Carao: Has Anyone Ever Tried This Product?

Bobby, that's fine, just send me a private message with your email address, to send you the donation order link, for paying postage.  I hope the carao fruit works well for you!

bbatiste22 already has her donation order link.

I think we have about 7 participants now.  I'll post a list soon.

Thankyou Lloyd for your generous offer. If you haven`t had your 15 participants as yet I would like to add my son Hassan to your list
thanks again
maha

1. manal (son)
2. manal (mother)
3. vic
4. mudit
5. zaini
5. bbatiste22
6. bobby
7. maha
(there is room for 8 more participants)

All participants who do not have a donation order link to pay shipping, please be sure to contact by via personal message of this forum.

If you have already contacted me and I have not sent you the donation order link, I have overlooked you; please email me again!

If you have received a donation order link from me and have not been able to use it, just email me for help.

If you have received your donation order link and have changed your mind about participating, please let know so I can remove your name from the list.

- Lloyd

I would be interested - and my 9 1/2 year old son is healthy overall -  but I just want to consult with Andy.

Andy, with everything else that is going on - is it best for us to postpone being involved in this - or even beginning another supplement until our appointment in Oakland?

Thanks,

Sharmin

Sharmin,

If you can be sure you will be able to keep on taking carao daily during the trip, I don't think it's any problem to start. But if there may be gaps, you might want to wait until after the trip, so you can give Lloyd a more accurate review of its effects. You might also ask Dr Vichinsky if he has had any observations of patients using natural Hb inducers like wheatgrass and resveratrol.

Hi everyone,

I have been reading the post about carao fruit and I have decided to try it with Olivia.Is this  something she can stay on long term, she is 4 yrs old now, how long can she take it for? For life?

Kathleen

Hello Kathleen,
Carao can certainly be taken long-term.  It is a natural food with no known side effects.  According to a young thal minor woman in Costa Rica, the effects are long lasting: use can be interrupted for 2-3 months at a time without losing benefits.  She has interrupted use of carao because she sometimes runs out and she is, I think, shy about asking me for more (her supply is donated).

To participate in this informal study, Kathleen, please send me your email address.  You should find a button to the left of this post for that.

I would very much like to accumulate more information on long term dosage for thalassemia and sickle cell anemia.  After 2 or 3 months' use, I think the amount taken can be cut back to half or less of the recommended amount for acute anemia.  That would allow a bottle to last about 5 weeks in the case of an adult, and 10 weeks in the case of a child under 6.  (This is only a theory, based on what Dr. Sokoto and I have seen in a few thalassemia patients and many sickle cell patients.)  For sickle cell anemia, the benefits (cessation of crisis and other symptoms) is supposed to last about 6 months after carao is no longer taken.

If anyone would like to help me send donated carao fruit to Sokoto State Specialist Hospital in Nigeria, I accept donations to help pay shipping at this page:http://webedit.voluntary-simplicity.org/donate.htm.  Contact information for Dr. Attahiru Sokoto, pediatrician, can be found on that page.

I know that all of you that are going to start carao soon will keep track of your hb, But there is something else I would like you to check out. Most thals have problem with weight gain, mashallah my son has no such problem. His weight of 13kg is good for his height of 89cm. He is a little above the 50th percentile.He is almost 26 months old now. He was diagnosed exactly 13 months back and at that time his weight and height was 8.3 kg and 71cm respectively.
When you are giving a hundred and twenty different things to your child you cannot attribute the improvement to one thing. So members lets do a study to find if carao can improve weight and height in thal children.
maha

It's  true that carao is for the most part is being added to a bunch of other things taken for thalassemia.  That's part of the reason it is an "informal study."  However, if most everyone can report benefits, I think it will show there is definitely a positive effect, and perhaps be motivation for more carefully-controlled studies.

Maha, did you notice an improvement in appetite and weight gain after your son started the carao almost 7 months ago?  Or did you also introduce other therapies about the same time he started using the carao?

Does anyone know of a sickle cell support forum where a similar "informal study"of carao might be done?

Hi Lloyd
Hassan at 3 months weighed 7kg, he was quite a big baby then. When he was 9 months he weighed 8.1kg and like I said earlier at 13 months he was 8.3kg. He was not gaining weight inspite of having an ok appetite. I started carao in november and at that time he was 10.3kg.  I had also started various therapies around the same time. For the past two months his appetite has been low( I have started something else ) but inspite of this he has been gaining weight.
maha

Hi LLoyd,
I would love to try the carao with Olivia I will send you our e-mail and I will let everyone how she is doing and if I feel there is any change in her. I am very sensitive to Olivia's behavior, color, growth everything about her I am usually on the money so I feel I will be able to tell the difference if there is one after she begins the carao.

Thanks Kathleen

Hi all:

I am a participant in Llyod's caroa informal trials.
I woke up this morning shaky and dizzy and really feeling out of sorts, well, God didn't forget me, 20 minutes ago my son went out side and at least one packet of my tiral caroa bottles had arrived.  Just knowing that lifted my spirits.  It got here in just over a week. OF course I already took my first dose.     I took it straight because after smelling it, I figured if I extended the amount to drink by dilution I would have a hard time taking it.  It surely smells foul.  We call it Stinktoe in the Caribbean, so that will give you an indication of the smell.

Anyways, it was not that hard to swallow, but it did taste and sting my throat as if it contains alcohol.  I read the bottle after I swallowed and it said 100% pure  caroa.  Llyod, I'm taking your word that it has no alcohol in it cause that would drop my counts like a bomb, in a major hurry. 

I'm the type that has to take half of any medication or less, I have fast reactions both good and bad, so If this thing works, I will know pretty quickly.  I am also taking into account the placebo effect, cause i am so excited about finally getting some 'natural' relief.   Anyway, I am keeping positive. Right now my counts are hovering around 8, dipped below that for the first time in my life recently.

I am looking forward to reporting that caroa works, I know nothing works the same way for everyone, so I will let you guys know if it works what my diet is and anything else I took at the same time as well as my blood type, as I do believe blood type plays a major part in treatment.  I also think whether the Beta or Alpha chain is affected makes a major difference to how thals are affected, and therefore also to any treatment modality.

Stay Strong.

In my 6 years of providing carao to folks all over the world, you're the first person who thinks carao tastes like it might have alcohol.  (Note the spelling, "carao," not "caroa.")  It is pronounced ka-rah-oh

Since I frequently get reports about how good it tastes, I'm pretty sure that at least one of the participants in this study will say they love (not just like) the taste.  As I've mentioned before, it does not taste anything like it smells.  For it to taste delicious, it is usually mixed in milk or milk substitute.  In milk it tastes very much like cocoa.  (By the way, cocoa, which most people like, tastes pretty awful if you eat straight dry cocoa powder.  And pure bees' honey taken off the spoon will often cause a stinging sensation in your throat, too.  Do you see my point?  Actually, straight carao tastes a lot better than straight cocoa.)

Taken straight, carao tastes strong.  In fact, we recommend it never be given straight to infants because of the very strong taste.  (For infants it should always be mixed in some sort of milk.)

To those who are waiting for your carao to arrive: Take my word for it, mixed in milk it is delicious to not just a few, but most people.  Also, after it is mixed in any beverage, there will be NO smell.  If you are giving it to a child, please don't tell the child first that you are going to give him something that tastes awful.  For the record, Dr. Attahiru Sokoto, Nigerian pediatrician, resports that ALL his child patients like it in milk.

To those who can't take milk, you can try mixing in rice milk, or soy milk.  For those who really want to wipe out the chocolaty taste, it can be mixed in blackstrap molasses, or in coffee.

Healinglights, I hope you are sensitive to its effects the way you are to medications.  I think you will start to feel better in a couple of weeks.

The informal study is about to close, so any last-minute participants should post their interest here very soon.
Regards,
Lloyd

Hi

I too received the first two bottles yesterday. Thank you Lloyd.

It is true the smell and the taste are really difficult, but my boy is brave and when he knew that i will be taking it with him sometime later he was encourged. He just close his nose and quickly after taking it he drinks a cold glass of water. The taste remains a little bit but keeps drinking any other thing to change the taste. I will try to offer it to himin milk as you advised

I give him two spoons ( 5 ml each ). Lloyd, i made a full CBC, HPLC, ferritin and bilirubin tests before starting in order to able to compare the effect later on when i finish the four bottles.

Hoping for positive results to all of us

manal

Hey LLoyd thanks for the good wishes. 
Don't get me wrong, it doesn't taste bad as such, hope I did not give that impression to anyone who maybe interested in trying it.  Its just the smell.  Perhaps that stinging after taste like alcohol is probably because I took it straight.  I tend not to want to prolong things I think might be unpleasant, and I did wash it down afterwards with coconut milk smoothee. 
It was just my way to swallow, and then follow.  I don't know if I will continue to take it that way now I know it won't taste as bad as it smells.
It's surprisingly sweet, and nothing at all like the smell, I should have mentioned that.  And i don't advice anyone else to try it the way i did.  So in summary for anyone thinking of trying it, the bark is worse than the bite, namely the smell is nothing like the taste, so try not to be put off by the smell.