Feel terrible with antibiotics

Hello all,

I have had symptoms of Lyme Disease for a year and I have finally found a LLMD last week who is treating me with Amoxicillin (500mg x 2d) and Clarithromycin (500mg x 2d). I have been on the antibiotics for a week now and have been feeling terrible since I took the first dose. I take the antibiotics with food to minimize the stomach issues.
Since taking the medicine I have lots of anxiety and deep depression. My mood has changed so much this week. I can fall asleep OK but only get 4 hours of sleep and wake up. I am unable to fall asleep after that. My vision has started to blurry and I suffer from severe headaches that come up from my neck. I also have neck pains and the inflammation/pain on the bottom of my right foot has gotten worse where now I am limping.
My dizziness, lightheadedness and vertigo have also gotten worse to where now I can hardly walk a few yards without having to stop. My gait has also slowed considerably. My hip area has also started to hurt where I have not had problems before.

I suffer from 48 of the symptoms from Dr. Burrascano's list which include the ones listed above. However, they don't all usually hit me at the same time and not this bad. I was hoping that being on antibiotics would lessen or abate the symptoms, but instead, they have gotten worse.

I have heard of herxing so I am not sure if this is what is happening now or if now that my immune system is weakened by the antibiotics, that my possible co-infections are running amok without the immune system keeping it in check.

I would appreciate advice from those of you who are under treatment to see if this is normal or if I should go back to my doctor. Unfortunately, my LLMD doesn't take insurance and charges $475 dollars for a visit and $65 for an email response. My funds are limited so I was hoping to use what little money I have to purchase the prescriptions which are pricey in themselves.

I should also mention that I was on these medicines a year ago for two weeks to treat an H. Pylori infection and had no problem taking them. I wonder if that was because the LD infection (which I didn't know I had at that time) was so recent that my body could cope with it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and will sincerely appreciate every response.

Hi there,

I can truly identify with what you're going through,the same things happened to me when I was on Doxy,I thought I was dying......everything got worse.

Are you taking probiotics? I can recommend Green Vibrance,it really helped my energy levels.

Second question,are you dotoxing?

In my opinion you can't get better if you aren't getting the toxins,caused by die-off,out of your system.

Good luck,glad that you found us

Tickled

Tickled Pink, Thank you for the welcome. I have been on here for a while but never signed up until now. I've read many of your posts and love your insight as you reply to other people's posts.

I have not detoxed as I have just started to take the antibiotics. As I write this, a light inside me just went on that I should have started the detox even when I was not on antibiotics because my immune system was doing some of the killing.

I will go through the other posts to find the best way to detox. I am aware of the bath with Epsom salts and Hydrogen Peroxide. I bought the stuff but have not used it because a few months ago I took magnesium (Magnesium Malate) to help with the muscle twitches, bone pains, leg cramps, and the tremors. As soon as I took the first pill, most of my symptoms hit me all at once. I don't remember being that miserable in a long time. Almost as if the magnesium fed the spirochetes and they all got "supercharged". The symptoms subsided by the second day and so I have not taken it again. I am hoping that once I am on the antibiotics for a while that I can try the magnesium again, including the Epsom salt bath.

I do take vitamin B complex and it does help with the chronic fatigue a little. The vitamin D (which I am low on) gives me severe anxiety. I do try to spend time in the sun to get some of the vitamin D replenished. I have just started a gluten and sugar free diet to see if it helps. Good idea to try the probiotics. I had not considered them.

I also tried fish oil for the fatty acids but my throat got severely irritated and I had trouble swallowing. I must have recently gotten seafood allergies. I used to eat fish and seafood a lot before the infection with no problem. I will try to get the fatty acids from primrose oil and see if it helps.

I would welcome any suggestions on what works for you to detox. I am very open minded and will try your suggestions if it helps me feel better.

Well, it's a shame about the seafood allergies, that means I can't try and persuade you to take.......GLME,I know I'm getting obsessive

Sweating will get rid of some toxins. Many use a FIR sauna, but some of us can't tolerate the heat around our heads in an enclosed area. There are some where your head isn't inside. There are FIR mats too. Drink plenty of water all the time to help flush things out. There are herbal detox products that others here could tell you about since I haven't used many.

That is very typical when starting lyme treatment. It is definitely herxing. The bacteria are dying and "going down kicking and screaming" and releasing toxins. In my opinion (and others will disagree), herxing is a necessary part of lyme treatment. It does get worse before it gets better. Many lyme patients end treatment way too soon because of the herxing.
However, that being said, if it becomes way too severe to handle or becomes dangerous, you may need to talk to your dr. about temporarily decreasing the dosage or stopping the abx. for a day or two to give your body a break. For example, I herxed so severely when first starting treatment that I started vomiting and couldn't keep water down and could barely make it 5 feet from my bed to bathroom. My LLMD cut the abc. dose in 1/2 for a few days and that gave me a break so I could eat, drink, get my strength back up. I haven't had that severe of a herx since, although I did basically herx continuously for the first 6 months of treatment.
As others mentioned, make sure you are detoxing frequently. Some things that have helped me a little are drinking Alkaseltzer Gold (not "Cold", hard to find, I get it online) and tons of water with lemon. Also, my LLMD recommended Chlorella - 4 per day away from all meds and food. Activated Charcoal kind-of does the same thing.
Your story about seeing many drs and no one treating lyme is very common. The problems with the testing is also. Most of us have similar stories. I saw well over 30+ drs. and none of them correctly diagnosed me. I just continued to get worse and worse until I found a good LLMD. Most LLMDs are expensive, unfortunately. And, most of us travel far to see them. But, if it's at all possible to get to a really good LLMD, it's worth it! Most than seeing ANY other dr.
I see a LLMD in the Indianapolis area. Last I heard, she wasn't accepting new patients because they were having to schedule so far out, but if you still want the info., PM me. Her office might be able to give you a recommendation of someone near Chicago.

Healing98- I hope you are feeling better. From what I was told by my doctor, you will have some of those days where you do feel good. Then you will go back to feeling bad, and then climb up to feeling good again- kind of a "one step forward and two steps back" sort of thing.

The fact that you got to experience that day of feeling good must be a good sign! Your body "knows" what it wants, and it wants to be healthy!