symptom free - when to stop meds?

Hello everyone. Well I finally made it seventh months later. I feel awesome and have been virtually symptom free for two weeks. However when this started I began to get headaches. My llmd thinks it may be due to the fact that I don't need to be on all of my meds anymore. I read everywhere that u need to continue antibiotics for two months after being symptom free. But I also don't want the drugs to be causing toxicity in the meantime. What to do? I have six weeks left. I stopped the abart because it was causing migraines. I discovered that the grapefruit seed extract is causing peripheral neuropathy. I am able to pinpoint these side effects easily and am certain it is not due to the lyme. I am supposed to remain on bactrim for two more weeks and zithromax for six more weeks. I'm thinking of just avoiding the gse altogether and just finishing up the bactrim this week instead and remaining only on zithromax for the last six weeks. I will continue the other herbs for a few months which include teasel root and serrazymes. Any thoughts anyone??? I know this is a bit confusing but I would appreciate anyones input. I will be emailing my llmd tonight. Thank you!

Oh I just wanted to say my LLMD says 4-6 months for bartonella treatment. But in my case I went 4 full months and a few weeks! And so I thought it was finished! So that is why i believe 6 months is a better recommended treatment time for bartonella.

Of course you probably already know Fluoroquinolones are the only drugs people report a successful treatment in 2 months.

Just a thought or two here, from my experience, when I had almost full body neuropathy (among MANY other things, dagnabit).

From what I know, an herbal can not 'cause' neuropathy...remebmeber that herbals are just concentrated foods....but an herbal could highlight --make it more apparent faster or bring forth an unknown issue or a deficiency for example. Some practitioners call using only a target herbal "surrounding the dragon"..which can sometimes work but does not solve any potential underlying issue(s).

Also, neuropathy can be masked by something until it emerges more obviously. For instance B12 deficiency can go on for years before becoming obvious or be detected...and lymies are notorious for having B12 issues.

The link below gives an excellent short explanation of B12 deficiency, how it is often not detected and why.

Most important...herbals can go deeper than abx...the problem sometimes is that a singular herbal that may be taken to target one thing, can be in the wrong order or the wrong herb for the individual (I learned that only an expert can determine those things).
Sometimes another issue needs to be addressed before or during use of a target herb.
For example---if someone has yin deficiency a target herb may be wrong in that it is contraindicated for yin deficiency...settle out the wrong way as a trickle down issue.
So a target herbal would be changed to one that can be used with yin deficiency while the yin deficiency is also being addressed. In some cases the yin deficiency temporarily could be too severe for a target herb.
For many people a top notch herbal expert (namely, in my case, a Traditional Chinese doctor) is a must for success with herbals and other alternatives.

I hope this post helps a little bit...it's hard for me to explain because I'm not an expert, but I have had a lot of experience with it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12_deficiency

It's great to hear that you have an on the ball doctor with the intracellular B12! I guess that's good that it has been ruled out for a potential reason for the neuropathy.

As far as the headaches, I am thinking as your doc is that it can be toxicity building. For some people, (me for one), it's very hard for our cells to detox the meds...
With head pain, I always wonder, if someone has been on Minocycline for a while...but I don't see that listed as one of your meds. And looking at your bio down there, I see you are a pharmacist, so you would know more about mino and the Pseudotumor cerebri than I would...

Have you considered PEMF therapy? It's the mega detox as well as cell re-generator (among other things)?

I'm sorry I am confusing and my explanations are not ideal about the herbals... :( Let me try another example from another view of it...

A while back, my mom randomly started on hawthorn tea -she loves tea and thought she could kill two birds with one stone since hawthorn is a long term herbal for heart health.
She didn't really think to bother the OMD for approval.
Immediately drinking the hawthorn tea, her head got stuffy, her ear clogged and she felt really wiped out. Although it's a fantastic herb, it is considered in the "warm" or "hot" category of herbs in TCM. My mom runs "hot" or often has "stagnant heat" as that is just her system, so a warm/hot herb is horrible for her and causes significant congestion. If this had gone on in the sense of thinking that it was a "herx" reaction, she would have likely ended up with some nasty sinus/ear even lung infection. Someone who runs "cool" or "cold" would feel nothing negative and would greatly benefit from it -so the herb could do the job it's meant to.

Although I have always loved the Emerson quote I have in my bio, it was a long time coming for me to fully grasp (I'm a little slower than I'd like to be, haha)...
One of my all time favorite teachers painted it on a little plaque for me, at the end of my 5th grade with her. I kept it in my room on the back of my door where i could always see it.
At the time I really thought it meant to just stay peaceful and good on the inside, (to not push myself so hard for achievements as I tended to overwork myself and disappoint myself), and that was all that was really was important in life -everything else would fall into place.
Over time I realized that it is also about, what you said! -that we need to forgive ourselves for any past oversights and not to worry about what we can't control in the tomorrows to come.
Today, it still means that to me but with the consideration that God is really the one in control, not me as I thought for a long time, lol. And actually, I'm quite thankful I'm not the one in charge, hehe.

I'm so glad it helped you today!! <3

(And strangely enough, 12 years later, that same teacher took me under her wing as soon as she heard I was finally well -she invited me to work in her classroom at my old beloved school. So once again, I'm blessed enough to get to dote on all of her words of wisdom, she is like a master yoda, LOL)