Oil of Oregano & Betaine HCL - Success!!!

[Tish]

I wanted to post to this site with my success with eliminating C.Diff. I contacted this while in the hospital and suffered with it for over a month trying many common remidies like acidolphilus, primal defense, and berberine. Finally, I realized I was dealing with something more difficult. When I found out I had C.Diff and that all I could get for it where I live is Flagyl, I realized I had to find another solution. I had been put on Flagyl in the past for entomoeba histoytica and it made me so sick that I could not contiue the course. I decided to do a lot of research and find another solution.

I came apon about 3 posts to other newsgroups of people having success with curing C.Diff infection using organo oil and betaine HCL. I looked into this further and believe it is a remidy proposed by Hulda Clarke. After researching oregano oil a bit, I realized that research showed it was effective against other similar bacteria. I also learned that C.Diff does not like very acidic gastric juices. I decided it was worth a try.

I purchased concentrated oregano oil from the Hulda Clarke Store (not associated with Hulda Clarke) I put 4 to 5 drops of oil dropped into an empty capsule and took this with 1000mg of betain HCL 3 times a day. I made sure to take this on an empty stomach between meals, so as not to reduce the acidity of the betain HCL with food. According to the accounts I read on those who had success with this, they took the oregano oil/betaine HCL program for about one month.

The oregano oil must be high quality oreganum vulgare that is pure oil and does not contain other solvents.

After 5 weeks on this, I then began to taper off and started taking 2 Primal Defense tablets 3 to 4 times a day when I started the taper. I tapered off over a week and after that continued with the Primal Defense and I am completely cured. This has worked like a dream in that it did not make me sick like Flagyl. The oregano oil is strong, but I tolerated it very well.

The first couple of weeks I was not sure how well it was working, but by the end of week three, I was free of all symptoms. I think I just had a lot of inflammation to recover from.

I think that because this treatment is more mild, it is important to be dilligent and regular about taking your doses 3 times a day.

I plan continue to take the Primal Defense and the Betain HCL between meals for another month or untill the bottles are empty.

I just wanted to post about this because I believe it works and is more effective than Flagyl and less toxic. I am so relieved and excited that this worked as I was very depressed at how difficult it was to find anything that touched C.Diff. It seemed worse than the entomoeba histolytica I had. It caused me so much inflammation and irritation in my colon.

Tish

[TracyLou]

Is your system back to normal yet? Just curious if you still suffer any type of cramping or if BM's have returned close to normal.

Sounds very promising.

[Tish]

Yes, my system seems perfectly back to normal. I had a little looseness from the Primal Defense early when I first started it. It lasted just one or two bowel movements. Since then everything has been quite normal, with no cramping, looseness, irritation, or anything.

Tish

[Tish]

I wanted to add that I had seen one post where the person was cured of C.Diff with the oregano oil/betain HCL program that also included 50 drops grapefruit seed oil three times a day with it. When I first started trying to get rid of this bug, I used berberine from grapefruit seed extract at a fairly high dose. Grapefruit seed extract's most active pathogen killing ingredient is berberine. Anyway, this was not very effective for me. It lessened my symptoms a bit, but I soon realized it was not very strong against it and was not getting me very far.

Berberine is excellent for killing entomoeba histolytica and numberous studies were done a while back on it's effectiveness against this amoeba. So, my point is that it might be good to include grapefruit seed exctract with the oregano oil and betaine HCL. But, it seemed only mildly effective against it. It would probably add a little extra insurance of being sure to kill it. Perhaps the oregano oil and grapefruit seed oil together are more potent in a synergistic way. I did not use it and I still got results. Other posts on this remidie did not include the grapefruit seed oil.

Every person that had said they had success with this oregano oil/ betain HCL program used it for a month. Perhaps a month is needed to clear all the reproductive vegetative bodies that C.diff produces. If you keep the bacteria killed, then eventually there will be no more reproductive vegitative bodies made and they will eventually be cleared out if they are unable to successsfully produce new bacteria.

Oregano oil has a long history of use for bacterail infections in mediteranian countries.

Tish

[Beverly]

Tish,

I, too, have tried some herbal remedies that were advised for cdiff. From whey to garlic to slippery elm.....none seemed to help.

First, did you take a course of Flagyl or Vancocin? Were you as sick with this as most here? (I have psuedomenbranous colitis - the worst form) ...If your symptoms with this disease were mild, maybe something holistic would take care of it or maybe it would resolve on its on.....
Not that I'm against herbal treatments - I prefer to take something natural. I'm just trying to decide if this would be something that someone like me can try. I've been suffering with this since September 2003. Many, many relapses. At one time this year I was off the Vancocin for 55 days and relapsed.... I am so discouraged at this point with the medical community that I feel more confident in research done by those who actually suffer with this. Sad that cdiff is not important enough for a doctor to take an interest.....

I'm so glad you are better.

Bev

[Tish]

I tried to use Garlic to kill entomoeba histolytica and it just was not strong enough. Oregano oil is an antibiotic that is quite strong. I decided I would try other things first before Flagyl. I was put on Flagyl for entomoeba histolytica several years ago and it made me tremendously sick. I could not do the 10 day course. I do not think I could stand another course of it. I have also read that two courses of Flagyl increases your risk of liver cancer substantially. So, I was against Flagyl from the beginning.

After the failed Flagyl attempt, I was able to get rid of my entomoeba histolytica infection with 3 days of tinidazole from Europe and 20 days of Berberine Sulfate to kill the cysts. I used Berberine Sulfate in place of another antibiotic needed to kill entomoeba cysts. Because of my success here with entomoeba partially using herbal remidies, I thought I could find something that would work against C.diff. I did a lot of research on berberine before using it for the histolytica.

I decided against Vancomycin because of it's poor outcomes due to antibiotic reistance. It's not recommended anymore for C.diff. I thought it would be a waste of time. It took some work to find research on oregano oil and what type of bacteria it is effective against. But, I found enough to give me confidence it would work.

The thing about C.diff is that when infected, you produce huge amounts of vegetative spoors that end up on surfaces everywhere in your house. They can live a long time and so it is easy to become reinfected. That's how it is transmitted in hospitals. Because people that are ill have low stomach acid, C.diff does not get killed before it can get to the lower intestine to infect you. I know that I have low stomach acid production from years of undiagnosed Celiac disease and this is why I was so easily infected. So, it is pretty well known that strong acid kills C.diff and that is why using betaine HCL is also helpful.

I am a very curious person who does not always follow doctor recommendations. I tend to research on my own and it seemed to me that research shows that both Flagyl and Vancomycin are not very effective against C.diff and have high reinfection rates. That along with my dread of Flagyl gave me the motivation to find another antibiotic that would kill it and that C.diff had not become resistant to.

So, really I ran an experiment on myself to see if I could find another solution. I felt I was healthy enough to try it for two weeks. If I got no results in that time, I was going to give up on it and go to the Flagyl. It turned out that it was successful for me.

The way I look at herbs is not that I want a "natural" remidy. I look at them as chemicals from which many modern medicines are developed. Since I have a chemistry background, I look into the chemical makeup of herbs to decide if they will work. Many effective herbs are of little interest to drug companies because you cannot get a patent on something natural. Doctors are trained by drug companies to use their drugs. So, they have little knowledge of alternative mdicines. That does not mean they don't work. The diffiuclt thing with herbal treatments is to find the right ones and to get the proper dose to get enough active ingredient, but not too much. They can be just as dangerous as prescription medicines.

Anyway, I only posted that this worked for me because I think people should know about this alternative. It is their decision whether to take the risk. I am a naturally curious person who tries to learn things on my own. Here are some links and research on oregano oil. To find specific text, go to "edit" in your brouser and click on "Find on this page." Type in "oregano" If I do some more digging I can find a lot more on this. Tish

Subject: Oil of Oregano Rivals Modern Antibiotic Drugs
http://www.vaclib.org/news/anthanti.htm

Antimicrobial agents from plants: antibacterial activity of plant volatile oils
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/ ... 969.x/abs/

Ingredients To Raise the Microbial Bar
http://www.foodproductdesign.com/archiv ... 499ap.html

Bacterial Infections
http://www.lef.org/protocols/prtcls-txt ... l-018.html

Antibacterial efficiency of Finnish spice essential oils against pathogenic and spoilage bacteria.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... t=Abstract

ANTIMICROBIAL EFFECTS OF SPICES AND HERBS
http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Spices.html

Effects of an Oregano-oil-supplement as feed additive on the intestinal flora of weaned piglets.
http://elib.tiho-hannover.de/dissertati ... _2001.html

mechanism of bactericidal action of oregano and clove essential oils and of their phenolic major components on Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis, The....
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... is_200307/
ai_n9287912
(oregano oil damages bacterial cell walls)

Impedance measurements to study the antimicrobial activity of essential oils from Lamiaceae and Compositae.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... t=Abstract

Bacterial infection
http://www.lef.org/protocols/prtcl-018a.shtml#ore

Origanum vulgare
http://www.herbmed.org/viewherb.asp?varHerb_ID=56

Chemical Composition, Antimicrobial and In Vitro Antioxidant Properties of Monarda citriodora var. citriodora, Myristica fragrans, Origanum vulgare ssp. hirtum, Pelargonium sp. and Thymus zygis Oils
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... is_200403/
ai_n9367972

Strains and toxins of Clostridium
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/172/3/312-b
(Reduced gastric acidity is a known risk factor)

[Guest]

Thanks for the information, Tish. The moderators copied it in Treatments and Alternative Medicine in FAQ -- along with the caveats about trying them. Glad they worked for you and congrats. on beating C. diff.

[Shugert]

Would someone please tell me if they feel that oil of oregano (oreganol) itself can rid a person of IBS that was a result of C. Dif.? My son's colonoscopy looked good so it seems as though the C. Dif. is gone, but he still suffers from daily diarrhea - about three a day.

Thank you very much for all your help. This is such an excellent site!

[Bobbie]

Shugert,
I doubt if oil of oregano has any powers to cure IBS, but you might check on some naturoathic sites such as www.dr.weil.com. Sometimes, IBS goes away on its own. Check with your son's doc. There are meds. for it if doc. decides one is necessary. See FAQ-IBS.