menopause and herxing

[mocos]

I had emailed Lady B about my experience with teasel, a herx from hell and menopause. In the interests of helping others who may be going through this here is my question and her response.

Hi Lady B,
Just wanted to share my teasel experience so far and see what you think. Started teasel at one drop a little over two weeks ago. Felt it in my kidneys within hours. Within a few days I could kneel again which I haven't been able to do for months due to pain. I continued to slowly work my way up to eight drops with some minor but manageable herx type symptoms such as headache, creaky neck, skin eruptions, sore knee, painful toe and little things like that.

Soon after starting teasel my period began. I'm going through menopause so I never know when I'll get it and last time was months ago and it lasted for weeks but was no big deal.

However, about a week ago I started bleeding profusely and it hasn't let up. I don't know if this has any connection with the teasel or would have happened anyway. I didn't give it much thought and kept up the teasel until two nights ago when the herx from hell hit. I felt like a 100-year-old and was unable to roll over in bed due to the pain in my spine, neck and shoulders.

Following your advice I stopped the teasel two days ago to give my body time to catch up. The back pain is easing a bit but the flooding period continues. I'm using shepherds purse tincture and raspberry leaf tincture to try to stop the excess bleeding.

Do you think it would be wise to stay away from the teasel until things stabilize with my period? I hope this isn't TMI and I thank you for all you are doing to share your knowledge.

Kind Regards and Blessings,

Maureen

Especially when a menopausal woman hasn't flowed for months, it's common for the next moon to be heavy. If anything, Teasel has been used to ease menstrual flooding (having nothing to do with Lyme), calm a restless fetus and prevent miscarriages, so it's NOT uterine stimulating. I was thinking of that recently because coinciding with my Lyme years I was total FLOOD woman eventually begging for a hysterectomy after two really life-threatening hemorrhages, and YEARS of periods SO heavy that it took me a week to recover each month. I had serious fibroids on the INSIDE of my uterus and after I shed my menstrual lining, the fissures between the fibroids would continue to bleed MY blood. Had I know about Teasel back then.....???

Bleeding profusely for an entire week might need a gyn. I can't say. Also depends on what else you are taking. (lots of herbs are blood-thinning)

I was able to slow my flash-floods with Yarrow tincture, just 5 drops at a time. For a while, anyway. Shepherd's purse, if made from fresh plants within the last year really SHOULD work.

My advice is to Self-Test. It's pretty much the only way you're going to know when your body can make use of the Teasel again. And when you finally do get a yes, start back on a single drop. No rush in increasing the dosage.

The Herx From Hell is liver-overload and the Menopausal Hormonacoaster is liver-overload, so Milk Thistle seeds can help to protect and restore your liver (from both hormones and spirochete debris) You can get just the dried seeds and put them in your pepper grinder and sprinkle them on food with the pepper, or use the tincture.

But basically, I'd be taking it really easy for awhile and let yourself regroup. Lyme and Menopause at the same time is really rough. You might really want to get your hands on Susun Weed's NEW Menopausal years book, it's a GREAT resource.

You might also want to post your Teasel Tale to that thread in my section at www.winthelymewar.com, perhaps there are other women having similar experiences. But it sounds like Menopause just met Lyme head-on.

Do keep me posted and don't let the heavy bleeding go on too long without checking with your gyn.
LadyB