Adding Bartonella treatment?? Advice

I'm getting fed up with the run around from Drs. So, I've decided to continue treating myself with natural herbal remedies.

I also have a renewed faith in herbals since I watched the Vanessa Farnsworth's utube video on her journey (herbal route).

While time marches on...and I try to get diagnosed/treated, I'm going to keep at it. I'm tired of feeling this way. I have a goal for this summer - and that is to go on a mini holiday with my hubby, 21 year old son and his girlfriend in August. Not up for it now...but who knows...I know I won't be 100%, but even 20 or 30% better will be enough to go. I had to cancel it last summer...and I'm going to do everything I can to make it this summer.

burnoutfree said...
hello there..

it seems to me that you are a little lost in all of those things. to get an exact diagnostic is very hard.. i am in the same situation here.

so..do yo have bartonella? do you have lyme?...you can write me sometimes..see my adress. herbal is ok i think...but could a doctor say that is 100% working?

No doctor will ever be able to tell you if something is 100% working - not even the best LLMD. Nor will they be able to tell you for sure which infections you are carrying. Tests are not reliable, and frankly tests are not available for all pathogens - there are many that haven't even been discovered yet. This is where allopathic doctors run amiss. They believe they know everything there is to know, and we have been conditioned to believe they do. They don't.

It's hard to wrap your head around the fact that doctors are not all knowing. It took me a while to grasp the new paradigm, but if you read Buhner's book Healing Lyme Coinfections: Mycoplasma and Bartonella, he explains it beautifully.

The good thing about herbs is that they are broadly antimicrobial, antiviral, antiprotozoal, antiparasitic (depending on which herbs you choose), and will address infections that you don't realize you have.

Although pharmaceutical companies produce many of their drugs from herbal constituents or chemical compounds similar to them, they are forced to extract what they believe to be the most efficacious part because whole herbs are not patentable. It is the other parts, Buhner suggests, the ones left out by the pharmaceutical companies, that play a synergistic role in the broadly acting way herbs work. And that several herbs together work better than any one singly.

Herbals are working wonderfully for us. We are using the FULL bartonella protocol minus l-arginine (as I am not sure about viral infection) and have added the combination CSA tincture (from Buhner's babesia protocol) to cover possible protozoan involvement.

To my surprise it was the CSA tincture that improved our daughter's cognitive/executive function back to what I would consider to be normal. She has had diminished function in that area since her 15 month MMR vaccination (perhaps an adverse reaction of her immune system to the vaccination allowing some sort of protozoa to proliferate).

She has always returned negative for both of the babesias that were tested for (B microti and B duncani) and has never had babesia symptoms other than the ones produced by too large of a dose of CSA when I added it to our protocol.

We source our houttuynia, japanese knotweed and cordyceps powders from 1stChineseHerbs, sida acuta, CSA and Japanese knotweed tinctures from WoodLandEssence. I am using a Canadian herbal tincture (OrangeNaturals) for hawthorne and milk thistle.

Please don't let the fact that you may have to source from more than one site stop you from using herbals. We are very fortunate to be living in North America where everything is so readily available.

Buhner's recommends several other sources as well that you may have to investigate from time to time when one of the companies runs short on tinctures. This may happen once in a while because demand is increasing and the herbs come from as far away as Africa before being tinctured. I try to keep some extra stock on hand in case this happens.

We are using very low doses of Buhner's herbs, and still herxed for approx. 6 months when starting the protocols. Nothing close to the recommended dosages of anything other than Japanese knotweed.

Our daughter underwent 2 years of abx treatment but was still symptomatic when we began herbals in Apr 2013. She is now completely asymptomatic although we will remain on low dose herbs for at least 1 more year.

I had never taken abx, but started the herbal protocols along with our daughter, at the same low dosages. Although I have never been tested our LLMD assures me that I am suffering from the same infections, perhaps passed on to our daughter congenitally. The physical and neurological/psychological symptoms that I had assumed to be the result of aging and perimenopause have resolved. Crashing fatigue, foot pain, brain fog, raging, palpitations, derealisation, anxiety attacks etc. All gone.

For me, abx were not needed to heal. I remain on low dosages of herbs as well, but it is a small price to pay for feeling GREAT!

We live in Canada as well, in Southern Ontario. Our daughter's ELISA was also negative, and her Igenex lyme results weren't blaring, only a couple lyme-specific bands. Interestingly as we treat, the number of lyme reactive bands are increasing - her immune system is rebounding and trying on it's own to address the infection.

You can do this on your own, if you feel so inclined, or are rejected by the ND. I am. Our LLMD know's nothing about herbs, and the naturopath we see uses alternate methods to treat lyme (ie IV vit C) which I was hesitant to use with our daughter. I have just been drawn to Buhner from the beginning. Buhner's associate is available for consult:

http://www.gaianstudies.org/herbal_consult.html

I have healed myself with no testing, just herbs to address bartonella and babesia. I get the feeling that Buhner doesn't even think lyme is as important as he once did; it's the coinfections that cause the real problems.

Just use really LOW dosages and go S....L....O....W....L....Y

According to Buhner, you can take all of his herbs together - whatever works for you. You can also take them with antibiotics. If you are taking high doses of Cat's Claw I think I would decrease a little before adding many other things. The herbs act synergistically, packing more of a wollop together than they do separately.

He has mentioned in several places that if there is one herb that he would recommend for every infection that it would be Japanese knotweed. So I would stay with that one.

Hawthorne is very good for any heart problems (like palpitations) and is protective of endothelial tissue (lining of blood vessels where bartonella likes to hide).

Milk thistle will help your liver produce glutathione, an essential antioxidant for detoxification.

Sida is a potent broad spectrum antibiotic herb. We were taking 1/4 tsp (32 drops of tincture) 3x daily, but found that after about 6 months our hair became greasy and started falling out. We have since decreased to 10 drops 3x daily and the hair has recovered completely.

Houttuynia is specific for bartonella and caused panic attacks for both my daughter and myself at higher doses (2 tsp per day divided in 3 - we were trying to make it to max suggested doses). We have backed off to 1/4 tsp powdered herb in tea 3x daily, a good dosage for us, and have remained there for 1 year. At this dose it did cause me a couple of months of general muscle aches, so start lower than that if you think you need to - it sounds from your symptoms that your bacterial load is pretty high.

According to Buhner's associate Julie, low doses over long periods work as well as high doses over short periods, and as long as you are using several herbals at once there should be no problem with the bacteria becoming resistant.

If you are interested, give Julie a call for a consult. You may have to wait a month or so before she can fit you in, but she is good at suggesting other things in addition to the specific protocols, that would address your specific symptom profile.

These herbs are very antimicrobial and it is important to eat fermented vegetables and supplement probiotics 2 hours away from taking the herbs (or the herbs will simply kill the good bacteria in the probiotics). You will develop yeast and yeast infections if you don't.

We dose herbs at approx. 8am, 3pm and 8pm and then take a good quality probiotic right before bed to allow the good bacteria to colonize over night.

If you decide to undertake Buhner's protocols for any length of time, to do it properly you really need to read the Healing Lyme Coinfections book as well as the Herbal Antibiotics for Resistant Bacterial Infections book. They pretty much cover the herbs used in both the bartonella, lyme and babesia protocols. He is in the midst of writing a babesia book which should be out next spring.

hello.

well. i am frim Canada too. french side. excuse my english " accent"

i am now living in Europe. i met a person, having necrosis at both legs.

two surgeries for nothing. by accident a doctor found Borrelia. this person rememberd being bitten by a tick....i do not.

he started Abx for 10 months. he is just fine. he can walk again.and now, he continues with herbal and some Abx in the winter.

as i read on internet, lyme LLMD like to combine Abx and herbal.

i don t like ABX. i think that herbal is good....it is all.

Girle, before taking a lot of things and stress yourself as you do ( and i know it is true)...can t you make a DFM? ( dark field microscopy) i did it here, in Est Europe. i am sure you cand find somewhere there.

in my blood, in 5 ml sample...there are spirochetes, bartonella, mycoplasma and some anaplasma. if they are in 5 ml sample..they are in all my body. what other prove i need??

but my doctor don t trust it....he told me to do other test for almost 600 euros. it s all a business here.

for the DFM i ve paid 40 euro. they have to make money..don t they?

rowingmom, can you please tell my what herbal should i take ?

where could i buy it? how do you feel now?

same questions for sayyadina.

best regards!

burnoutfree said...
hello.


rowingmom, can you please tell my what herbal should i take ?

!

Not sure Buhner has translations but buy his books:

Healing Lyme Coinfections: Mycoplasma and Bartonella

and

Herbal Antibiotics for healing Resistant Bacterial infections

And try to make your way through them. The herbal suggestions for each one of the infections you mention are listed there as well as places to source the herbs and methods of preparation (decoctions, infusions, tinctures etc.)

WoodLandEssence (where I source most of our tinctures) ships to Europe. I purchase our dried herbs from 1stChineseHerbs, I'm not sure if they ship to the EU.

burnout - I believe if you go to the Buhner website the books are available there.
I don't have the URL handy, but google "Buhner" and it should come up.

ok..i found it. i hope it will help me. thank

eowingmom, could you tell me what were your bartonella symptoms?