Azithromycin mono- or dihydrate? (with Doxy and Rifampin)

Hope,

That's a hard question. It depends if you have co-infections too. Rifampin is used to treat Bartonella. If you have Bart, you need to take Rifampin with Azithromycin. I have no clue what the dosages are. Your doctor doesn't know?

How long have you been sick?

Here is a site that may help but I don't condone self treating:

www.ilads.org/lyme_disease/treatment_guidelines_clearing_ilads.html

It is a good idea to do research so you are informed - often family doctors are more ignorant than we are about how to treat us. They are not going to spend their evenings reading Cure Unknown no matter how many copies they receive. But it is still best to have one of them on board to help you make decisions about treatment. You can take biaxin with rifampin. It is very common. When you start to mix up a lot of abx you need to know what you are doing. Check drugs.com for interactions first and then google for more answers. You have to have your liver checked regularly. If you destroy your liver you are sunk because you cannot get a liver transplant with lyme as you cannot take steroids to suppress your immune system so you do not reject it. We are walking a fine line and need to be careful. It is best to take whatever information you can find to your doctor and discuss it with him. Search for Dr. Burrascano's treatment protocol. There are also very informative blogs online, some by doctors and most not. Search other forums for information about what is helping people - lymenet for instance or canadalyme. The latter site is where I diagnosed myself and I was connected to someone that was doing research for Dr. Burrascano on lymenet - she was in my state's support group and directed me to some very useful information. I took this information to my family doctor who luckily believed me. It was also lucky that he did not bother to read the CDC guidelines for treatment for a year, after which he commented my prevailing symptoms were not related to lyme. I haven't been back since. The doctors that help us are often breaking the law as it is contrary to what is recommended by the CDC. That is why we keep our silence so they do not get into trouble. Some have lost their liscense to practise. That is the main reason why treatment with an LLMD is so expensive. They are defying the CDC guidelines. The CDC would rather we go on steroids, pain killers, antidepressants and such which will just kill us. The doctor I went to is known as a wierdo liberal because he gives prescriptions for marajuana. I was floored and insulted when he asked me if I wanted some. He never gave me anything that I did not tell him to give me.
My last prescription which came from the LLMD ( and was not self prescribed) was for 600 mg rifampin, 500mg biaxin and 200 mg diflucan. He did not tell me to start out slowly - it is important that you do. Work up. So tell your doctor what you want and good luck to you. I have been exactly where you are.