botanicals vs pharmaceuticals

[Lorraine Love]

I have a bias against pharmaceuticals. But perhaps I need to rethink that – it seems your protocols rely on them.
Have there been any studies comparing the efficacy of botanicals vs nystatin vs difflucan vs botanicals and nystatin etc. What do you see in your practice.
when do you decide to use nystatin/difflucan vs only botanicals vs combining them?
Biocidin seems to make a claim for being a stand alone product.

[DrWoeller]

Lorraine,
There may be some studies, but usually these are done to push one product or medication versus another.

Our goal isn’t to emphasize pharmaceuticals over botanicals, but the reality is the effects of these things can work differently for different patients.

My personal decision is based on severity, in addition to the type of patient I am working with. I ask people what is there experience with botanicals or other supplements. Are they over-sensitive to things. Do they have a experience with medications in the past.

Also, I work a lot with kids so I tend to stay away from Diflucan. Also, with some kids they don’t like the taste of botanicals, or at least some botanicals.

There is nothing wrong with trying botanicals, but if they aren’t working or a patient is intolerant than meds are the best option.

This is why we created the mild, moderate and severe protocol templates. They involve both botanicals and/or medications. I have had patients with severe problems where all that was done was botanicals. However, I have had some special needs kids where botanicals cause a lot of behavior problems and the only thing that works is Nystatin.

I was had a case of fecal smearing in a child. His behavior was so severe the family was emotionally on the edge. In that extreme case I used Diflucan for 2 weeks to try and decrease the yeast problem as quickly as possible so his behaviors would subside – and they did. Using a botanical in that situation likely wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

Finally, we had a woman years ago who came to see us for a fungal rash going down both legs. It had been there for 2 years. She tried nystatin cream, botanicals, topical botanicals, cleanses, etc. Nothing helped. She had literally spent 1000’s of dollars trying to resolve the problem. The rash disappeared within about 2 weeks with a prescription of Nizoral.

I hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Dr. Woeller

[Elizma Lambert]

Hi Dr. Woeller,

Similarly you are opening my mind around pharmaceuticals. I realize that there is a place for them. So, without going into a full case-study, I have a little girl patient (6 years old) with terrible scaly eczema all over her body, and she scratches until she draws blood. Same problem as you’ve mentioned in that we’ve tried botanicals but she refuses to take many of them due to taste which causes a lot of stress for her mum. Based on case history and symptoms we were treating it as gut dysbiosis, but she would constantly change treatments and diets with lots of ups-and-downs and frustration. I eventually convinced her to do CDSA (DD) to make sure we know what we’re dealing with, to convince her it was coming from the gut, and to give her a treatment plan to stick with.
So, lots of macroscopic yeast and blasto. Her other gut flora was actually really good, other gut markers were very balanced (SCFA’s, etc.) Everything in the green zone, good amounts of lactobacilli and bifido. The mother is quite desperate and asked me about using pharmaceuticals.

My Q here is in general would you still use pharmaceuticals when good gut flora is present? Would using pharmaceuticals in a situation like this create more problems afterwards than what you started with? If it all looked pretty pear-shaped, I wouldn’t have this hesitation.

Thank you,
Elizma

[DrWoeller]

Lorraine
In this particularly situation I wouldn’t hesitate to use Nystatin. That’s not to say you couldn’t accomplish the same thing with botanicals, but you have the child refusing them. The other concern is the Blasto which can also cause problems. My preference would be to stay away from antibiotics. In this case I think you would find the Biocidin effective and easy to give. My kids like the taste so that factor isn’t a problem. I think I would still use the Nystatin though and not solely rely on Biocidin to do both – get the Blasto and yeast.

Sincerely,
Dr. Woeller

[Author]

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