Japanese knotweed is a plant which is listed as an invasive species here in British Columbia. It is a plant that grows in wet areas, and it spreads via root systems and via tiny wind borne seeds which are in the millions every fall. It looks a bit like bamboo but it definately is not bamboo. Every fall, the yrear's growth of this plant dies back to the original rootstock, and come spring, from this set of roots, a new green top grows bigger and better. It is a plant that is very difficcult to kill. If you were to plow the ground where it grows, it would come back in a vengence from every little root shard. It just takes over an area and even the blackberries here which are also an invasive species cannot withstand the onslought of this japanese knotweed. Wife and i own a lot here in town, and we want to be building on it this summer. This lot is overgrown with japanese knotweed, and the only plants which are surviving this onslought are the trees which were there before and the japanese knotwood is not the ground cover in the area.

When you look up herbs and medications that help fight lyme disease, you will see that one of the best natural potions that are effective in combating lyme disease is japanese knotweed. The plant is totally eddible. Its new sprigs each year are nice and tender like asparagus and they have the flavor of a mild rhubarb. The roots of the plant can be dried and then ground up into powder which can be then ingested as tincture with alcohol to form a very effective weapon against lyme. When you type in Japanese knotweed for sale into your computer and google it, you will find that on amazon, a tiny bottle of it with a eyedropper costs $ 12.50 each.

With this stuff growing wild on our property and it being spring, I decided that i should try and harvest it as it is poking its green shoots out of the ground this spring. I went to our property and the new fresh green shoots were a maximum of about 6" tall and within minutes, i collected a partial bag full of this precious weed and i brought it home. I washed it in the sink, and then i put it inside our vegetable steamer since on line, the easiest way to prepare the stuff is to steam it like asparagus. A short time later, it was nice and tender. Dear wife tasted the shoots, and i decided to make a bit of a meal of this new vegetable i got for free from our weed infested property. The taste was like mild rhubarb and it just melted in the mouth. It tasted better with fresh lemon squeezed onto it. Yummy.

An hour later the fun started. I started getting an upset stomach. I got a headache. I got a bad case of sweats. I was not a happy camper. Something was obviously going wrong. I ended throwing all i ate that evening up. I lay down in bed for the night and i could not get warm. I put on lots of clothes and i again went under the covers. I had a headache all night long and i still have one now. Dear wife went on the internet and there was a big warning somewhere on another site that with this japanese knotweed, you have to start out slowly because if you do as i did, you get what is called a herxheimer reaction. Because i ate a good portion of the product directly, it was very effective in what it does, and that is it kills bad bacteria in your gut and as such one becomes as sick as i did overnight. I have since read myself about this property of the product and i will have to be way more careful as to how much of this stuff i actually eat, especially when i am not used to it like i was last night.

As of now, I still have a bad headache and some diarrhea. I am also still getting chills but i see a big improvement over last night. Dear wife is telling me that all this is good for me as it will mean a higher success rate of fighting this lyme bacteria with all of its co-infections which seem to have taken over my body. xfmlg