Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) and its role in Chronic Illness

Back in 2015 I experienced some serious health issues which led me on a journey of intensive research to find out what was happening to my body and how to get myself well again. I had studied nutrition and natural healing for many years. I tried all sorts of diets, cleanses, supplements and healers but nothing was helping me to get better.

It wasn’t until I came across Anthony Williams book Medical Medium (he’s also written Life-Changing Foods and Thyroid Healing) that the answers fell into place for me. I came to understand that there is a silent epidemic of illnesses happening right now which are caused by the Epstein Barr Virus (EBV).  Millions of people are suffering with health conditions, with no understanding of the cause or the solution. These people spend years going from doctor to natural health practitioner, spending all their money to find a cure, and at best they just manage to function, at worse their conditions progress.

I am passionate about getting this information out there so that people can start to restore their faith in healing. Once we understand what the cause is we can start to take the right steps to getting well again. We can laugh in the face of anyone who tells us that our illness is autoimmune, knowing that our bodies never work deliberately against us in that way.

This blog is for those people who are suffering and looking for the ‘missing piece of the puzzle’. It is for my clients who have been found to have EBV in their systems though kinesiology testing, and need more information to support the protocol that I am guiding them on.  Over the coming weeks I will produce blogs on EBV’s close associates Shingles, Steptococcus and Heavy Metals.

History of EBV

EBV was once a harmless, herpetic, docile virus and we lived peacefully alongside each other.

It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution when we started intensifying our release of toxic heavy metals into the environment that things started to change. Arsenic and lead were diluted in water and used as pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. These were sprayed over all our gardens and used in our food production. Mercury was already prevalent in the environment having been used in hat making, shoes and as natural medicine for many years.

Over time EBV learned how to use these metals as a food source and started hunting it out. Maybe this would have been a good thing as it gobbled up the toxins from us, but over time these metals caused EBV to mutate and become more harmful to the body.

Around the 1940’s and 50’s, women who were born at the turn of the century started getting sick and suffering from hot flashes, aches, pains and fatigue. They were told it was all in their heads and that they must be insane. That was when the label of ‘hormonal issues’ were born. But these hormonal problems had not been seen before that. It was EBV.

Scientific Research

In 1964, two virologists discovered the virus and named it after the doctors Epstein and Barr. They began correlating the virus with some forms of cancer but it wasn’t long before funding was lost. The research didn’t continue long enough for science to understand the full action of EBV in the body.

Symptoms

Over the last 100 years the virus has mutated into 60+ different strains. Some are more aggressive than others. This is why people experience different symptoms and issues. Unfortunately it is young women now who are experiencing the most aggressive strains.

What’s worse is that because the medical establishment found high antibody’s present in persons with these illnesses they concluded that it must be the immune system that is causing the problem by attacking that organ or tissue. People’s illnesses were classed as autoimmune and patients were sent home thinking they were somehow responsible because their bodies were attacking themselves. The truth is that the body is producing these antibodies to fight EBV.

The medical community are unaware that EBV is the cause of these issues, not the immune system, which is always doing its best to protect us. Today, women and men of all ages are affected by symptoms of EBV and get labeled according to their symptoms rather than the cause. Illnesses include:

• Anxiety
• Cancers (some types, but specifically breast cancer)
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / ME
• Depression
• Digestive Issues
• Fibromyalgia
• Glaucoma
• Hashimotos Thyroiditis
• Heart Palpitations
• Hepatitis C
• Hot Flashes
• Infertility
• Insomnia
• Lyme disease (in many cases)
• Memory Loss
• Menieres
• Migraines
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Night Sweats
• Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome
• Post Partum Depression
• Rheumatoid arthritis (kids can get stage 4 EBV early on)
• (difficult) menopause
• Thyroid illness, nodules
• Tinnitus
• Vertigo/Dizziness
• Weight Gain

There are four stages of EBV within the body:

1. Stage 1: Virus enters body, laying dormant and causing no symptoms as it waits for a period of stress in which to attack. This could be weeks, months or years. The stress can also result from hormonal changes such as puberty, menopause or childbirth.
2. Stage 2: It could take months or decades to get to this stage. When the body’s resources are low, perhaps through stress, trauma, or toxicity, the virus comes out to play in the form of glandular fever/mononucleosis/tonsillitis. This is the infamous kissing disease and at this stage people are highly contagious. The immune system does all it can to attack the virus cells and symptoms differ between people. At worse it can cause fatigue, sore throat, fever, headaches and rashes for many months. EBV creates an environment attractive to bacteria such as Streptococcus which creates its own set of problems, for example sinus, nose, throat and bladder infections. When you have an EBV test in hospital they can only see if you have active stage 2 EBV because this is when it’s in the bloodstream. Medical tests can only see if it is in the blood, or if it has been in the blood in the past.
3. Stage 3: EBV will make home in the liver, spleen, thyroid and/or other organs and can no longer be found by blood test. The immune system assumes it’s won the battle and stops seeking it out. Over time, with more stress, immune deficiency, poor diet or heavy metal toxicity, it heads to the thyroid where it makes itself home, causing inflammation, hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism. In some people, the body tries to protect itself by building a wall around the virus causing thyroid nodules. EBV is one of the Herpetic viruses and these release neurotoxins which aggravates the nervous system and create inflammation. The neurotoxin create symptoms, food allergies, chemical sensitivities and byproducts that build up in liver and create heart palpitations from the gunk sticking in the mitral valve. It’s these byproducts that cause the symptoms of Lupus. They weaken digestion by reducing stomach acids. It can look like Lyme disease leading to incorrect diagnosis and is the cause of unexplained soreness, aches, pains and fatigue, even after a small accidents or trauma.
4. Stage 4: This is where people think they have Lyme Disease. The build up of the neurotoxin eventually start to affect other systems in the body, particularly the nervous and neurological system. EBV latches on to damaged nerves keeping them inflamed causing issues like migraines, insomnia, night sweats, back pain, muscle pain, numbness, tinnitus, Menieres Disease, vertigo/dizziness, aches and pains, joint swelling, hot flashes, memory loss, brain fog, heart palpitations, depression, anxiety, burning feelings, neuropathy, blurry eyes, hearing loss, loss of libido, weight gain, edema, lymphedema, swelling ankles and knees, vibrating feeling inside the body, confusion and cancers (especially breast cancer).

Where did I catch it from?

When someone has tonsillitis, glandular fever or Mono, people are highly contagious for EBV. That’s why it’s referred to as the ‘kissing disease’. Colleges and Universities are perfect places to catch EBV. Once the virus moves to the organs and out of the bloodstream (Stage 2) it is going o be harder to catch from other people as its tucked away in the tissue. The other way of transferring it could be from mother to child and also I have heard vaccines mentioned as a possible route of entry. Little is known quite frankly.

Healing from EBV

It’s so important to know what is causing your problems so that you can tackle it. Otherwise you are running around blindly knocking on doors that can’t lead you anywhere. People spend decades trying to get answers, trying different approaches and healing modalities. You have to know what the problem is to solve it.

To heal from EBV and stop it doing damage we have to knock down the viral load and restore the nervous system. This could take anything from a few months to a few years to get better depending on the length of time you have had it and the severity of the symptoms.

• Knock down the viral load through the use of antivirals and by removing everything that it feeds off foods, chemicals, metals
• Re-nourish the body to reverse any deficiencies caused by the virus and strengthen body’s natural healing capacity
• Support specific areas of weakness such as liver, thyroid and adrenals

A good place to start is reading the book Medical Medium. I will also put other resources here.

How I can help

I work with clients to help them work out what is causing their health symptoms and how to put things right. If you are concerned that your symptoms may be due to EBV I can work with you to develop a healing protocol by identifying which supplements you need and at what dose. It can be daunting at first to make these lifestyle changes and I can also help to guide and advise you on replacement products and menu ideas.

Please feel free to contact me and we can talk about how I may be able to help you. I am a Systematic Kinesiologist, Nutritional Therapist and Cognitive and Transpersonal Hypnotherapist working in St Albans and London UK.

Diet Cleansing 

EBV feeds on certain substances in our diets so its important to eliminate them from your diet. I can provide advice and guidance on how to do this and what replacements you can use instead. The no foods are:

• Gluten
• Dairy
• Eggs
• Corn/Maize
• Rapeseed Oil (this is now in more pre-packaged products from humus to stir in sauces)
• Fried and processed foods
• Pork
• MSG
• Farmed fish
• Soy

Healing Foods

• Wild blueberries (flush neurotoxins from liver, powerful antioxidant) – cultivated ones are not as powerful
• Celery (raises digestive enzymes in the gut, provides mineral salts to the brain to reduce brain fog)
• Sprouts (anti EBV)
• Asparagus (strengthens, inhibits EBV growth in thyroid, cleanses liver and pulls toxins out) – eat daily and juice raw
• Spinach (helps remove EBV by cleansing out toxins and colon)
• Apricots (rebuilds nervous system)
• Banana
• Sweet potato
• Potato
• Mango (helps spleen and liver cleanse from EBV)
• Coriander (removes heavy metals and neurotoxins).
• Parsley (robs metal from EBV)
• Raspberries (restore nervous system)
• Fennel bulb juice (cleans EBV from system)
• Cucumber juice (balances kidneys and flushes out the liver. Helps build up adrenals.)
• Figs kills EBV and grab onto toxins in GI so you can heal better from EBV.
• Avocado (helps repel EBV)
• Garlic and onions daily (slow down and injure the herpes viruses).

Healing Supplements:

• Zinc Sulfate – EBV got out of control because we are so Zinc deficient. It’s important to make sure our zinc reserves are up
• Silver hydrosol knock down the load
• B12 (the right form restores nervous system)
• Selenium (protects nervous system)
• Spirulina (pulls metals out and is antiviral)
• Red marine algae (powerful antiviral)
• Monolaurin (breaks down EBV and pushes it out of the body)
• Lysine (take a decent amount If you take enough, differences occur)
• 5MTHF
• Chaga mushroom powder (kills off EBV in liver and thyroid and starts to drive it out of the thyroid).
• Vitamin C ( breaks up EBV and pushes it out of the system)
• Aloe Vera – Cut open a leaf and blend insides with water (antiviral, drives toxins out of body)

Healing Herbs

• Licorice root tea
• Ginger (anti-herpetic)
• Lemon balm (kills EBV and builds immune system)
• Tumeric (doesn’t kill but retards its growth)
• Thyme tea
• Star Anise

For more information I recommend that you read the book Medical Medium. There are other resources here.

If you feel you would like some help working out your protocol, and how to incorporate it into your ongoing lifestyle, then feel free to contact me and we can talk about how I may be able to help you. I am a Systematic Kinesiologist, Nutritional Therapist and Cognitive and Transpersonal Hypnotherapist working in St Albans and London UK.