Why You Need Cinnamon in Your Healing Lyme Disease Diet

Have you ever heard how a group of Roman soldiers would protect themselves in battle? Several soldiers would huddle close and move together behind their large, heavy shields. Safe from being hit by flying arrows or spears, these soldiers could penetrate and fight the enemy in their own territory.

What can help shield you from the different ways that Lyme disease attacks your body?

Unfortunately, many people with Lyme feel they are losing the battle against their disease
When medications, herbs, or alternative treatments kill the Lyme bacteria, you can actually feel much worse because of the large amounts of Lyme toxins get released. These toxins wander into your joints, brain, and muscles which lead to pain, fatigue, and mental fog. If symptoms continue to get worse or new symptoms keep appearing, you can lose hope of ever healing this disease. If Lyme disease is not stopped, it can disrupt your vital systems.

Lyme disease can mess up your circulation, hormones, and organs
Not only do Lyme toxins aggravate painful symptoms, they can wreak havoc with your blood circulation, hormones, and organs. As a result, you can feel abnormally cold all the time, have debilitating fatigue because your cells are being starved of oxygen, or have heart palpitations or brain fog.

Can cinnamon help to stop how Lyme disease attacks different parts of your body?

Cinnamon helps shield you against the effects of Lyme disease
In Chinese Medicine, cinnamon twigs, also called “gui zhi”, are used in herbal formulas to help shield you against pain and fatigue caused by coldness. Cinnamon twig has slightly different properties from cinnamon bark, which is know as “rou gui”, which is what you use in cooking. Fortunately, cinnamon is used to penetrate and relieve pain in the body.

Cinnamon twig helps to relieve pain
Many people with Lyme disease feel worse in cold weather. One theory is that the Lyme infection makes you colder inside. As a result, cold weather penetrates into your body more easily and creates tightness and discomfort. Cinnamon twigs are used in herbal formulas to relieve pain and tiredness caused by coldness in the shoulders, neck, limbs, muscles and joints. Cinnamon bark also helps get the cold out, too.

These two forms of cinnamon help to increase a low body temperature
Some people with Lyme disease have a very cold average body temperature as low as 95 degrees. By taking a combination of cinnamon twig or bark with other warming herbs like aconite, ginger, and galanga, people with Lyme disease have increased their average body temperatures to normal or near normal levels in just a few weeks.

Cinnamon bark opens up blocked circulation especially in cold hands and feet. Cinnamon helps to warm and open up the blood flow through the small capillaries in your hands and feet. Not only does cinnamon warm you up, it also helps to replenish from fatigue.

Cinnamon helps your cells to feel less fatigued
Having Lyme toxins in your system a long time can decrease the flow of blood through your very small capillaries. As a result, your cells get much less oxygen and you feel easily fatigued. Many people with chronic Lyme disease can only exercise a few minutes before using up the available oxygen in their cells. Cinnamon bark increases blood circulation which helps deliver more oxygen to your cells. With more oxygen, your muscles can work longer before you feel fatigued. Cinnamon can also help your heart also.

It can also stop heart palpitations
Many people with Lyme experience heart palpitations. One kind of palpitation is thought to be caused by a lack of energy in the kidneys and the heart, cinnamon bark combined with the herbs ginseng and cooked rehmannia can help to alleviate it. Another kind of palpitation is thought to be caused by the heart lacking enough warmth, cinnamon twig combined with the herb salvia helps to stop these. Not only does it help your heart, it can also help your brain.

Cinnamon can help your brain cells function better
One study on Alzheimer’s Disease¹ shows how cinnamon bark extracts helped to keep neuronal cells in brain tissue samples alive despite depriving them of oxygen and glucose. Inflammation in these brain cells was significantly reduced by these extracts, also. Since Alzheimer’s Disease has many similarities to advanced neurological Lyme disease, cinnamon bark may help to restore brain functioning in Lyme patients. Cinnamon can help with sleep, too.

Cinnamon twig can help you to sleep better
When you can’t sleep because you have too much heat causing sweating at night, cinnamon twig can help. Combining this form of cinnamon with powdered oyster shell and calcified animal bones, helps you to reduce the heat and settle agitation that is keeping you awake. Cinnamon twig also prevents other bacteria from growing inside you.

It also stops nasty germs from growing
People who have taken antibiotics for months or years for Lyme have developed resistant strains of other harmful bacteria. Water extracts of cinnamon twigs have been found to stop the growth of Staphlococcus aureus and Salmonella typhi. It also stops the growth of Asian flu virus (type A) and the ECHO virus². Taking this herb can help your immune system to limit the growth of dangerous secondary infections. However, cinnamon is not for everyone.

This herb should be avoided by people with certain types of Liver disease
Large amounts of cinnamon may aggravate the liver. People with inflammatory liver disorders are recommended to avoid cinnamon. Consult with a trained herbalist to see if cinnamon and other herbs are safe if you have a liver illness. Both cinnamon twig and bark help shield you in many ways from the damaging effects of Lyme disease.

Cinnamon helps protect you from Lyme disease
Instead of losing the battle against Lyme disease, you can use the different forms of cinnamon to protect you like a group of Roman soldiers gathered underneath their shields. Both forms of this herb can help to protect your heart and brain. They can also help to warm you against cold conditions that are painful or fatiguing.

Using cinnamon twig or bark with the proper combination of other herbs can be an effective treatment strategy to slowing or reversing the damage caused by Lyme disease. Consult with a properly trained herbalist to come up with the right combination of cinnamon and other herbs that can work best for your unique Lyme disease symptoms.

– Greg

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P.S. Do you have experiences where herbs helped relieve your ice pick pain, cold hands, and brain fog from Lyme disease? Tell us about it.

1. Aggarwal, B.B. and Kunnumakkara, A., Molecular Targets And Therapeutic Uses Of Spices: Modern Uses For Ancient Medicine. World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. Publishers, Hackensack (NJ); 2009

2. Bensky D, Gamble A. Chinese Herbal Medicine: Materia Medica. Revised Edition. Seattle (WA): Eastland Press, Incorporated; 1993.

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