The MyShroom® Immune Health product is great for people that are on immunosuppressants. It took me nearly two years to figure that out...even though I knew about the mushrooms for a long time before actually using them (kicking myself for that). My personal experience is tied to a somewhat complicated medical history. It would be difficult for me to convey how important this product is to my health without the context that was prelude to my decision to use it. I will attempt to summarize these events as best as I can.
I was born with a hereditary kidney disease that ultimately progressed into Alport Syndrome and end-stage renal failure. Before my 30th birthday, I was on dialysis and I had tubes hanging out of my body so that I could hook up to a dialysis machine every night. This period of my life is difficult to revisit. Having to explain the tubes, the machine, and the constant lack of energy to my young children, who just want their dad to play with them, was quite a traumatic experience for me...my inability to help my wife with everyday tasks... A feeling of existence with no purpose begins to collapse you into the darkest places of your mind. For nearly 2 years I lived this way until I got a tremendous opportunity to receive a kidney transplant.
Before my transplant, I had already heard of the MyShroom® mushrooms through my mom. She had attributed her success of beating her Lyme disease to them. Naturally, I was skeptical of them and with a new kidney, I wasn't really looking to reinvent the wheel. I didn’t want to risk anything with my new kidney, so I avoided taking anything that I thought could potentially throw off the delicate chemical balance that was going on in my body. Things were pretty good, Though the immunosuppressant I am on called Tacrolimus, is pretty taxing on my nervous system. I would get really bad shakes in my hands and it would be amplified by the steroids they also make you take. At the time these were quite acceptable conditions considering the condition I was in prior to my transplant. This carried on for just over a year until I picked up a virus...
At this point, I'd like to interject. It is important to me, that anyone who may be reading this understands that I am a scientist first...well let’s be clear. I am not, by profession, a scientist but when it comes to finding the truth, I care very little about articles, opinions, confirmation biases or any other anecdotal experiences. The line drawn by the scientific method does not care about your personal opinion or beliefs and whether you believe the facts or not doesn’t make them any less real. Truth I live by…. When I did my research on this product there was a ton of anecdotal evidence, however, all the real evidence was in the individual strains of the mushrooms and the chemical makeup. You should research this on your own otherwise my statements here are worthless. Though my research looked promising, I was still apprehensive about changing anything.
...Anyways, getting a virus, when you’re on immunosuppressants, is pretty much a guaranteed trip to the hospital. The other medications you're on also mask the symptoms you normally get when you get sick. It's not until you get a fever that you know how bad it is. Unfortunately, my viral load was so high the doctors had to stop some of my immunosuppressants which in turn caused me to start having a rejection. My creatinine levels rose and my GFR dropped (in case you’re wondering, yes that’s bad )…. Prior to this incident my lowest creatinine level was at 1.5, however, that was a year before this. Normally, I was at 1.6-1.7. When the rejection was noticed it was 3.12 (I don’t have the hospital labs in front of me but I remember it going above 5). This is when I decided to take the mushrooms…A week after I started a high dose of the mushrooms and heavy steroid treatments in the hospital, I was released with my creatinine down to 1.65 (my stay was nearly 4 weeks, including the time I was fighting the virus). After 7 months of being on the mushrooms blend my average has stayed at ~1.65. Now, there is more to this… The numbers I have shown here are not particularly impressive but there is one very important detail to consider… the rejection itself is still happening.
This particular rejection that occurred (or may still be occurring) in my body is donor-specific, which isn’t uncommon. This rejection, however, is tied to the genetic disease that I have. The reason my kidneys failed is because my body doesn’t produce the particular collagen needed to repair the basement membrane of the kidney. So when the healthy kidney was introduced into my system, a new type of protein was introduced as well. This triggered my immune system to produce an antibody specific to that protein. This type of rejection is uncommon and normally difficult to treat. It was expected that I would need special IV treatments, heavy doses of immunosuppressants, steroids, and my kidney function probably wasn’t going to return to its baseline… but the reality is I’m on a normal immunosuppressant regimen and I haven't needed any further “special” treatments. My creatinine and GFR are still hovering at my baseline, as well as the rest of my labs. I have not told my nephrologist that I’ve been taking the mushrooms but he seemed quite surprised and perplexed when he stared at my labs on his computer. He specifically asked me: “What did you change?”. My response was: “nothing”. That interaction was about 3 weeks after I was released from the hospital.
In conclusion, my GFR has increased proportionately to my creatinine dropping. After two months, tremors in my hands were reduced and today they are nearly completely gone. Though my meds regimen is also different from before the rejection, their effects never dropped my creatinine into a normal range and they have only ever had harmful effects to my nervous system. So I’m confident the reduction of tremors and the consistency in kidney performance can be attributed to MyShroom® mushrooms. I take 9 tsp a day Mon-Fri. I always take it with a tart flavored drink (Lemon or Lime), I won't mention the name of it, but it’s sweetened with stevia.