we're glad

this has worked so well for you but self medication is treading on very

dangerous ground and people should proceed with great caution. Kathy F.]