LACTOFERRIN INSTRUCTIONS & FAQ
I cannot begin to tell you how IMPORTANT it is that you read these instructions and LISTEN to them, if you want the MOST BENEFIT and the LEAST SYMPTOM AGGRAVATIONS from this tremendous product!!!
What is lactoferrin? It is a purified, isolated protein typically derived from mammalian milk (although it is found in ALL human body fluids) that does multiple things regarding health that we are interested in. It also seems to, based on feedback, cause BILE DUMPING. This can quickly become PROBLEMATIC if you take too much, too soon, FOR YOU.
PLEASE READ CAREFULLY, especially this first part:
-
If you take too much lactoferrin too soon for your health condition, YOU MAY FEEL WORSE FOR A SHORT TIME. Mark my words. If you feel bad and it is strong enough that you consider the symptoms to be “unmanageable” or “excessively unpleasant”, then you need to ADJUST AND REDUCE YOUR DOSE BY HALF. Repeat the previous step (ie. continuing halving the dose until you tolerate it) as many times as necessary. NOTE: I did NOT say to STOP taking it.
-
Lactoferrin can potentially assist your body in addressing the cholestasis (bile reflux and stagnation) that is likely behind nearly all of your chronic health symptoms. If you go up too fast and take too much too soon FOR YOU, it WILL flare up your old symptoms and/or possibly cause you new symptoms. The strength of your symptoms is likely related to the amount of chronic liver issues (hidden or obvious) that you already have.
Who is most likely to have the most challenges with lactoferrin, in terms of symptom aggravations, AKA, “who should go slowest and take the most care along the way?”
-
Women > Men (women have more cholestasis issues than men in general, for multiple reasons)
-
The older a person is
-
The longer someone has been unwell (many have had their liver issues since birth, jaundice at birth is a PRIME example of this)
-
The more significant/severe a person’s health conditions are
-
The more “sensitive” a person is to supplements, medications, chemicals, allergens, scents, etc. in general
Lactoferrin is a tool that may be able to help speed the liver’s recovery. However, “strong medicines” are referred to as such because they have STRONG EFFECTS. Respect the lactoferrin, realize that you likely have DECADES worth of toxins to get out of your liver (and a poison on the way in is also a poison on the way OUT), don’t be impatient or greedy or a “tough guy/gal” thinking you’ll just grit your teeth through the suffering (it will be much longer than you anticipate, you won’t last), and you will do fine.
HOW TO START LACTOFERRIN
Here is how to START and PROGRESS.
IGNORE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
REMEMBER THIS: “If you’re going to be DUMB, you better be TOUGH!!!”
People ignoring symptoms that pop up when beginning the lactoferrin and continue to increase their dose, then wondering WHY this/these symptoms that popped up “keep getting worse”--yet never cutting back on lactoferrin even though I have told them over and over in these instructions--is the BIGGEST AND MOST COMMON MISTAKE I SEE! PAY ATTENTION PLEASE. If lactoferrin causes you issues over time, after these detailed instructions/cautions/warnings, you are only doing it to yourself.
First, purchase some fractional/mini teaspoons from us (can be ordered from Julie with the lactoferrin if you don’t already have them). They are marked as DROP (1/64 tsp) - SMIDGEN (1/32 tsp) - PINCH (1/16 tsp) - DASH (1/8 tsp) - TAD (1/4 tsp).
Open a capsule or several, into an airtight container or Ziploc bag. You will keep this container/bag in the refrigerator between uses (this is only because it is open, lactoferrin in the capsules in the bottle does not need to be stored in the refrigerator).
START by taking only 1 “DROP” per day, aka 1/64 teaspoon of the lactoferrin powder. START BY TAKING IT AT DINNER.. You can put the powder straight into your mouth (will stick to your teeth until your saliva dissolves it) or you can mix it with water (can take 10-30 minutes to fully dissolve with several rounds of stirring). If you feel like putting it on/in food, that’s fine too. It does not really have much of a taste.
Assess how you feel over the next 7 days, particularly during the first 3 days. If you feel that the lactoferrin causes or aggravates ANY symptoms that you consider to be “unmanageable” or “excessively unpleasant”, then go to part (A) below. If you feel nothing particularly good OR bad, OR you feel BETTER in some way, then go to part (B) below.
-
Aggravation of symptoms. You should reduce whatever dose you are on by half (ie. only fill ~½ of the “DROP” teaspoon). Re-assess at this new dose over 7 days. Based on how you feel, you will either stay at this dose--see part (B)--or cut the dose in half again and repeat. Repeat this process of halving until you get down to a dose you tolerate.
-
Feel nothing or feel better. STAY with 1 “DROP”, aka a level 1/64 teaspoon for AT LEAST 1 WEEK before going up to 1 “SMIDGEN” aka 1/32 tsp. Repeat this process again as you go up in the fractional teaspoons.
PRO TIP: Only go up in dose if you 1) feel nothing good OR bad, or 2) you feel BETTER.
If you feel WORSE or are having ANY UNDESIRABLE SYMPTOMS POP UP SINCE STARTING THE LACTOFERRIN or you aren’t sure, then DO NOT GO UP IN DOSE *YET*. Go up only after 1 full week at a dose, and also when you feel that you are stable or when any/all concerns caused by the lactoferrin have subsided.
STAY at each dose increase for AT LEAST 1 FULL WEEK before moving to the next dose increase.
Increases make the jumps along with the fractional teaspoon sizes:
-
Drop aka 1/64 tsp (approx. 17 mg LF)
-
Smidgen aka 1/32 tsp (approx. 34 mg LF)
-
Pinch aka 1/16 tsp (approx.69 mg LF)
-
Dash aka 1/8 tsp (approx. 138 mg LF)
-
Tad aka 1/4 tsp (approx. 275 mg LF)
-
1 CAPSULE (315 mg LF)
I am advising you to stay at each dose increase (which is a doubling of dose each jump) for 1 FULL WEEK before you move up. If you go faster than this, then you risk feeling WORSE for an UNKNOWN PERIOD OF TIME (it will pass over time, and I have NO IDEA how long that will be for YOU, so PLEASE don’t make yourself suffer unnecessarily!). The worse condition your liver is in (you don’t get to know this until one goes *too quickly*), or the worse/stronger your symptoms are, the SLOWER you will need to go!!!
The FULL dose is 1 pill/day, taken with a meal. Take your time working up to this! You do not have to be at this dose to improve! There is NO NEED to go over this dose! If you are doing great at less than this dose, and you definitely can’t handle 1 whole capsule yet, then great! (saving money, yay, right?) The key thing is to give EACH DOSE LEVEL (whatever that dose is for you at that time) the consistency and time to do its work!
CAN I PULSE-DOSE THE LACTOFERRIN?
Pulse-dosing is breaking something up (like a whole day’s lactoferrin dose) into smaller pieces and spreading them out through the day.
Sure, this is fine to do. It MAY (or may not!) allow you to tolerate the lactoferrin better (especially important for sensitive types!
WHEN DO I TAKE THE LACTOFERRIN?
PRIORITY #1 - TAKE LACTOFERRIN WITH FOOD
Taking lactoferrin on an empty stomach will tend to increase the symptom-reactions to it (due to bile dumping without food around to “dilute” the toxic bile). Don’t do that! Take it with food, even if you are pulse-dosing.
PRIORITY #2 - TAKE LACTOFERRIN WITH ANY ZINC YOU ARE TAKING
Lactoferrin helps transport zinc in the body. Help it do this job by taking them together!
If you aren’t taking zinc or aren’t sure how much zinc you need, then you should work directly with Dr. Smith and start “testing, not guessing, then addressing” any zinc deficiency that may be (likely) present!
NOTE: It seems from feedback that lactoferrin and zinc act on similar parts/pathways of the liver. If you know you are extra-sensitive to zinc supplements, or that zinc supplements caused you certain reactions in the past, then be aware that lactoferrin may cause you similar reactions. This is likely rooted in liver copper toxicity issues.
PRIORITY #3 - TAKE LACTOFERRIN AT THE BEST TIME OF DAY FOR *YOU*
For many people, in the beginning, lactoferrin is likely to make them feel tired/sleepy. These people should take it at dinner or closer to bed. It is likely to help you sleep.
If lactoferrin negatively affects your sleep, then take it in the morning or at lunchtime!
WHAT SHOULD I TAKE IT WITH?
Take it with food.
Take it with your zinc, if you are taking zinc.
Take it with any probiotics you might be taking (these will likely become unnecessary over time due to the lactoferrin’s impact on your gut biome).
WHAT DO I DO IF I DON’T FEEL GOOD TAKING LACTOFERRIN?
One of the theoretical mechanisms of how lactoferrin helps so many diseases in the research is that it assists your body in repairing damaged intrahepatic and extrahepatic bile ducts. If you add in lactoferrin too aggressively, much of that toxic bile that is now rushing out of those bile-containing cells can go backwards into your bloodstream (the reflux/backwash/backflow/regurgitation of bile getting into the bloodstream due to intrahepatic / extrahepatic / leaky gut cholestasis), causing you to feel AWFUL. If you are seeing a strong return of old symptoms or of new symptoms popping up, YOU ARE GOING TOO FAST.
Analogy: Think of a toilet and the sewer line going out of it. If you are “unwell”, as EVERYONE is these days, the sewer line has a lot of deposits/plaque/caked-on stuff on the walls, making the pipe SMALLER. A smaller pipe flows SLOWER and gets CLOGGED MORE EASILY. What happens when you flush too much stuff at once (DUMP BILE) into a poorly flower toilet/sewer line? YOU GET AN OVERFLOWING TOILET, AND YOU GET NASTY TOILET WATER EVERYWHERE IN YOUR HOUSE/BATHROOM.
Do you see how we don’t want this? Do you see how pushing this too fast will possibly make you feel quite “crappy”? This information is here to help you avoid doing that to yourself. The lactoferrin needs TIME and CONSISTENCY to open up the “partially clogged toilet/sewer lines” without backing up the TOXIC BILE into your bloodstream and making you feel WORSE in the short-term.
Think of this as “rehabbing” an injury. When the injury is new, one needs to start with very gentle and light exercises, or else they risk re-injuring the problem part. If everything is done properly, in the right order, with the right weights/resistance, increasing only when the time is right...the injury fixes itself with very little discomfort along the way. This is what I’m trying to help you do. Impatience will only cause problems.
While taking the lactoferrin, and progressing in dose AS I DESCRIBE ABOVE, IF/WHEN you don’t feel good and/or are having a return of old symptoms, HERE IS WHAT YOU DO:
-
You may start wondering what it is that is causing this, and looking for anything other than the lactoferrin as the cause. I’m here to tell you that IT IS THE LACTOFERRIN. YOU ARE PUSHING IT TOO HARD (you are re-injuring the injury by rehabbing it too quickly!). Do not go searching for other things, unless there is a good reason based on your own previously acquired self-knowledge or intuition. This does not mean the lactoferrin is “bad for you”, it simply means that you are pushing it too fast FOR YOU.
-
It is suggested to CUT THE DOSE OF LACTOFERRIN IN HALF every 3 days until the symptoms calm down again, which they will. This could be days, or in a bad case of ignoring the warning signs, it might be weeks. You will likely notice that once this self-induced aggravation has calmed down, you feel even better than you did before you started the lactoferrin. This means the lactoferrin was doing its job in the background, but the overflow (think toilet backing up) was what was making you feel bad! Your job is to NOT DO THIS TO YOURSELF AGAIN.
-
You can start ramping back up the lactoferrin once the symptoms have calmed down. Re-start at HALF the dose you were previously doing before you stopped, and GO UP SLOWER THIS TIME.
I do not have any magickal ways of getting you out of the lactoferrin-bile-dumping aggravation. You are causing bile (and all the toxicity in it) to get refluxed back into your bloodstream. There is no way I know of to get it out of the BLOOD, except time to let the liver do its job.
Prevention is the best cure. GO UP SLOWLY. STAY AT COMFORTABLE DOSES LONGER THAN YOU THINK YOU NEED TO, OR CUT YOUR DOSE DOWN. Hear me now, believe me later.
NOTE: From what I have personally experienced, along with feedback from others, it seems NORMAL that you may encounter feelings / emotions / thoughts / dreams / symptoms from previously in your life during this process, as your LIVER gets rid of these old “energetic disease patterns” (or whatever you choose to call them). There is no need to be afraid of this, they should pass within 1-3 days.
IF YOU ARE EVER IN DOUBT, ***TAKE LESS***.
Feeling bad from the lactoferrin means it is trying to fix your liver’s main problem and YOU ARE GOING TOO FAST FOR YOUR STATE OF SICKNESS!!! It does NOT mean that you are “intolerant of” or “sensitive to” or “allergic” to the lactoferrin.
LACTOFERRIN AND PROBIOTICS?
Research suggests that lactoferrin has a strong positive effect on the gut biome. Lactoferrin is a protein, not a bacteria. It can stimulate the growth of, or reduce the die-off due to bile toxicity of, both Lactobacillus AND Bifidobacterium, depending on what the situation needs. So, what to do about probiotics you might already be taking?
-
If you’ve been trying probiotics and 1) not noticing any benefits, or 2) if you’ve been seeing some benefits and some negatives from the same strain(s), or 3) if you are reacting negatively to all probiotics in general, STOP taking any/all probiotics and start SLOW on the lactoferrin.
-
If you are POSITIVE that the probiotics you are taking have had only beneficial effects for you, then you can stay on them. Over time, you will likely notice that you won’t need them any longer. When that happens, you can and should stop taking them. If you are still benefiting from them, then you can keep taking them! Don’t make this complicated.