Hi nmarie!
Well, I just got back from my appointment. I really like the doctor and got a good feeling about him. He actually does a lot of alternative treatments for other conditions as well. (Oh, and he uses LDN a lot!)
The info the office gave me on the Intravenous Hydrogen Peroxide Therapy can be found on this website:
http://www.medical-library.net/
hydrogen_peroxide_therapy.html
Basically, you get a mixture via IV. It has oxygen in the form of hydrogen peroxide (used to "kill" viruses/bacteria/fungus in your system causing pericarditis), DMSO (I need to look this up, but it's an anti-inflammatory agent), high dose of Vitamin C, and Glutathione (he said it's one of if not the strongest antioxidant out there). So, none of it is covered by insurance and treatments are $75 each. I would start with 2 treatments a week for several weeks, then 1 treatment a week for a few weeks, then 1 treatment every 2 weeks for a little while, and then that might be it, or he would maybe do one treatment a month a couple of times. He said the great thing about Oxidation Therapy is that you don't have to do it for the rest of your life. You get the treatments, and then you're done. He thinks he can get me better with this treatment.
The scary thing is that I need to work on getting off the prednisone and methotrexate since they lower immune system function, and would go against the effects of the Oxidation therapy that works to boost your immune system. He says my rheumatologist will not believe that it will work.
I am in nursing school and have 2 days a week where I just study, so I may have to use those days for treatment. My husband and I are poor college kids, so we have to figure out the financial part of it. And I am SO nervous to have a recurrence during school because school absence policies are severe.
He has used LDN to treat MS patients. I think for me, he thinks oxidation would be better suited and I don't need LDN in addition to the Oxidation, because it would also be boosting my immune system (which is what the LDN does anyway).
I am super hopeful right now, but nervous. He successfully treated one older man with pericarditis, but his wasn't recurrent like ours. He has his initial episode and then had one 5 years later that he went to this doctor for and was treated successfully from that. I guess that's promising though. He says the oxygen kills anything in your system that caused the problem in the first place. He thinks whatever caused my problem is still in my system and that it's causing the problem. Says it's most likely not bacterial, because of my reaction to it. It's not the immune boosting that kills anything with the treatments.
He has successfully treated a lot of people with other inflammation disorders and even cancers.
Not having done it myself, I can't say from experience. But it sounds good. Just imagine getting rid of this once and for all! I don't know what I would do with myself!
Probably worth a search for you to see if you can find a doctor who does it. You are in a better position than me to start treatments because you're not on the nasty drugs like I am. In that way, you have nothing to lose, because there generally aren't side effects from the treatment. He says some people get tired initially. Heck, I'm super tired on my meds!
Not sure how to approach my rheumatologist. He may drop me. I just need someone to wean me from the steroids. I need to see if the new doctor can do that. Not that I don't know how, but it's scary.
Hope this helps!
Hazeldee
I am not a doctor. I do not claim to know all of the answers. I am just one person who is sharing my personal experience with pericarditis and various treatments in hopes that the information will help someone else.
Igenex Testing:
Lyme Western Blot
IgM
31 +
39 Ind
41 +
83-93 Ind
IgG
31 Ind
41 ++
Rickettsia IFA IgG
Spotted Fever Group IgG 40
Typhus Fever Group IgG 40
