Christopher Scipio helps people with Herpes for more than 20 years, offering a holistic treatment and eliminating myths and falsehoods about the virus. In this special interview for MysticMag, Christopher shared with us lots of important information about herpes, his natural treatment with herbs and also his book.
Check out the interview below!
Can you explain your holistic view of the herpes treatment?
I will go back to the 90s. In the 1990s we knew little about herpes, and there weren’t a lot of effective natural treatments, there weren’t even a lot of effective pharmaceutical options.
The drug at the time, acyclovir, wasn’t particularly effective, and it was a real struggle. Coincidentally, at the same time period, there was the height of the AIDS epidemic, and I learned a lot from my colleagues that were treating people with HIV and AIDS, and what they discovered was that it wasn’t effective to just sort of try to throw one thing at the HIV virus.
The virus would change and get used to it, and even if something was initially effective, it would stop being effective over a short period, and what they discovered was a combination therapy that combined multiple drugs with dietary changes, supplements, herbs, exercises and also working on the mental and emotional level. That really inspired me. That was sort of the start of my holistic herpes protocol.
So my holistic approach is based on the proper diet, on doing yoga or tai-chi or qigong, taking a few simple supplements, taking the right herbs, but also just as important is dealing with the emotional and psychological aspects of having a lifelong herpes infection.
What we found over the last twenty-two years is that for many people, herpes is maybe about 30% physical. There are some physical triggers and there are some people that have challenges to their immune system, but for most people 70% of the issue is emotional and psychological. So if you don’t deal with the unresolved trauma, or the unresolved blocks that people have inside of them, then you don’t really get the full healing.
Despite being fairly common, herpes still has a taboo, we don’t talk much about it. What are the misconceptions or things that we don’t even know that you always like to talk about giving more information to people?
It will be easier to talk about the truths about herpes, because there’s so little truth and almost everything people know about herpes is a myth of misconception or sort of outright lie.
First myth or lie is that herpes is uncommon. When you go on the internet, you sometimes see that 20% or 25% of people have herpes, that is completely not true. The correct figure, if you are only talking about type one and type two herpes, because there’s eight different human herpes viruses, then you are talking about 60% of the population. Some people say 80%, I prefer to say 60%; I think it’s an easier number to defend.
So when you hear the figure of 20 to 25% they are talking about the percentage of the population that gets type two herpes, below the waist. What they are not talking about is all the people that get type one herpes, above the waist, on their mouth, face or wherever. They are not talking about all the people that get type one herpes on their genitals. In fact, the majority of people right now that have herpes below the waist have type one, not type two, so, is just completely misleading.
Between type one and type two, 60% of the people have one or the other or both, and really if you include all eight of the human herpes viruses, you could say, with confidence, that there is no one over seventeen years old on this planet that doesn’t have at least one herpes virus inside their body right now. Most people have three, maybe four, different kinds of human herpes virus inside their body, so there is one big myth. Another myth is “what is herpes?” Herpes is a virus but most people don’t know that all animals that have backbones, including cats, dogs and elephants, all get herpes. And even a lot of animals that don’t have backbones, like earthworms and corals in the coral reefs, if you look in the coral reefs around the world, 60% of the coral in coral reefs have herpes. So, herpes has been around a long time, and it affects almost all animals.
Most people who have herpes do not know that they have it, and most people never get tested for it. Another myth is people saying: “Well I have been tested for STI’s, so I know that I don’t have herpes”. Well, a standard panel for STIs doesn’t include a herpes test. The reason being as most doctors don’t consider it necessary to test for herpes, because 80% of people test positive for herpes, so they don’t consider it a worthwhile test to do.
When people reach you and seek help, what is the first thing that you have to say because, you mention that a lot of that we know are myths, so you have to campaign against wrong information first before starting the treatment, right?
It depends. Lots of people that come to me have read my book first, so they got a bit of an idea, but many people haven’t. Not only do I have to dispel myths, but give people lots of reassurance because, for example, I had people come to me that haven’t had sex for many years, because they are afraid of passing on to other people.
I appreciate people being conscientious and not wanting to go around infecting the whole world, but what I tell them, which is the truth, is it’s not really that easy to give somebody else herpes, so, it’s easy to practice safer sex with herpes. There’s things you can do to reduce the risks of infecting other people, so that the risks are so small, it’s almost zero.
I’m always trying to encourage people to get back to dating, get back to romantic life, get back to having sex, life is so short, and the world is so crazy that love and romance and sex are one of the best things we can do for ourselves, to remind ourselves that life is still beautiful and life is still good.
One thing that I often have to work with people is to help get their confidence up, so that they can go back out there, because not only are people often afraid of infecting others, but they are also just afraid of rejection. Herpes is a very minor infection, it will not harm your health, so, all the doom and gloom about it is completely unjustified.
When did you have the idea of writing your book?
Frankly, I wrote my book as a time saving device for me, because when I get new patients, I have to spend a lot of time giving them basic information, because most people did not know or had read misinformation on the internet. I just thought if I wrote a lot of that down in the book, I could just give people the book and I wouldn’t have to repeatedly say the same things over and over and over again.
So that’s how the idea of the book started, but as I started writing the book, I realize that there are other benefits to having a book out there, and one benefit is that because some are traumatized and they may not be ready right away to have a phone call with me, It may be intimidating for them. Some people can’t even say the word herpes. That’s how traumatized they are, and so a book is a gentle introduction, gives them a chance to hear my story.
First thing I did in writing the book is presenting my own personal journey with herpes and how I was able to heal my own herpes and regain my own confidence and self-esteem. I wrote my book initially in 2006, and I will say that’s one of the best decisions that I ever made in my life.
In your website you have a page about a gel that you created. Can you tell more about it?
I am a very old fashion traditional herbalist, so I make all my remedies by hand, the old fashion way, including the gel. So the gel is very important. It is a red marine algae, sex lube (lubricant), an antiviral sex lube.
I created that because for one I realize that most people, even if they want to practice safer sex, don’t use any protection during oral sex, and oral sex is currently the most common way of people getting a herpes infection, and so I wanted to give people something that they can use during oral sex, it works just as well for genital to genital contact and genital to anal contact.
I also realized that not everyone wants to use condoms and condoms only offer you a 30% protection from herpes anyway, so if you use a condom there still a 70% chance that someone can get herpes, so I wanted to give people a different tool that they can use in combination with the condom or just by itself to reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to another person.
I started making the gel back in 2003, and it’s been great, and there’s been some surprising side benefits to it. Many people have also said that it’s a very good natural lube, which is helpful, most people also said that they enjoy masturbating with it, that it help improve their self-love practice, which wasn’t my intent, but that’s great. If my patients haven’t had sex for a long time and aren’t ready necessarily to go out there and starting to have sex again, I definitely encourage them, to have a regular self-love, self-pleasure, masturbation practice, to connect to their bodies, to give themselves pleasure to release those good hormones, because actually that helps you not have outbreaks.
You mentioned being an old-fashioned herbalist. Do you have other solutions that use herbs for common issues?
Yes, definitely. I have a website called africanbushdoctor.com, and it talks about some of the common illnesses that I treat with herbs. Basically, anything that doesn’t require a trip to the emergency room or surgery can be helped with herbs, and these days, especially during the pandemic, there’s lots of issues that people have.
We have more cases of insomnia now that I never see in my life, there’s more stress and anxiety between the pandemic and the war in Ukraine and inflation and all the things that are going on, it’s hard on people, and there are great herbs to help with insomnia, to help with stress, to help with anxiety, to help with hormone issues, whether they be menopausal, or pre-menopausal, there are herbs that are good for arthritis and for all kinds of injuries whether they be from accidents or sports injuries.
If you would like to find out more about Christopher Scipio, visit natropractica.com and africanbushdoctor.com
