Herxing question

I have had a horrible past 8 days or so, (including a emergency room visit).
As of Wednesday my LLMD told me to stop my Doxy, giving me a one week "holiday'.
He feels that I am Herxing, because my symptoms have severely increased.
I will see him again on Tuesday and he will reevaluate me. I think he is planning on switching my ABX also.

So my question is this...To anybody that has had to stop treatments because of severe Herxing.
How many days did it take for you to stabilize? When I say "stabilize", in my case means feeling my regular horrible self (post Lyme). And not feeling like my life is in danger and I should maybe go to the hospital.

So my last Doxy was Tuesday evening. I had a horrible episode last night. (3 complete days after stopping Doxy) Still feel absolutely horrible today, 3 1/2 days out. seems like I should be stabilizing by now!

So how long has it/should it take????

I have been doing my part with Epsom salt baths, drinking distilled lemon water, magnesium supplement and probiotics.

I would really appreciate any input.
Thanks!

I agree with Traveler 100% and I'd like to add:

Most abx remain clinically active for three days after the last dose, even if they have a fairly short half-life. So bugs are still being killed, adding on to the toxins that caused the herx to begin with.

In other words, the herx won't begin to taper off till you can clear the toxin load-and if you were clearing slowly/had a massive dieoff with continued abx effect for a couple days, it's then easy to see how this would translate into a peak herx after discontinuation.

Also helpful to keep in mind that many herx symptoms are a result of nervous system overstimulation due to the toxicity created by dieoff, and the overstimulation has its own "cool down" period.

So, if you can imagine the overlapping arcs- continued abx effect, then peak dieoff, then peak toxins, then system cool down, it's easy to visualize more than a few days to work through it.

I hope this helps you stay strong, sorry to hear about the rough time you're having.

I'm not sure where you're located, but if you can find an acupuncturist or a place that does Chinese medicine, they could help with detoxing. I've been seeing an acupuncturist who also has/ had Lyme. He had it for five years before he was diagnosed and did the Cowden protocol for over a year. He's pretty much recovered but has flare ups every now and then. Acupuncture can help overall with the Lyme but also with individual symptoms and detoxing.

*Apologizes if you're easily grossed out by this next part*

I was having issues with detoxing and herxing and just generally feeling awful. It got to the point where I practically begged him for a wet cupping treatment. Which is like a regular cupping treatment, where they put hot cups or suction cups on your back to draw out the toxins from the body. But for certain people, like us with Lyme, we need some extra help. With wet cupping, after they apply the suction cups for several minutes they take them off and where make small cuts in your back. They reapply the suction cups to draw out the blood and toxins. Yes, it does sound gross and painful but it's really not. Yes you can feel that initial cut but that quickly fades as the toxins are being pulled. I would liken it to being stuck with a needle. You feel that initial contact and then nothing.

The blood that comes out can be very globular and coagulated. Its the toxins and junk being removed from the body. For me, it helped with brain fog, TMJ pain, energy, back and neck pain. I've done it once a week for the past month and look forward to it when I know I need really a detox.

Here are articles talking about wet cupping on Lyme patients. goodbyelyme.com/cupping_herxheimer

www.bewellworld.com/article.cgi?id=Other_144

You can also check out videos on youtube that demonstrate it.

Not sure if any of this will help, but if you can get it done I would highly recommend it.

My acupuncturist does. He actually recently went threw training for treating Lyme with acupuncture. I'm not sure who he trained with, but he was telling me about the different methods he learned to attack the spirochetes and it was fascinating. The problem is he's having a hard time implementing them in his practice because its a community acupuncture. So he charges on a sliding scale, puts several people in one room and sees people back to back every 15 minutes or so. He's more into the service of the patient then the profit of the business. Which is great but at the same time, I wish he was able to do more.

Sorry, I got off topic there. From what I've read some acupuncturists do it, but most just deal with regular cupping. If you can't find one, you might get lucky if you find a holistic medicine center. Another name for it is called hijama and in some areas they have hijama centers. It might take a bit of looking and if you need it I'll be glad to help.