Hi Members,
I recently went to a health professional continuing education conference of which the topic was the immune system, allergies, and autoimmune diseases. When it came to the autoimmune diseases there was not much on sjogren's. However, I did learn that those of us with driness should NOT be using ginseng. Ginseng increases or boosts the amount of IgA antibodies. This means that there will be more antibodies to attack your moisture producing glands! Especially in the eyes. According to Web MD:
"IgA antibodies are found in areas of the body such the nose, breathing passages, digestive tract, ears, eyes, and vagina. IgA antibodies protect body surfaces that are exposed to outside foreign substances. This type of antibody is also found in saliva, tears, and blood..."
As you can see it can possibly cause all around driness, SO PLEASE AVOID GINSENG! Please get your energy boost another way :)
ps. In the other forum I posted that there is a blurb about increased prolactin (lactation hormone) causing flares in sjogren's patients in the Sjogren's syndrome foundation handbook. But it is just a blurb so if you are breastfeeding and suffering greatly with symptoms you might want to research or contact them for more information. I am tomorrow.
Nur
Funny you mentioned this..whenever I used it before, I felt drier? Some of the natural herbs dry me out as well????uhmmm..interesting
Wow, I never knew that! Thanks for passing the info on!!!!
Patze