"... we prescribe guaifenesin, a safer medication that may be used even for children. This is an innocuous component of many cold and cough preparations added to liquefy mucus. It is our most potent drug to date for reversing fibromyalgia. We begin patients with 300 milligrams (one-half tablet) twice a day for one week. If they feel distinctly worse, this is their dosage and they should remain at that amount. (This suffices for 20 percent of patients.) If symptoms do not worsen, we increase to 600 mg. (a full tablet) twice daily. Another 50 percent begin reversing at this dosage. This leaves about thirty percent who will need more. For these patients, we continue to slowly raise their dose of guaifenesin until an exacerbation of symptoms begins. We must stress that worsening or new symptoms signal that reversal is underway. As the reversal progresses, better hours gradually appear, eventually cluster into days and finally weeks. Like a bouncing ball, the up-and-down symptoms slowly ease, and the palpable lumps and bumps soften, break up and clear. Every two months at the proper dose should reverse at least one year of accumulated metabolic debris. Thus, the longer the illness has been present, the more time will be needed for total reversal. Newer lesions clear first and the oldest last. (Damaged structures from whatever cause cannot be restored.)"
Patients and physicians who do not heed the following warning can assume treatment failure. Aspirin and other salicylates will completely block the benefit of guaifenesin as they do uricosuric gout medications. There are many natural and synthetic sources of salicylate (salicylic acid) that will block guaifenesin's action at a kidney site. Plants manufacture salicylates in quantities that vary from crop to crop. They are stored in barks, leaves, roots, and seeds as weapons against soil bacteria and fungi. The skin and intestine easily absorb salicylates from botanical sources such as herbal medicines or supplements, lotions cosmetics and even garden plants. "Natural" listed on product labels sounds safe and desirable but the word also applies to poison ivy, hemlock, tobacco, and oleander, and other things one would hardly ingest!"