Tamara (Fort Collins, Colorado, Usa) on 04/19/2013:

It all started a few years ago when I noticed that my boyfriend's beard was getting patchy and also very itchy. He's very laissez faire about everything health-wise, so I just waited until he felt ready to address the problem. He's almost 40 and has hair loss typical of a male his age on top of his head, which he also scratches. Soon, the beard patchiness was getting very obvious; to the point he was not growing hair on his mustache in certain places, and it was even showing when he did shave. I started to tease him that he looked like Hitler, because it wasn't growing past the width of his nose on one side. That's when he started to notice. He had large patches on his cheeks where hair wasn't growing, either.

A month later we moved from sunny Colorado to rainy Seattle and he developed a small patch of ringworm on his back. That's when I put my foot down and decided that we were going to treat his fungal infections instead of waiting for them to spread further. As soon as I saw the ringworm I made him jump in a bath with a 1/4 cup of borax and scrubbed his back (and head, neck, and chest) with the borax in a paste with water. I had him leave it on for about 5 minutes. He said that his skin felt like it was burning, but mildly, like a rash. After the bath he said his skin felt good and wasn't itchy. As a health experimenter, I felt that this was a good sign that his hair loss was a fungal problem.

Within a week of daily baths his ringworm disappeared. Within a month of scrubbing his face with borax he no longer had patchy beard growth. I had him shave more frequently and "borax" his face, along with applying tea tree oil and coconut oil, as well. He shaves intermittently, sometimes twice a week, sometimes twice a month and isn't very consistent with doing anything but borax. Even then, he forgets why until his face becomes itchier. We continue to put a few tablespoons of borax in his bath water (he likes baths) to counteract the chlorine, fluoride, and any continuing fungal issues he may still have.

I was still concerned, however, that we were just chasing after the fungus and not treating it. If he didn't take a bath every day or didn't scrub his face with borax when he did, his beard would get itchy and slightly patchy. It would go away the next time he scrubbed, but it was still disconcerting to me. The problem is, I am not him, and therefore it is not my life to dictate. If it were me, I would immediately assume that I might have a case of mild systemic candida and treat it as such, probably by following Bill's protocols. He is his own person and does not want to give up his Dr. Pepper habit, hates vegetables, won't take anything that tastes bad (like alkalizing remedies): pretty much the opposite of treating candida. Ok, c'est la vie. So I work with what I can do for him, and offer solutions when I can.

After giving him some information on borax and boron several months ago, he decided that he wanted to explore the possibility of boron supplementation. He started taking a boron and mineral supplement and found relief for a few niggling concerns. For one thing, his knees stopped hurting, which he hadn't even realized were hurting! Also, he found that his hormones started to perk up and found he had a libido again, after seeming to lose it without realizing either! (Maybe he needs to work on his biofeedback response?) So far the pills seemed to be an effective remedy, but still weren't addressing the fungal issues like I had hoped.

Somewhere along the line, probably realizing the cost of expensive boron pills, he felt ready to take Ted's borax in water remedy. We already use borax for baths, cleaning, laundry and killing mold in our damp apartment, so I have plenty on hand. I decided, for ease of use to use the "concentrated" dosing recommended in the Walter Last article on Borax, here: http://www.health-science-spirit.com/borax.htm. I use warm distilled water and dissolve the borax in it and use this concentrate, a teaspoon at a time. He takes this twice a day for five days and then takes a break for two days. We have found this to work very well for us.

This hasn't been a completely side-effect free, experiment, however. I believe that he has die-off effects from the candida, as well as halide poisoning symptoms. We seem to be able to mitigate these effects with Bill's liver protocol, as well as avoiding sources of chlorine, fluoride and bromine, especially. He also feels big mood swings, probably from his hormones trying to rebalance, and goes from being very grumpy one day to cheery, almost manic, the next day. I'm still trying to work on his hormone balancing and haven't found a solution to that yet.

As for a list of benefits, he's found great relief from his facial fungal problems. He no longer needs to be as vigilante about scrubbing his face with the borax paste. He has a renewed libido and no longer has painful knees. And the biggest, so far unmentioned, have been the cessation of symptoms of his allergies. He used to have very bad allergies, which I've been trying forever to remedy with everything I can on EC, including honey, apple cider vinegar (which is a staple in our house), probiotics, and countless other things that I can't even remember because they didn't work. At this time last year (and every year previous) he was a big, soggy ball of running nose, eyes, itchy throat, and sneezing, with sinus headaches on top. Today he can stop his allergies from turning on full bore with a sip of water with borax in it. It's a very big difference, although it is not perfect. He still has lingering issues, but so far so good.

I have been a faithful reader of EC now for over 6 years and read the Real-Time Posts page nearly every day. It's exciting for me to read all of the posts of people being helped by the information shared on this lovely site. I like to look at the wealth of info provided here and put together the connections between folks and their symptoms or remedies. I hope that somebody can gain some useful information from this post. Borax is a Yay! For us.