Herx Reaction and Tendonitis

This is more a question for those who have compelted or nearing completion of their Lyme treatment regmine. Although I am not as conversant about the Herx reaction as most of you, in my reading it seems that if you have experienced tendonitis in the past or have suffered an injury in a joint in the past you are prone to tendonitis flairing up there during the months you are on antibiotics and start Herxing. What originally got my attention that I might have Lyme was the sudden onset of arthritis is all my finger joints over a 2 week period after being tick-bit twice in the previous 6 months. Saw a LLMD and after testing was diagnoised with chronic Lyme and started treatment. Although I'm over halfway through my 8 months of treatment (6 months 400mg Doxy and 500mg Azithromycin with another antibiotic and something to control the Candida, etc) my finger joint pain is not much better and 3 months ago started having tendonits and joint pain in my left ankle where I had suffered a previous injury. I try to detox bath at least once a day and recently started taking Activated Charcoal caps also.

Is this a common symptom for those who are nearly complete or complete with your treatment?  If this is a common side-effect of treatment then I'm more than happy to tough it out. It is my understanding that after successful treatment these symptoms will slowly disappear if no permanent damage has been done.

Ankle and foot pain is typical for Bartonella.I could write a book about my feet problems.

It could be from inflammation. I have Lyme arthritis and a lot of joint pains and I also have a lot of inflammation. I use the natural medicines, so I use turmeric and ginger for inflammation, but if you would rather use pharmaceuticals, ask your doc for a trial of anti-inflammatories. You'll like know if that will help in a matter of days.

I know that Lyme likes to attack old injuries. Some say that it leaves the previously injured areas last, but I haven't tried to verify this info though.

I'm still in treatment. I have been infected and not treated properly for over 40 years, so although I've had 2 1/2 years of treatment so far, I'll be in treatment of some kind for a while yet. If not directly treating the infections and viruses, then for supportive measures. That's fine though - I already feel better than I have in over 13 years now!!

You are right about each dose of medication (whether abx or natural) dumping more toxins with each dose! That's why we must continually help our bodies deal with it by using the detoxing methods that we encourage!

To a point, yes you should expect to feel worse before feeling better, as a person is stirring everything up with their anti-infective treatments! As the bacteria load lowers, the improvements will be seen. This does not mean that you should be suffering badly from it though! My doc really gets after me if I allow even a mild herx to last for more than 3 or 4 days! And if your body is dealing with a herx, then it just can't give healing the body all the attention it needs, it has to direct energies to dealing with the herx. A herx is actually called a "Healing Crisis" fro a reason!

I would have to say that on the outside time estimate you could say that it may take several months to start feeling improvements. Even as high of a pathogen load as I had (I had most of the tick-borne infections when I started), it still only took two months before I knew that I was doing what I should be doing & feeling some significant improvements - I could get out of bed for more than 2 hours! By three months end, I was back to wanting to be outside again!! Being a Blacksmith yourself, I know that you know what it's like to be "trapped" inside when you are ill, and that's exactly how I felt! All my life I've been a huge outdoor person.

Anyway....back to more relevant things - by four months after starting Lyme treatment, hubby and I started looking for dairy goats again!!! I've been back to caring for and milking dairy goats since 6 months into my Lyme treatment. Pretty good considering I couldn't hardly get outside for 4 years previously.

So, if you aren't improving by the 4 - 5 month mark, it's time to find out why. There are actually many reasons that a person isn't healing from their infection(s). We have a thread started that addresses this very thing! It can be found here:
www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=2598774

Giggle! Thank you!
May you always have iron to work with and have a job in your future!

Best of luck with your treatments! I hope your hands fair better than mine, and that you completely heal with no residual damage!

Hi ncblacksmith, isn't it a strange disease?? I have worn a wrist brace, elbow brace, knee brace and now that I am feeling well, none of these strange sudden attacks of tendonitis remain. I'm not sure if its the herxing or bacteria attacking the joints but lyme is known to move around like that.