Starting Valtrex

Saturday night, I took my first 1000mg of valacyclovir, also known by its brand name Valtrex. I plan to take 2g per day, or 1g every 12 hours. I took my second dose Sunday morning. By Sunday afternoon, I started to get that brainstem/neck/inflamed brain headache feeling--the same feeling that olive leaf extract gave me. I took my third pill Sunday evening and noticed the headache intensified slightly as I was trying to fall asleep.

Monday morning I no longer had much of a headache and took my fourth pill. Several hours later I didn't feel much different than I did on Friday. If that was my "herx" it sure didn't last very long. I'm guessing the olive leaf extract helped knock down my infection but hopefully OLE and Valtrex will be synergistic or at least additive in their antiviral effects. I "herxed" for months on olive leaf, and thought it was never going to end! Maybe for patients who are very sensitive to drugs could use olive leaf as a "pretreatment". But it doesn't seem to be powerful enough by itself to actually lead to improvements in ME/CFS, at least not after one year.

I'm still focused on a combination antiviral and immune modulation approach, using as many "natural" therapies as possible. I have been lazy with regard to things like curcumin, magnesium, etc. so here is my updated protocol--the things that I always take and the things I feel are most important:

• olive leaf extract, 4 caps thrice daily (Natural Factors, 500mg, 15% oleuropein)


• echinacea, 3 caps thrice daily (Nature's Answer, 450mg blend of e. purpurea and e. angustifolia per cap)


• AHCC, 1g thrice daily


• Beta Glucan, 5 caps thrice daily (Now brand)


• Valacyclovir, 1g twice daily


• probiotic before each meal


• selenium and zinc

I have stopped taking Phyllanthus Niruri and some of the other things from my February post. In particular, the phyllanthus was a pain to extract and it didn't seem to be working (but I'm thinking I should have stayed on it--oh well). The rest I take off and on. It's just too many pills to swallow and difficult to even remember them all.

Back to Valtrex. A recent study showed that only 500mg of valacyclovir per day reduced the number of memory B cells latently infected with EBV by half in 11 months. Unfortunately this is for people with "healthy" immune systems so who knows how long it would take for ME/CFS patients. Anyway, extrapolating that data and making some assumptions that may or may not be true, you could hypothetically eliminate 99% of the EBV in 6 years and maybe even eliminate it from the body entirely after 11 years. Interesting stuff.