Critters living in my feet?

Sounds very similar to what my son has described, who has had lyme disease for 17 years except he has never had any sores. He has been told that a co-infection of Lyme, Bartonella, causes the foot symptom.

Sounds like Peripheral Neuropathy... Make sure you are getting enough magnesium, Vitamin B12, Folic Acid, and other B-Complex vitamins. Yes, I agree it is Lyme and/or Bartonella. Anything that increases circulation in the feet/ankles is good for this. Mine gets better with abx, walking (daily), B12, magnesium... Homeopathic Hypericum Perf. may help (remedy is made from St. John's Wort, but the herb won't fix this...homeopathic form of it may or may not help)...

Take care,

Use of a ReBuilder unit may help. The microcurrent can retrain the nerves to resolve the peripheral neuropathy. More info can be found here: http://www.rebuildermedical.com/

Well, I'm just a bit upset that my new LLMD did not consider testing for co-infections, except for Babs, which was very high in my labs from last year (and he's testing for a 2nd strain). When I asked about the other co's, he said he was not concerned because they did not show in my test from last year, which was Quest -- and these were just 'screening' tests. Each of these said, 'screening test negative, titer not performed.'  Aren't these as bad as Elisas?

 

This LLMD is an infectious disease Dr specializing in ALL kinds of diseases, esp AIDS, MS, Chronic fatigue, and Lyme.  My local lyme board say he is very good and that his patients get well. He has an excellent reputation.

Do I need to question this? If I do have Bart, does Bart respond to abx? or would I need another abx?

 

I was good enough to give him my written history and symtom list, however forgot a lot of the questions I needed to ask. I did ask him to look at my ankles and feet and he said, 'oh do you mean these varicose veins?' And I don't think he commented. I showed him the sores on my legs (which I have found due to the vein problem) and he just asked if I had them before the tick bite and I told him 'no', and that I always had spider veins, but nothing like the crap going on in my ankles, which is spreading down into my feet.

I am awaiting word on the labwork he ordered for babs, thryoid, and I asked him if he could test my adrenals, but I don't know what test that is.  I'm not even sure he ordered a WBC, which I'd really like to see because my white blood count was high last year, as well as MCH and neutrophils.

I have another lab question to post, will do that separately.

Again, this 'party in my feet' is really really strange -- it is not exactly like twitching and it is not tingling. It is exactly as if something is moving and bumping around down there. Starting to give me the creeps.

Thanks, everyone for your help and suggestions. Please do let me know about the Bart questions -- I highlighted them.

Bartonella does respond to antibiotics, but not to amoxicillin. I am not a doctor so I am not talking out of professional experience, but I know of several LLMDs who treat bartonella with doxycycline and rifampin, or minocycline and rifampin. Rifampin is problematic because it reduces the effectiveness of Mepron which is the most common treatment for babesiosis. Levaquin is mentioned by Dr. Burrescano in his treatment guidelines. I would be cautious about using Leviquin because it can cause permanent damage to your ligaments. Dr. James Schaller writes that higher doses of the Dr. Zhang's HH which contains houttuynia are effective.

Honestly I don't think that there is a widely accepted standardized antibiotic dose and treatment duration for bartonella at this time.

Dr. Joseph Burrascano writes in his 2008 treatment guidelines that diagnosing bartonella is problematic because the standard screening tests are insensitive for tick-born bartonella. Because of this he refers to a bartonella like organism or BLO. My daughter tested negative numerous times on bartonella antibody tests as well as the Igenex PCR tests. Then she tested positive on the Fry labs blood stain with numerous small round bacteria around her red blood cells and several Labcorps tests demonstrated very low levels of immune system compounds that bartonella is known to supress. Dr Schaller writes about these alternative ways of testing for bartonella in his free "2009 Babesia Update" which is available online and in his book about bartonella. Igenex just came out with a new FISH assay for bartonella though it is not known at this time how sensitive this new test is.

In the process of getting my daughter diagnosed and treated for Lyme/babesia/bartonella/possible mycoplasma, I have learned that patients often need to do their own research and actively advocate for quality care. Tick-born diseases are an emerging field and most doctors don't have the time to keep up with recent developments in diagnosis and treatment.

Post Edited (lymebabbartmom) : 7/11/2010 10:08:34 PM (GMT-6)

You might actually have worms and/or nematodes. These were actually found in the ticks mid-guts when Willy Burgdorfer disected them looking for the causative agent of Lyme Disease.

Get some Ivermectin from your doctor.

Good luck!

I have parties in my feet too. Before treatment, it was constant and was really scary when I had my foot on the brake pedal in my car!

Now, I usually only notice that when I am herxing. It used to cause me major anxiety when it was happening but now, I can pretty much ignore it.