y has no one used milk thistle it worked for me

[virgocharm]

y not milk thistle

[medicmommy]

Wow! Good MT info! I had known a good part of that, but not the interactions..Excellent info! Aren't these forums great for these tidbits of info?!?            ~Melinda

[comeagain]

Ty for posting I see you are doing your homework well and you haven´t even started tx yet,same with marcia, that looks good for the future.

I´m on my second tx geno 3 and everything was looking perfect due to labresult first tx but I relapsed, think tx is very much of a gamble.
Lots of old hepers can confirme that.
You can´t take anything for granted , beeing a gamling man i know it takes three things to win thats luck, money and knowledge if you have more of one you need less of the others, but best is to have lot of all three.

God bless you always!

ps Prepared is a keyword, fret, marcia you seems to already have understand that,
good luck with your coming up treatments.

[Marcia2202]

Thanks for the info about the SST. Personally, I do not want to do any herbal approach now before treatment. But I definitely want to get into it after treatment. My diet has been almost vegan, whole food, health food etc for many years and since I found out I had hep c I went 100% organic, including everything I put on my body(creams, soap, shampoo, etc)
I do have a grapefruit every morning, krill oil and chlorella supplements. These I have been taking for a long time. I was thingking of stopping them before treatment.

Marcia

[susan400]

Thanks so much for posting that.  I sure hope some of the many people on our boards read it and take a mental note of this....

Susan

[Marcia2202]

Thanks, I think we are all starting to get tired of the 'milk thistle thing'.

virgocharm:

The plain truth is it that Milk Thistle does NOT cure hepatitis c! It is good for the liver, but NOT when you are on treatment, as it interacts with medications. To add to this, the SAME with grapefruit!

Good luck, Marcia

[fretboard]

Glad to hear it worked for you.  Please share, how did it work for you? You certainly don't believe you are HepC free b/c you used Milk Thistle?  If it made you feel better and that's all you wanted then you accomplished what you wanted to, and good for you.  It has been know to lower VL, but it does nothing as far as eliminating the virus from your system.  I would like to get rid of my HepC and MT isn't gonna accomplishment that for me.  Good luck with your herbal experience.  Oh I placed a warning I found on another site, so if anyone is considering messing around with MT read all you can about it first.  later

A warning about milk thistle and drug interactions
The seeds of the milk thistle plant are commonly used to protect the liver from damage caused by hepatitis viruses as well as alcohol and
other substances. Compounds found in milk thistle — sylibin, sylimarin — act as antioxidants and also stimulate the repair of the liver.
But now it appears that these and possibly other compounds in milk thistle can have other effects.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have suspected that milk thistle can slow down or reduce the activity of enzymes in the liver.
Enzymes in the liver break down many of the substances that we eat and drink, including medications. If the activity of these enzymes
are reduced, then drugs remain in the blood longer than they otherwise might. This could lead to having higher-than-expected levels of
drugs in the body, causing side effects or intensifying already-existing side effects. Indeed, in recent experiments using milk thistle and
human liver cells, the researchers found that relatively small concentrations of milk thistle did significantly slow down the activity of the
liver enzyme CYP3A4 by 50% to 100%.
Many medications taken by people with HIV/AIDS (PHAs) — such as protease inhibitors and non-nukes — are processed by this liver
enzyme. If milk thistle is taken by someone using protease inhibitors or non-nukes, it has the potential to raise levels of these drugs,
causing unpleasant or even dangerous side effects. Below is a short list of some other medications that are processed through the
CYP3A4 enzyme. Levels of these medications may increase if taken by people who are also using milk thistle. This list is not exhaustive:
• methadone
• heart drugs – Tambocor (flecainide), Rythmol (propafenone)
• antibiotics – erythromycin, rifampin
• anti-seizure drugs – carbamazepine (Tegretol)
• antidepressants – St. John’s wort, Zyban/Wellbutrin (bupropion), Paxil (paroxetine), Prozac (fluoxetine), Luvox (fluvoxetine)
Serzone (nefazodone), Zoloft (sertraline), Effexor (venlafaxine)
• antihistamines – Hismanal (astemizole), Seldane (terfenadine)
• antifungals – itraconazole (Sporanox), Ketoconazole (Nizoral)
• gastrointestinal motility agents – Prepulsid (Cisapride)
• ergot drugs – Ergonovine, Ergomar (ergotamine)
• anti-psychotics – Clozaril (clozapine), Orap (pimozide)
• sedatives/sleeping pills – Ambien (zolpidem), Halcion (triazolam), Versed (midazolam)
• lipid-lowering drugs (statins) – Lescol (fluvastatin), Mevacor (lovastatin), Pravachol (pravastatin) and Zocor (simvastatin),
Baycol (cerivastatin)
• transplant drugs – cyclosporine (Neoral, Sandimmune), ProGraf (tacrolimus)
Milk thistle also has the potential to lower levels of the following drugs:
• anti-parasite drugs – Mepron (atovaquone)
• sedatives/sleeping pills – Ativan (lorazepam)
• hormones – estrogen
The research by the scientists in Pittsburgh should emphasize to readers that simply because a product is "natural" it does not mean it is
safe when taken with other substances. This research also shows the need to conduct further research on herb-drug interactions on liver
cells as well as in people. Such studies may find combinations of herbs and drugs that can be safely used together. The Pittsburgh
researchers noted that "patients and health care professionals must be encouraged to discuss the use of herbs and be educated about the
potential interactions between herbs and drugs." This cannot be stressed enough.
REFERENCE
Venkataramanan R, Ramachandran V, Komoroski **, et al. Milk thistle, a herbal supplement, decreases the activity of CYP3A4 and
uridine diphosphoglucuronosyl transferase in human hepatocyte cultures. Drug Metabolism and Disposition 2000; 28(11):1270-1273.
This information was provided by the Community AIDS Treatment Information Exchange (CATIE). For more information, contact
CATIE at .
http://www.hepccalifornia.org/abouthepatitisc-alternativeandcomplementarymedicine.html