Need advice about my son...

My 16 year old son recently tested positive for anaplasma. We are waiting for results from many other tests. He is about 2 weeks in to Doxcycline (200mg a day). He has terrible knee pain and also feels terrible. He describes it almost like flu symptoms - feverish (no actually fever that I've found), achy, some headaches and just feeling yucky. He is functioning, but barely. As a side note he has been previously diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (which we think now could be a side affect of Lyme stuff) with symptoms since 6 yrs old.

Anyway, is feeling crappy part of this whole process? Is this typical for anaplasma? Is this "Herxing"? Is there anything we can do to help him thru? How long until we should see some relief? We head back to the Lyme doc on March 7 to review tests, etc.

Thanks!

He has had the western blot test and the Elisa test, both came back negative. But, he has had symptoms for 10 plus years. If what I've been told is correct, Lyme would probably not show up in his blood now. It would probably show up if we took fluid from his sore joints tho. I've been told that it seeds in different places after this much time making it very illusive in the blood tests.

Hi Gainingknowledge!
Welcome to our community! I'm so sorry to hear about your son.

Yes! There are lots of things that you can have your son do to help your son get through this easier. There are a lot of great suggestions for detoxing in the "New to Lyme? Start here!" thread that sits at the top of the forum. It also has a lot of really great information as well, so be sure to make your way through the whole thing.

Unfortunately, no one can say how long herxing will last for any of us. It all depends on how well his body can clear the toxins. Please do be sure to have him start off slowly, as if he goes to fast he can increase his symptoms. So take the Epsom salt and peroxide soaks should only be done with lukewarm water and he should only stay in the water for no more than 7 -10 minutes at first, or better yet you could have him start with foot soaks. Also wait a day or two before having him do another detox soak though, as this too could increase his symptoms.

The things like dry skin brushing, oil pulling, and taking activated charcoal, zeolite, or any other binder can be done daily usually.

One of the easiest things to help him detox is lemon water, although be sure he rinses his mouth after each glass as the lemon is hard on the enamel of the teeth.

That's all I can think of for now, but I'm sure others will also offer suggestions as well.

For a foot bath I use about 1 cup of Epsom Salts and 10 ounces of peroxide. For a full bath I would say start with 2 cups of Epsom salts (& build up to 3 cups) and 16 - 20 ounces of peroxide and you can build that up too if you wish.

Most of us find what works best for us somewhere in those ranges. You don't want to be moving too many toxins all at once as it can overwhelm the body causing a herx from detoxing!