LINK TO EXCELLENT ARTICLE ON PSYCHIATRIC AND NEUROLOGICAL SYMPTOMS

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/emerging-diseases/200812/shadowland-the-mind-neurological-lyme-disease-part-one


Excellent article on neurological symptoms of lyme which plague many of us  !

Sorry, I don't know why it's not blue and clickable. MAybe it will come up that way after I post it.

USING CHAGA FUNGUS FOR LYME

Best article on Chaga fungus (for lyme & cancer and a host of other ills) which I've found to date : http://www.faim.org/longevity/PPNF-Journal-Chaga.pdf.
Scroll down and make sure to read both  articles please. 
 

This is a photo of a big bowl of chaga I've harvested from birch trees. Please read about responsible harvesting please.
 I prefer the slow cooker method of heating the chaga to 150 degrees in a slow cooker and brewing for 4 to 5 days. Today, in my walking meditation I arrived at a decision to make my chaga brew as a synergetic blend  with a concert of medicinal herbs roots and seeds addressing the various aspects this disease exhibits in my system. I'll post more on that and on it's effect. Most will be from my surroundings - some will be from my country of origin, and I may add some from neither areas. Not sure yet. 

Some things I may be adding to the chaga brew are:  vinca (periwinkle),  mugwort, burdock root, dandelion root, Bishop's weed , ground ivy,  horsetail ... 

I'm on a rest period from taking anything and from time to time I introduce one or more of the things I've been taking and closely observe the effect.   

Messages and Lessons from Lyme DIsease

5/22/13


Some of what I write is an echo of something I may have said before.

Although I’ve been diagnosed with chronic lyme of long standing, I’m new to  lyme consciousness as I never knew I had it  until October 2013, and I never read much  of anything about it. 

My view is that no complete healing can happen without deep changes in our lives. When I was diagnosed with cancer 30 years ago, I experienced a deep fear and despair . As I mentioned before, I was pregnant with my 2nd child at the time.

This Lyme situation hit me broadside just when I was feeling I was getting a handle on my wellness. The Hashimoto’s Disease was responding to treatment, & I had addressed the weight gain it had brought with a sensible gradual 25 lb. weight loss in 5 months. I was feeling stronger and a lot cuter too !

After the initial incredible chills fever headache, huge red rash etc., and after finishing the 10 weeks of doxycycline I was prescribed ,  I realized that my body would not do well with more antibiotics. It was devastating the terrain of my body. I’d had a lot of sore throats and strep throat as a kid and had already had more than my share of antibiotics throughout my childhood. I knew next to nothing about lyme, but had a new friend with chronic lyme whose situation alerted me to the seriousness of the situation. After posting on FB about being ticked off by a tick bite, I was contacted by several people who urged me to not to stop at the 2 weeks of antibiotics which the GP had prescribed and that’s why I did get 8 weeks more from my Naturopath.  Less than a week after I stopped the antibiotics I realized I was far from “cured” .  
I don’t believe one does become ‘cured’ from Lyme Disease anyway . We adapt to living well with it and  in some kind of harmony with the Spirochete community within us.

Since the scary and severe stomach and heart disturbances I had last week I’ve been exploring what my Inner Physician, Higher Self, or Wise Woman Within has to say about what the message of these Physical upheavals was.
I recently read that placing your hand flat on your heart can ground you and immediately put you in better touch with your body. Try it. It’s true. When we don’t listen to inner whispers and promptings the body talks to us - sometimes in quite a dramatic and imperative way.

I’ve always dialogued with various aspects of myself & with my body in a sort of Gestalt way. This time the message was loud and clear. The shock awe and dazzle approach which I had initially adopted with the doxycycline and then with the arsenal of amino acids, vitamins , herbs and  enzymes etc. is no  longer appropriate for the stage of recovery I am now at. In my meditations my body asked me to switch to a gentler approach for a time, and to use live wild allies from my own surroundings in conjunction with a few specific preparations. It was time to stop popping pills - even if they were just  herbs vitamins and minerals

It’s Spring in Vermont where I live, and all my favourite wild medicinals and edibles are up : the dandelions, coltsfoot, periwinkle, ground ivy, boneset,  horsetail, burdock…  Later will come the elderflowers and elderberry and yarrow and more ! I’ve been eating lots of dandelion greens and have some nice big roots to take. Several years ago I was given a lovely valerian plant by a friend who was an herbalist. With it unfortunately for my garden, came some Bishop’s Weed. I looked in all my herbals (and I have lots) and all I could find was a short paragraph in an old English herbal. It said B’s . Weed “  heightens a woman’s ardour. ..”
After my meditations where I was directed to shift into seeing,  “ being with“ and   using all that was around me,  since Bishop's Wed was presenting itself to me in a very aggressive way . After years of watching it kill the valerian it came with, rose bushes, delphinium, irises, lovage I had come to have a sort of respect for it as a survivor. My husband had a personal battle with it and tried many things to eradicate it - some of which I was incensed over. The lovage thrived on his attacks. Recently I've come to recognize the similarities between Bishop's Weed and the spirochetes.

I really do have a  grudging respect for and fascination with these spirochetes which are as aggressive tenacious and adaptive as the Bishop's Weed. I can't help but wonder if I can't address them mentally emotionally and spiritually as I did the cancer.

I wanted to add that should anyone actually be reading this besides myself, that the activated charcoal which I mentioned as being good at helping with herxing should not be used often or close to when you take supplements as it may gather and escort them out of your system along with the bad. Also I've graduated to ground chai and flax with just a bit of psyllium for the gut paralysis. Between that and the alfalfa and liquid chlorophyll I'm taking the digestive system is holding it's own now. I think that spyllium can also absorb vital nutrients which is why I use flax & chia now with minimal psyllium. Flax and Chis ARE vital nutrients !

Lyme Boot Camp

I've said that I hope & believe I may come out of this lyme disease feeling better than before.
I believe this is true in some areas of my life.
I also have come to terms with the thought that I most likely will never be totally free of lyme disease.

Throughout my life I've been diagnosed with syndromes, diseases and conditions which were tenacious and debilitating. I've  found grappling with and adapting to these situations to be transformative and life changing.

I was able to come through the cancer scare alive and without giving in to harmful procedures and treatments but I know that all of us have pre-cancerous and cancerous  cells in our bodies throughout our lives. Some of us , given the right (actually the wrong) circumstances end up succumbing to cancer, while others don't, or manage to reverse the 'wrong circumstances' and render themselves as unsuitable hosts for cancer. I feel lyme disease is similar in this respect. I don't believe eradicating the spirochetes completely is possible.  I would love to see some studies done on how people with lyme can set up the right circumstances in their bodies to keep the spirochete population down and to somehow live copacetically  with the spirochetes which still reside in their bodies.

I never knew much about Lyme but have been researching a lot in the 9 months since I was re-bitten. On a state website for Michigan Natural Resources I read that:  " Wild animals such as deer, raccoon and mice show no signs and apparently suffer no ill effects from the disease" .
Why ? Is there anything that could be duplicated or initiated in the physiology of a human to that could set up an inhospitable terrain for the spirochetes ? 

After the scary episodes I described in my last blog, I took some time off from supplements. After a few days off of my protocol I still felt the presence of an invasion and disruption in my body.  It's better, even much better, than the initial crisis stage and than the recent heart & digestive episodes.  I can still take walks and do some work ion the garden but my sense of balance, and cognitive processes are deeply affected - as is my energy, strength and emotional equilibrium. I lose my grip on things and have broken more things than usual .  I've always been a "Calamity Jane" but then the doc believes I've had this a long long time.  I slowly re-introduced some of my supplements and am going to re-design the next stage of my care to focus on building up my physical emotional and mental health. I'll still need to keep on working on keeping the spirochete population in my body down, but not in as aggressive way as I was at the beginning.  I  am also focusing on a much ignored aspect of human health. My spiritual health and connection.

With the lyme disease undiagnosed for so many years I've become accustomed to a low level of well being. With no doctors able to help me to improve and/or change my physical condition I had to change and strengthen my thoughts and emotions around and about my health. I'm addressing this in many ways and one is to see a therapist for a few sessions (3 I think is what it will end up being since my deductible for mental health services is 3,000.00 and I have to pay $ 75.00 I think, for each session out of pocket. I've only seen a therapist once, for one appointment which was around supporting a family member in their search for emotional healing. At that time I was told by the therapist that with the life I'd had it was a wonder I was still so well functioning and well adjusted. She said that in her professional opinion I had post traumatic stress disorder but I had somehow managed to come to terms with it, and to live with it admirably. I had really given a lot of time and effort to sorting through the many traumas in my life and I have always had a strong spiritual belief to help me. Many things have happened since I initially saw that therapist  which have added to the load - such as being the only person taking care of my mom who had Alzheimer's disease for 6 years,  and having a foster child who spent week-ends with me who disappeared (not while with me) and was never found.   Being re-bitten and diagnosed with lyme was the straw that broke the camel's back.  I have always been the strong one. Now I sometimes feel vulnerable fragile and shaky. 

Still, I look for the message, the lesson, the challenge in this situation and yes, I WILL come out of it with more wholeness in some ways than I had before. Lyme has allowed me to cry for instance. As a person raised by a German/Japanese mom, I usually tended to keep a stiff upper lip and soldier on, rarely exhibiting my emotions (the vulnerable ones) even to family.  Lyme has liberated me from this. Somehow being diagnosed with lyme has always helped me to understand myself better. It has stolen my ability to connect the cognitive dots somehow, but it hasn't diminished my inherent intelligence or what I think of as my intelligence .  It's pulled the rug out from under my feet in simple mathematical things such as being able to run a cash register, or understand a camera's instruction book, but I somehow can still enjoy and understand theoretical physics !  It has decimated my once strong and healthy digestive system, and caused me to alter my already healthy eating habits radically but I can still eat and I now almost never allow anything to pass my lips into my body without really paying attention to what it's impact on me will be!  Throughout a good portion of my life I've been severely fatigued and experienced incredible pain , but today I can still stand and walk !

I'm not who I was and HOW I was but I  am learning a lot about how to improve how I feel and also about my strength and resiliency as a human being and how to just surrender to what I can't change and accept the unacceptable while still grasping and holding on to my share of JOY in this life.

My Lyme Warrior Anthem

Bell's Palsy of the Gut and Lyme Disease

4/29/13

For the past 3 days I’ve been in what I can honestly call agony with what I believe to be something which has been nicknamed Bell’s Palsy of the gut. For many years I suffered from what docs thought may be IBS Irritable Bowel Syndrome, but now it seems that it was a lyme infection as it cleared up during the 10 weeks of antibiotics. As time went on after the doxy (antibiotic I took), this changed into a sluggish eliminative system. A thermogram some years ago showed a lot of inflammation in my body and digestive system and a lack of good bacteria.

A birthday with wine and sweets (eaten over a few days), and a relaxing of my protocol,  threw my body into an attack of indigestion, cramps, cold sweats, severe bloating, gas,  and a near stop of eliminative action. This meant that I was in pain and discomfort all day for 2 or 3 days. I was left feeling extremely weak and despondent. I’d been feeling so much better that this was a big disappointment. I addressed the problem by vigilance and a return to my program and this morning I feel much better. I did take L-Glutamine (amino acid - good for gut repair and building lean muscle, 2 big glasses of water &  psyllium husk and 2 cascara sagrada (gentle herbal non-cramping laxative) for the past 2  nights, and then I went back on my program. .

I believe that my program has been  slowly chipping away at the spirochete population and escorting them and their by products out of me. I do think it’s time to lessen the amount of things I take.

This gut devastation left me feeling weak as a baby and discouraged at first, but this morning I feel much better and I’m so glad that I have some knowledge in how to explore care for myself and return my body to balance. You can do this too. Not in exactly the same way I did. Our bodies are different. For some of you everything that works for me may work for you as well. For others some of the things I’ve tried and intend to try may not work at all. With research and courage and intuition you can find your own way. There are many of us preceding you and holding up the torch to light your way on this  journey.

 Dietrich Klinghardt, MD PhD, one of the more known LLDs, and one whose work & lyme expertise I trust, has suffered from lyme himself.  This has made him determine to research and find solutions to lyme disease. His take on it,  and I am in accord with him,  is that spirochetes have probably been in humans probably forever naturally, as are a multitude of other microbes and bacteria - some existing symbiotically and helping us, some having minimal effect, and some harming us. He feels that 30 or 40 years ago spirochete activity became more aggressive in humans.

In my research on lyme I’ve read that many llds feel that spirochetes will be attracted to weak areas in each individual’s body and be more aggressive and successful in their invasion in bodies with weak immune systems and in particularly weak areas of a person’s body. In people with skeletal injuries for instance spirochetes are said to flood the location of a an injury and initiate an infection. People with many root canals can have spirochete invasion in the root canal or those with many mercury fillings can provide spirochetes with material for biofilm.  Dietrich Klinghardt, , MD, PhDa prominent and well respected lld says that people who eat high fat diets or high meat diets also enable spirochetes to flourish.  The same with people who live in moldy homes or expose themselves excessively to too much cell phone computer etc. People with parasites, which Dr. K thinks are in a large percentage of the population also show a more severe reaction to lyme. Medical and life history, past traumas and present stresses, as well as present attitudes and emotional states all impact how the spirochetes act in our bodies according to Dr. K and all makes common sense to me.

My gut was a weak area so the 'spirodudes'  flocked there. If you have this Dr. K and others feel that getting rid of parasites and yeast is very important.It's felt to be an important issue in all Lyme issues by some doctors.

SHAKING HANDS WITH LYME A Vision Quest - through the Wilderness of Lyme Disease “Blessed are the souls - who having solved the paradox of pain, come through to joy again“. On United Nations Day, as I showered, I felt what I thought to be a skin tag from a scratch high up on the inside of my thigh,. I looked down and saw a big red spot with a darker spot in the middle. This discovery was to lead me on a frightening and challenging journey. In fact I started this blog a bit too early. I had no idea of the confusion and lack of focus which would come over me both from the reactivated lyme which doctors told me I’d probably had most of my life, and from the 10 week antibiotic treatment which many lyme patients told me was not long enough. I am still en route…unsure of my final destination but mostly full of hope and a deep commitment to reclaiming my health & my life. I recently stated to myself first, and increasingly to others: “I may come out of this with better health than I had before !” 2/19/12 The Doxycycline, antibiotic of choice for lyme treatment - caused me to feel really dizzy and queasy after a while. A very long standing Digestive problem did clear up while I was on the it though. When I stopped the doxy I quickly scrambled to set up a program to hold the infiltration of the lyme disease into my body at bay. I knew I’d have to fine hone it in time. I envisioned that my 2 doctors: allopathic, and naturopathic & I would arrive at a plan in time, but I felt a need to hold back the invasion as well as I could until I researched enough to know what I was dealing with. Beginning with childhood I’d had a lot of health challenges. I almost died when I was 8 (in Italy) from a “virus”. I developed an incredibly high fever, shakes, headache and convulsions , which resulted on my being rushed to the hospital where the prognosis was not good. My father was told I might die. When I came to this country at age 8, I was vaccinated before departure from Genoa, Italy. In NYC for some reason (perhaps papers were misplaced), I was given the vaccines all over again. Most health conscious people are by now aware of the dangers of vaccines. Throughout my childhood I suffered many sore throats and cold viruses and was frequently put on antibiotics, a way many begin a downward spiral as their beneficial bacterias are diminished right along with the harmful ones. Fortunately my insistence on keeping my tonsils was honored. This was not due to fear but to a deep feeling that my tonsils were guardians at the gate, an important part of my immune system. I still have them. My life was full of change, insecurity and traumatic experiences from childhood on. Childhood traumatic experiences can deeply affect how our immune system responds to threat and attack. When I was 2 my parents made an arrangement to leave me with my babysitter as they began to emigrate the family (2 parents and 6 children) to the U.S. I was not to see my mother and some of my siblings again for another 6 years. Once in this country and reunited the family was hopeful and excited to be together again. Several months later my brother and sister 19 & 20 were at someone else’s house when a fire took their lives as they tried to rescue the children of the house. This pattern of what seemed to me and anyone familiar with my life to be excessive shocks, difficult circumstances and tough luck persevered and continued throughout the rest of my life, with among the difficult times: a house fire of our own where we lost everything, a miscarriage, a cancer diagnosis while pregnant with my middle child, the severe illness of one of my children, the premature death of my brother from misperceived medication, a divorce, and more than I feel like continuing to list. In spite of this I see my life as having been a great gift and view it as a joyous life, even now as I‘m shaking hands with lyme. Over the years as I continued through life, I was diagnosed with a variety of syndromes, viruses and conditions, among them were: Epstein Barr virus, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fybromyalgia, severe Candidiatis, Hypothyroidism, which was untreated despite my pleas for many years for more specific tests - and so turned into Hashimoto’s Disease. I also was diagnosed with cervical cancer while pregnant with my second child. I mentioned this in my about me segment of my blog but not everyone reads those. Although my 4th opinion, a prestigious medical center’s oncology/(cancer) clinic recommended aborting the fetus and giving me a radical hysterectomy followed by radiation & chemo I accepted no procedures or treatment. The doctor’s prognosis was that the fetus which I so foolishly insisted on calling the baby (I was 4 and a half months pregnant by then, would have no mother because I would die. Too many doctors view the letters of their degree MD as really meaning medical deity. They then deliver medical prophecies. I said Sayonara went home and created a plan to heal and save myself & my baby. This included spiritual, mental, emotional, vibrational & physical aspects. Six weeks after my son Ben was born, I was given a deep cone biopsy and no cancer was found. I am as of this date in proud posession of all my female body parts and still cancer free. The ‘fetus’ is now over 30 and has a brother. Back to the Lyme: When my naturopath told me she wanted to put me on the Cowden Protocol at first I was relieved. There was a PROTOCOL !!! That sounded very official & sure. When she told me that it would cost 600 $ a month I was devastated and said sadly that my family budget couldn’t accommodate such an expensive treatment. Being the compassionate and caring soul she is, she consulted with the head of her pharmacy/apothecary offered me a very generous discount. This was still expensive for our budget. I’m 62 and took early retirement due to my various diagnosis. I said I’d have to go home and talk to my husband. I went home and researched and was suspicious to find that the Cowden Protocol was comprised of time tested and honored botanicals which had attracted the attention of Big Pharma for years and which had been altered by nutramedix, in my opinion in order to allow the company to patent a natural substance. Stephen Buhner one of the first pioneers in acknowledging researching and treating lyme, has this to say in answer to a question about Samento on his website : “Stephen’s response: “… some people don’t respond well to samento. I personally believe that TOA-free cat’s claw does create more side effects than the whole herb does and I have seen this before. Just stop using it.” Stephen Nutramedix, the company which sells the Cowden Protocol (among other health products) is a Filipino owned company founded in 1993 . It’s reported (by their own website ) to be owned by a variety of investors; in their own words: “ a group of dedicated, professional and value-based Filipino entrepreneurs.” They cite their principals(owners) to be : “DUOPHARMA PHILIPPINES, INC. was organized on December 12, 1988 by a group of dedicated, professional and value-based Filipino entrepreneurs of high quality injectables ranging from antibiotics, anesthetics, analgesics, gastrointestinals, neuroleptics, corticosteroids, diuretics, vitamins, oxytocics and other hormones. PNF PHARMACEUTICALS INC. Founded on July 24, 1985. We at PNF PHARMA had one vision which is to combine high quality of standard of branded medicines and the cost effectiveness every Filipino longs for. We believe that quality should never be compromised. ROTEX PHARMA, established on January 31, 2006 by Filipino entrepreneurs. With a dynamic management team with its global strategy, our products became widely known among medical professionals, clinics, hospitals, medical centers as well as sanitariums in both governments and in the private sector. “ Just as I suspected the Cowden Protocol is designed by Big Pharma. The studies mentioned to me by enthusiastic proponents of the Cowden Principle are funded by Nutramedix and are all in vitro (in test tube) . That does not impress or convince me of their efficiency as I’ve read over and over that lyme disease affects everyone differently and in my opinion the course and impact of bacteria, microbes, viruses and disease in a human body can’t be duplicated in a test tube. My research has validated my decision. I have full confidence in my decision to pass on the Cowden Protocol and I keep finding more and more validation to support that decision. 4/10/12 The treatment plan I’ve designed for myself is keeping me from sliding further down the lyme rabbit hole. In fact it’s helping me to emerge, and as I hoped & predicted I feel as if I’m doing so with the result of better health than I had before ! I do have knee and hip and hand & back pain but it’s not new and my protocol has caused it to greatly improve over time. I do have some vagueness and brain fog but it too has improved significantly. Good days and bad days and in between days. Lately I feel as if I did a surface dive, while swimming - into some very dark unknown waters, and I am now re-surfacing, seeing the light and enjoying better health than before. I have designated every day in my life as healing day, And everything I think, do or engage in has to contribute and/or conform to my single minded purpose to be as well as possible in all areas of my life: spiritual, emotional, mental & physical. If you didn’t read the “about me” info, I’ve been a hypnotist since 1990. I first became acquainted with self - hypnosis at the suggestion of my former husband when he found out about my cancer diagnosis. He sent me a book on it. It was a huge help to my mental & emotional outlook and as I became adept at guided imagery and visualization I believe it saved my life and that of my son and is an integral part of my everyday life. My First Protocol : In the A.M. I drink Chai tea and take my thyroid med for Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune disease which I developed due to my allopathic doctor's refusal to give me more specific tests for the thyroid condition I intuited I had. I live in the backwoods of Vermont and wake up early , between 5 and 7 most mornings. Immediately after making my Carrying my cup pf tea I take my dogs out and often watch the sun come up while drinking it in my beautiful back yard. This sometimes feels like a hardship in below freezing weather, but it’s one of my blessings as well. It gets me up and out into the fresh air, wakes me up better than coffee and allows me a meditative waking up in tandem with the waking up of my world. If the sun is coming up when I go out I receive it’s rays in my eyes which stops melatonin output for the day and increases melatonin production for sleep for that night. When I come in I put on healing music by Dr. Steven HAlpern or any of the healing music composers I resonate to. I believe strongly in vibrational healing. Later in the morning I switch to the energizing music from my high school days. I once read a report about research done by a Harvard psychologists which supported the healing influence of listening to music from our younger healthier days. I have a vita light full spectrum light which I used to use when I was injured and couldn’t go out. Helps with seasonal depression. I should bring it out for rainy April days - although I love to walk in the rain, I need the light every day and ought to return to supplementing myself with that. Before I go out I take my DLPA which is an amino acid which I take for a variety of reasons, pain reduction being the primary one. It also helps depression and the building of muscle and diminishes appetite. I then take a glucosamine for repairing tendons & ligaments and a Serrapeptase and a nittokanese, proalytic enzymes which are said to be very efficient in dissolving the biofilm of the spirochetes. A half hour to an hour later I take grapefruit seed extract, 1,000 to 2,000 mgs of vitamin C with Rose hips and bioflavonoid, a Tbsp. of coconut oil, 1 Tbsp of liquid chlorophyll a tsp of pumpkin seed oil. Later I drink Puehr tea, detox tea or Pau D’Arco tea throughout the morning. A friend gave me Essiac tonic so I add a squirt of that to the tea. As I explained I address the destroying of the spirochetes protective skin, and then destroy them. I’m more concerned though with building up my system and my health in order to create an inhospitable terrain for the spirochetes and lyme co-infections. After the supplements, I make a good breakfast to build up my system. As someone visiting me once said I rarely put anything in my mouth which will not contribute to my health. I also rarely eat anything I don’t want or like very much. Everything I eat is multigrain. I really don’t like white bread & rice & pasta. I eat 2 eggs from a farm every morning with facon which if I ate a lot wouldn’t be good for me as it’s made of soy which depresses the thyroid. But I love the taste and I don’t deny myself. A slice of multigrain bread and one cup of black coffee lately after the chai tea. I then take a multi, a zinc, and a drop of vitamin D oil. Before my daily morning shower I use a practice called dry brushing, said to stimulate the lymph system. Here’s a good link to an explanation of it. Dr. Andrew Weil isn’t into it. I’m not into Weil anyway, having found some writings of his which I totally disagree with. Dr. Klein In my shower I use a liquid castile soap to which I’ve added aromatherapy herbs which influence various issues vibrationally: to help mefocus, relieve the depression this new challenge of lyme activated in me at first, and to diminish nervousness which lyme seemed to each initiate in a big way but which has now abated. I use lavender, grapefruit, neroli, peppermint orange chamomile & vetiver. It smells great ! I’ve also practiced hydrotherapy since I was 14 or 15. For me it’s a meditative practice and a health practice. I never knew that submitting oneself to cold water was a part of a Japanese meditative practice called misogi. My mother’s mother was Japanese so it tickled me that I had unwittingly adopted a practice of my ancestors. After my shower I diminish the hot water and augment the cold. I only do it in the morning as cold water lowers, interrupts or stops melatonin production.