Emma S
Posts:
59
From:
Battle, East Sussex
Registered:
06-Nov-2006
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Re: Echinecha
Posted:
15-Dec-2006 23:38
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you can take echinacea all the time without a break. Echinacea boosts the non-specific immune system, and works to help prevent infection. In the normal population they would be incoraged to take a higher level of echinacea at the first signs of a cold - which is possibly not a good idea with CF. As part of the immune reaction is inflammation, and this is what you want to prevent -> inflamation -> tissue damage.
Also with IVs and any antibiotic treatment - the antibiotics are attacking any bacterial infection far quicker than your immune system would (this is why you are put on antibiotics - your body probably would fight off the infection at its own pace, but the damage which may be done is not worth taking the 'natural' course)
Personally I would recommend taking echinacea all the time as a preventative, continue in the first couple of days of an infection, just in case your body manages to shift it quickly (maybe while you are waiting for cough swab/sputum results) then lay off them while on the antibiotics. When you come OFF the antibiotics is probably the most useful time of all, as you are particularly susceptable to a new infection as you get laid low a bit whilst on them, and your body has been stripped of alot of its natural defences
Emma
Medical herbalist
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