I HATE BART (Bart and FEET)

My feet don't look the same...they have lost the collagen...and I see all the veins...and they are sometimes red.

Prelyme - I never had cold feet...now I do - I'm thinking because of poor circulation now.
I think it's bart.

I am newly into Bart treatment with A-Bart. My feet are always cold and they are either red or very pale. My skin is very dry and flaky and if I wear dark pants or shoes you can see all the flake dust on these items. This occured before Bart treatment.

Patty

My bartonella load is down but not gone. I had some bad inflammation before. I couldn't fit into my regular shoes. I had beet red feet and at other times splotchy white and red on my feet in very odd places as if they had poor blood flow. My feet aren't anywhere near as bad with inflammation now that the load is down and I detox like crazy. The skin looks a lot more "normal."

My feet have gotten veiny, smaller lost meat and at one point had very slow cappilary refill..it is zombie like.. spongy and wrinkly,like a bad horror movie ...so the vanco didnt hlp it ?

I hate bart more than any of the other bugs. No matter how much I detox and take all sorts of things to lower inflammation, the effects of the antibiotics on my bart doesn't change much its like hitting a hornets nest with a stick. I've been gutting it out for 3 months and I've seen no improvement in my heart/chest pounding/pain. My LLMD says Rifampin/Doxy is the best combo he's ever used for Bart and must stick with it to get to the other side so to speak. Could take 6 months or 2 years but must stay the course.

Ricky ---
I'm with you. I HATE BART. So much that I decided to adjust the title of the thread.

We have all learned that length of your individual treatment depends on several things:
- how long you've gone untreated
- how chronic your condition
- how much you're trying to heal (coinfections, healing the damage done, rebuilding your immune system, gut, hormones, etc...)
- how much of your life you're devoting to your tx
- how healthy you were before you were infected
- how holistic your protocol is (are you covering all the bases of treating the infections, supporting & rebuilding the immune system, detoxing effectively and consistently, healing the other body systems that have been affected)
- have you identified viral loads and treating accordingly
- have you addressed any yeast/fungal imbalances
- diet and lifestyle supports allowing your body to heal

Given my "whole picture" (I'd gone untreated for 16+ yrs) my LLMD suggested I would be in tx 18 months. I nearly panicked. We set up a tx protocol that covered all the bases. She also told me I would need to stop working, which I ignored (to my peril). I'm into my 2nd year and I bet I'm only 1/3 of the way through my treatment. I also finally stopped working and I've become a lot more focused so I'm hoping to wrap this up in 2016. Fingers crossed. We each have a different story.

Also, we started first by knocking out a yeast/fungal overload (mine was pre-existing and couldn't start abx until it was gone), then getting my viral load down and then healing my gut (as much as we could). This took 3-4 months. I share this because I don't think all MDs consider the context for lyme tx as much as they should and aren't paying attention to other demands on patients' immune system so treatment often becomes less effective...and that definitely impacts how long you'll be in tx.

Then I started treating lyme--but knowing what I know now, I wish I had started with bart (and I've recently read that other posters here wish the same). For two reasons:
- I think it was actually my dominant infection
- often, lyme treatment can make bart go a little MIA, but in my case I think it also built up revenge...

But I think my LLMD started w/ lyme tx first because it was easiest to get coverage w/ insurance, etc. I only really started treating bart 1.5 months ago and I would not be surprised if I have another 6 months at least.

Everyone is different but one thing I think we can all agree on is bart is the most complicated and the most stubborn of the 3 most common co-infections. And you won't regret taking your time to really get the job done.

-p

Does anyone have VERY painful feet with bart and mistaken it for Plantar Fascitis??

I'm with you Ricky - bart is my enemy now. Right in line behind IDSA. I know the vanco I'm taking is hitting it but I fear we're just getting started.

Dave & Jenny -
The plantar fasciitis and "walking on shards of glass" feelings are very common bart sx.

This is also weird - (sorry for the repetitiveness as I've told this story a lot on this forum) back in 2013 (before I knew I had lyme & co) I had this nasty sinus infection that brought me to various MDs and urgent care visits and they all kept prescribing different abx (not one of them cultured me). This went on for 13 months and I kept getting worse until it dropped into my chest and then I also had nasty bronchitis. I was so sick.

Then, I finally figured out that it was fungal--not bacterial--and a couple doses of anti fungal nearly cleared up over a year of misery. Idiot MDs. Anyway, one of the abx courses I took was levafloxacin (one of the flouroquinolones), which is a black box abx and known to cause ligament and tendon problems although I knew none of this at the time and was so sick I just did what the idiot MDs told me to do. After taking the levafloxacin, I started developing the foot issues (walking on shards of glass, tingling). Levafloxacin is very effective against bart, apparently. (I was also highly allergic to it but that's not the point of the story...)

I stopped taking it after just 1 or 2 doses and likely went on to another abx--don't remember. And the foot pain eventually subsided. But all those abx courses (some of which are prescribed for lyme, bart, babesia) were stirring up the infections and creating herxes that brought on significantly identifiable lyme & co symptoms. Once I googled what those symptoms meant, I finally realized I might have lyme & co and got myself to an LLMD.

Every now and then the "walking on shards of glass" pain comes back but that whole experience made me wonder if these "dangerous side effects" of these meds are actually related to lyme & co herxes, for which, of course, NO ONE is being diagnosed...

A similar experience occurred when I took Diflucan for the first time--I nearly fainted about an hour later. Didn't connect it to the Diflucan and kept taking it for a few more months and then switched to Ketoconazole--had no other issues except that first dose. Well, my LLMD's nurse freaked out when I told her (way after the fact) about the fainting episode and reminded me that it's a warning side effect of the anti fungal. After thinking about it.. I think it's more logical that the anti fungal hit some fungus in the heart or circulation or whatever and since it works on contact, the immediate die off is what my heart was challenged with and then when my body detoxed it, all was well. Yet, people are told to stop taking the drug if that happens... so how many of these "side effects" are about as well-understood and studied as lyme itself...

I swear, it's really hard to believe in the medical and pharmaceutical industry after everything we've been through. I'm so fortunate that I can (usually) find my own info and this forum has also been a huge catalyst in helping me gain control over what I put in my body!

-p

Post Edited (Pirouette) : 4/29/2016 9:49:23 AM (GMT-6)

Oh - yes. sorry, jenny - thanks for the recipe! I am going to try it. I have issues with taking baths but do foot soaks w/out issue. I was using an interesting detox concoction that I bought at the health food store but I'll try your to see if I get a better result.

I'm like Girlie - my sharp foot pain is only after I've been off my feet for awhile but my feet ache all the time... been like that ever since I contracted lyme & co.

-p

My feet are ice cold all the time, I wear wool socks all the time, even when it's hot outside, I stopped wearing sandals and flip flops, I have bulging veins and my nails have some yellowish colour. They hurt and I have tingling sensations.
Also, they are sweaty, when I touch my socks they are wet, but feet are cold. I thought they must be sweaty because they are hot, but how come when they are ice cold. I dont understand this?