Re: Milk thistle side effects, silver and kidney stones

Tony, I know of no allergies to milk thistle family.  I don't have seasonal allergy problems that would be indicative of any of this.

When it comes to herbal supplementation, I don't think I've ever asked "how much should I take?"  I always start with ridiculously low dose and let my body tell me what's right.  When Dr Dennis told me to try it, he added "60 drops, 3 times a day."  That's alot of milk thistle.

Mh made my MT tinctue.  The day I got it, I started with ONE drop 3 times a day.  My body reacted to it immediately.  I passed globs of green slime during the night for the first 2 days.  I increased the dosage 1 drop for each dose every day.  At the one week point, my liver and what I guess was my pancreas were screaming!!!  I took this as a healing crisis and just pushed on with upping the dosage.  It was at about week 4 before the pain was completely gone, but it was gone to the point of not being aware of having a liver for the first time in over 2 yrs.  No pain, good digestion ... this was way cool.  I kept increasing the dosage, shooting for the 60 drops that Dr Dennis had said.  Then, about day 35 or so, my kidneys became evident, day by day then became painful, especially the right one ... I'd had kidney stones from this kidney twice in the past.  I wondered if the milk thistle might be healing to the kidneys also even tho I'd read nothing about this and could find nothing on it.  10 days later, I realized that I'd gained 26 pounds over the last few weeks; my weight had remained very steady over the last year and a 1/2.  Just my ankles blew up like ballons, weirdest thing I've ever seen my body do.  My legs, nor my feet swelled, just my ankles; my kidneys were screaming.  Day 46, at 46 drops 3 times a day, I decided it had to be the milk thistle, it was the only new thing in my life and I stopped it to see what would happen.  Until I talked with Brenda, MHs wife on the phone, with her telling him what I was saying and getting recommendations for things that should rectify this, I got NO relief.  It took a good 4 weeks to experience waking up in the morning and feeling like "there's MY feet."  I decided to rest all supplements for the first week of Sept.  Saturday night was first night back on the supplements and I 'd decided to test and see if the milk thistle really might be the problem.  Sunday was the worst swelling I've had yet.  My feet, my calves and the lower 1/2 of my thighs felt like water ballons.  It's like my legs are being filled with stagnet water.

Things MH and Brenda came up with for me to try:  a pinch of sea salt in everything I drank and daily sorghum molasses for mineral rebalancing; lemon water (I'm a nut about hot lemonade sweetened with sorghum - made this part easy!  I added cayenne pepper to this toddy, to see if it was a kidney stone, would it help it to pass - cayenne is a dialative herb); kidney cleanser that I had already started taking; MH decided I needed added potasium, his dewormer is the highest potasium formula he makes, to take that daily (had that on hand too); walking; and things anybody with swelling in feet and legs should do like prop up feet, change positions often while sitting, put pillow under feet and legs in bed; limit water intake to 1/2 gallon a day until body starts using it properly (I'd started by drinking way MORE water and just blew up MORE).  I eat more than 50% of my diet as fruit and fruit juices, so got plenty of melons in my regular diet.  I had basically continued this regime between the weekend of MY feet and waking up Sunday morning knowing I was in trouble again.

On 2 occassions while doing these tips, I am certain that I passed 2 kidney stones that were the size of the lead in an unshapend pencil.  Passing them was totally pain free.  I give credit to this to the cayenne.  The stones were the dark variety, the metals sort.  I passed both within a week of each other.  The swelling was completely gone within the week of passing the 2nd one.

OK, kidneys now strong enough to be doing some MAJOR detoxing, getting rid of stones that had been deep seated for God knows how long?  That's why I decided to try the MT again.  THIS swelling thing has something to do with the MT!!!!!

I don't know if MY is healing to more organs than just the liver.  It seems as plain as the nose on my face that it has some effect on my kidneys.  I just can't decide if it is a good thing or bad.  If the stones are sitting in my kidneys, they DO need to come out, but this is scary!