Bartonella protocol: Progress so far

So I was seeing a TCM Dr for about two weeks before I started this protocol. He gave me herbs and 2 acupuncture sessions. He said he was treating my blood stasis, spleen, kidneys and liver primarily. I did feel physical improvment, especially in energy and food toleration, but my mental fog and depersonalization/derealization were not changing at all. So i got fed up and decided to try the Bartonella protocol because people on here with symptoms similar to mine have had great success.
I stopped taking the chinese herbs from my doctor for fear of interfering with the new protocol.

On Thursday/3/24 I started the protocol with my first dose of japanese knotweed. 1/4 tsp. it was too much to start off and i had heart palpitations so i started over the next day with 10 drops 3x daily.

Wednesday, 3/31 (TODAY) I'm at:

Japanese Knotweed: 1/4 tsp 3x Daily (full dose)
Hawthorne: slightly<1/4 tsp 3x Daily (full dose)
Sida Acuta: 1/6 tsp 3x Daily (almost full dose)
EgCg: 175 mg Daily (about 1/2 recommended dose)
Eleutherococcus: 3-5 drops daily (that stuff is intense!)
Vitamin C: 3 grams daily(full dose)
Milk Thistle: 375mg 3x Daily(right about recommended full dose)
Houttaniya: 1/2 tsp Daily (1/6th recommended)
Red Root: 1/4 tsp 3x Daily(full dose)

By Saturday night I went from feeling worse and ridiculously fatigued to having good energy and my brain actually was functioning in a somewhat normal capacity - at least it was giving me hope that I was returning to being me again. But by the next morning I was back to feeling not much better than when I started Thursday. So much for that. Great.
So far I have had nothing close, besides the bout of intense fatigue followed by temporary reduction of symptoms on Saturday, to what I could definitely say was a herx- and it's been 6 days. I've herx'd before and usually it involves a fever and elevated heart rate. I'm not going to pretend i'm getting better when I'm not I want the real thing and so far it hasn't happened and I'm getting very upset and nervous that I'm going to be like this forever: Fatigued, malnutritioned, poor memory, poor cognition, no sense of self or reality. Please someone out there tell me they had a similar experience but still healed???

thanks

Hi

You're right, it's too soon to tell - I just want so bad to have some piece of evidence that says here, it IS working. I'm going to work up my dose of Houttaniya steadily daily until I herx because if that doesn't eventually give me a reaction then nothing will.

Yeah it may have been a herx. Not definitive enough though.

I have ramped them up quickly but I've been monitoring my response and besides some heart rate irregularities I seem to be handling everything fine. I did react to EGCG so I backed off to 1/2 dose and that worked. I seem to have a much worse time with vitamins, particularly taking B vitamins and zinc, than I do to any herbs. But that's a whole'nother story.

My detox program is:

Chlorella as per Klinghardts detox dosage recommendations
Lots of water with lemon juice, garlic, occasional ginger
Intestinal formula to keep bowel movements up to 1 time/daily
60-90 minutes of walking 7 days a week
Sunbathing 3hrs a day 3 days a week

I wish I could do more, like infrared saunas and salt baths but at this point can't afford to.

Can I ask how long it took you on your herbal protocol before you could say This is it, it's working? Looks like you recovered in about 7 months..

Wow it sounds like your treatment has been a real challenge. But you are feeling significant improvement?

Yeah I'm taking 1200 mg/day milk thistle and red root for liver support. Probiotics is tricky because I have to take them 2 hrs at least away from my antibacterial herbs so I'm still figuring that out. Right now I take 2 pills at a time once a day which is 2/3 recommended...

Perhaps the reason your recovery is slow is because of pyrolurria or parasite co-infections?
Pyrolurria symptoms include white spots/areas on fingernails and poor dream recall. Just a thought

I too am treating bart... And I have literally been at it daily for a whole year now! I had 2 almost successful treatments before that where I was basically symptom free, but stopped the abx and bart came back!

Now this 3rd time it has come back, it just seems so much harder to treat.

I think the 2 times, the vast majority of symptoms were gone almost completely. This time I'm at a loss as in some days I feel I'm getting my goals then a few days later I'm worse, then I treat harder and take more medications, and then boom it's like I'm herxing. Then I try the herbals... Sida and Houttuynia, and bam I got full body burning and am almost feverish.

Bart is very very tricky to treat... It seems some people are able to treat it better than others. Each failed treatment... I believe is bad news... But my LLND said it's not a big deal, just re-treat again, and eventually the immune system develops more strength against bart.

One tip I have for you... Don't give bart an inch... Give it an inch and literally it will take a mile. I learned this in my experience and everything I read from Doctors and even Buhner suggests this. Which means bart treatment has to be focused. If it's not focused, consistent, it will come back and come back quickly. Think of it like putting out a fire... And I think it's a good analogy. Treating bart is like putting out a fire... If the fire isn't out completely, including all the embers, coals, and whatever is left burning even though you can't visibly see the flames, then it can start right back up again.

There is also the issue of bart hiding in various places of the circulatory system, which is why I believe it has been so hard to treat for some people. E.g. It gets deep in the capillaries sometimes in places with little and slow blood flow, causing fibrin to build up in these places.

Are you able to treat this aspect of bart? I strongly believe taking at least 1 or even preferably 2 things for the circulatory issues bart causes is very important. So for example lumbrokinase really helps break down the fibrin that bart causes in the circulatory system. Also Buhner is the one that recommends L-arginine. That helps improve blood flow... AND I was watching a video on bio films saying that NO (which is made in the body from l-arginine) will help with biofilms. So there are a couple options.

Dr. M (Bart experts), says in 80-90% of the time that patients are NOT improving with bart treatment, the reason is that it's because they are not consistently taking their proteolytic enzymes.

Another supplement suggested to me is gingko Biloba to improve blood flow issues with bart. I do have that but haven't been consistent in taking it.

But now I treat the lumbrokinase as if it's as essential to my treatment as the antibiotics are.

So I am consistently taking the lumbrokinase, and I also taking L-arginine 5 grams in my lemon water. It's sweetened with Stevia and tastes pretty good.

Post Edited (LymePickle) : 3/31/2016 1:03:01 PM (GMT-6)

Girlie... Now I am taking rifabutin 150 mg/clarithromycin 500 mg/doxycycline 100 mg all BID. So I take 1 pill of each twice a day... and have been dead on consistent with this for well over a month now.

Dr. M is saying rifabutin is the superior drug over rifampin, has the longer half life in the tissues (where the rest of my bart is ), plus it has less affect on the liver, and adrenals. I'm finding treatment with rifabutin is much easier to tolerate than with rifampin. Also rifampin decreases clarithromycin levels by 90%, whereas rifabutin only decreases clarithromycin levels by about 50%. I added in the doxy because I never did take doxy... AND I really don't want to risk my bart becoming treatment resistant... And to be honest it kind of scares me... What if it's not going away because it has become resistant to 1 or 2 of my antibiotics? So I decided 3 abx consistent BID from here on out. Plus lumbrokinase is now an essential part of my treatment.

As an aside, I tried a vegetable only fast for 2 days this past weekend. Wow it was bad, lots of inflammation and burning in my body since. But the whole point was to rebuild my immune system so it hopefully comes back stronger. I feel much better now, but still have the mild burning.


I am with Dr. R still, I will probably just stick it out with Dr. R until my treatment is minimum 2 months symptom free, I might even go 6 months symptom free just to make sure.

Yes Dr. C is so optimistic! LoL it's actually kind of funny, he has a very positive outlook and is determined to help is patients and offer the best treatments. The only thing I was having 2 docs at the time when I first began treatment and was listening to both of them! I got to about symptom free... But was suggested to stay on minocycline+septra DS. I thought my remaining symptoms were related to lyme, but now I know they were bart. Dr. R suggested I keep taking these, Dr. C said I can stop the abx and focus just amoxicillin and stop the septra DS... So just amoxi, I tried that and the bart came back!

Later back in March or April of last year, Dr. C suggested to stop taking the abx to see how it goes, and then retreat if it comes back. I didn't want to do that so that was kind of the last I heard of Dr. C and I have been with Dr. R ever since. I already had 2 bart relapses and didn't want to lose progress.

How is bart treatment doing for you Girlie?

Well I talked to Dr.R and he said 100 mg of doxy daily is fine for Bart, it doesn't need to be 200 mg twice daily. The 400 mg daily of doxy I think is for Lyme right? Not Bart. I'm not treating Lyme anymore, just Bart, my Lyme is long gone. 100 mg twice daily of doxy is actually the standard dose for doxy.

Plus i don't want to take too much.

Yes Dr.MR allows my requests! I asked for both the doxy and rifabutin, and he actually changed my prescription without even an appointment. He just changed it on the fly.

Rifabutin he said IS dosed half that what rifampin is dosed at as it holds so well in the tissues that the dose doesn't need to be as high. Also there is a uveitis side effect to watch For. I think I'm fine with 150 mg BID. Rifabutin changes my pee to a purple red colour. Different than rifampin.

Yes I'd say be careful with pulsing but it's your body and treatment! And you are right I guess if some people have gotten better like that then maybe it's worth doing.

See there is an issue with bacterial infections.... Resistance or persistence that is the question? BUT the reality is we are dealing with both resistance and persistence. Obviously either one causes problems. I think Bart can be persistant like Lyme can be too. But I also have read lab reports of it easily becoming resistant to abx. For example rifampin after just 3 treatments Bart is resistant. But the first treatment kills like 95% of the Bart, second treatment just 65%, third treatment, 33%. Etc. Know what I mean? But who knows maybe it's just because the bugs left are slower growing, or inhibited by the abx but not killed? Maybe they need their metabolism going or something? This also happens with azithromycin apparently. And I'm not sure if azithro is also cross resistant with clarithromycin.

I don't get how Bart becomes resistant? It is slow growing about 24 hours so I'm not sure how it does that.

Which antibiotics allowed them to heal when treating bart?

Great news! I had another herx after upping my dosage of Houttuniya from 1/4 tsp once a day to 1 tsp a day(in divided dosage) and oh boy did I feel better after the herx was over(increased body temperature, headache, anxiety, fatigue, nausea a bonafide herx!). I am in the middle of a low level herx right now so i don't feel great but I WILL because every bit that I herx is less for the bacteria infection and eventually I will be free of it and I will have my brain back yay!!!!!!

Houttuniya(sp?) was the key for me. Makes sense being it is the only herb in the protocol which is on the antibacterial regimen instead of immune/organ support etc

anyway, I'm feeling much more positive now and am looking forward to designing a comprehensive overhaul of my entire system from a parasite candida cleanse to my nutrition to my detoxification and everything!

yeah well aparently not enough, after upping the dosage yesterday I have been in severe brain fog, exhaustion and what feels it feels like a full on regression/relapse but i'm just hangign in and hoping it's the herx and I will feel better than ever once its over. I'm adding activated charcoal to my detox plan tonight because obviously my body isn't able ot keep up with the die off