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Alternative treatments

Posted by siliai @siliai, Apr 4, 2019

I was wondering if anyone has done alternative treatments for Bronchiectasis. I am dealing with pseudomonas and have read Stephen Buhner’s herbal antibiotics book. Has anyone tried the protocols he recommends for treating lung infections?

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galing | @galing | Dec 5 9:51am
In reply to @pacathy "@galing As I said, my treatment is fairly aggressive because some think it caused the CT..." + (show)
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@galing As I said, my treatment is fairly aggressive because some think it caused the CT changes and bronchiectasis. The other theory is that I had MAC and cleared it without meds.
I’m currently on Mometazone sinus rinses 1-2x/day. Trying to cut that back.
I’m restarting Mayo’s (mixed there) triple spray with Mometasone, Ipratropium, and diphenhydramine. If you can’t get this, mometasone is a steroid nasal spray and is OTC. Ipratropium is prescription and is the most helpful in drying me up. Astepro is similar to diphenhydramine, but tastes worse. I used these 3 while trying to get local docs to order from MAYO. The 2 sprays seem to work much better than individual 6. I was on Astepro before I went to Mayo and it helped, but was not good control.

I also took 1 antihistamine-Allegra or Zyrtec until I had a recurrence of autoimmune skin disorder and am on higher doses.
The steroids and Ipratropium are controversial in bronchiectasis. Mometasone has less systemic effect than others. I asked my pulmonologist if it was Ok to take higher dose steroids when I get the bronchitis/sinus/ear infections and he said short term high dose would help decrease the inflammatory response.
It seems some pulmonologists don’t like Ipratropium because of drying effect esp as a nebulized med. My Mayo doc said “pulmonologists always worry about excess secretions.” I have clearly been better with fewer infections when my secretions are better controlled, though I do keep trying to decrease the mometasone.

Good luck!

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@pacathy
Thanks so much for your reply and the details re your treatment. I too have been discouraged from using anything with a drying effect. I’ll check with my Dr on the next visit.

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pacathy | @pacathy | Dec 6 5:28am

@galing I should clarify that Mayo started me on the Triple spray with Ipratropium 3 years ago. That’s when she told me pulmonologists worry about excess secretions and need to get it under control. A couple months later, a Penn frontal sinus specialist added the Mometasone rinses because despite the spray and NS rinses, I was still hoarse and when he looked, I had a significant amount yellow drainage on vocal cords. The occlusion of my frontal sinus had cleared when I finally got in to him, so the sprays were helping a lot, but needed a little more.
It seems to me, decreasing that mucus production kept the bacteria from having an environment to grow. Good luck!

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