What Could This Mean??

I was put on Doxycicline as a precaution while waiting for further Lyme test results.  I was on the drug for 5 days.  The day I went to see the Infectioius Disease doctor was the day he asked me to stop the drug since in his opinion I did not have Lyme Disease.  The next day (first full day off of Doxy) I felt VERY sick -- I immediately had bowel issues -- Severe nausea, diarrhhea, bloating - Just all around intense GUT issues -- I was immediately diagnosed with IBS.

Also, I started developing pain in my shoulders and knees (slight achiness in my knees and stiffness/achy in my shoulder) along with stiffness/pain in my calf upon waking.  I also developed severe vertigo and worsened clearing of my throat........Is it possible this was from the medication OR is this considered herxing??  Does herxing occur like this? The key here is that these symptoms did not pop up until the day after I stopped the Doxy!!  Any help is greatly appreciated!

Lymester said...
..... Its well noted in the medical literature that lyme can cause constipation, often quite severe. Once you have severe constipation you get diarrhea, as liquidified stool is the only thing that will pass easily. This will make you dehydrated no matter how much water you drink. From there its a long slow downhill fall with likely small intestine bacterial overgrowth, impactions, biofilm formation, etc. Get food poisoning and you will be in real trouble as the gut won't be able to clear it and there will be a nice healthy biofilm for it to nestle into and colonize, and allow the exchange of DNA with fellow pathogens. In response, the intestine will create copious amounts of mucus, and then the organisms use this in creating their protective biofilms which you might see as a slime in your stool, and then transit time slows to a crawl. Once the biofilms have grown, antibiotics won't work and as pieces of the biofilm are released downstream you are constantly poisoned/infected. The super sticky biofilm will adhere to the intestinal wall, and you will likely never see them, and they won't be released in a random stool sample so you can suffer from all sorts of nasty gut bugs and test negative.