Brucella - Anyone recover from it?

I was diagnosed with it, as well as many other tick-borne infections, and I've healed from it as far as I can tell.

Back when I was diagnosed, I couldn't test positive for any of the tick-borne infections, so I don't have a positive test to point to, only a LLMD clinical diagnosis.

I think those guidelines are likely for acute cases. Dang wouldn't that be great to wipe one of these infections out in 6 weeks!

I am excited to add in Bactrim & Rifampin to see if anything happens. Combos I've tried in past were biaxin/plaq/flagyl, doxy/ceftin/flagyl and Azith/plaq. Based on what I've read they were not the right ones.

Lots of numbness and vibrations/buzzing inside trunk area and legs/feet. Hard to tell what could be brucella and what is lyme, but some other symptoms are: cognitive (memory, word find), fatigue, trouble sleeping, muscle twitching/cramping, low back pain, frequent urination, mild tremor in hands (seems to be better on some days), mild weakness in left leg, jaw tension, tinnitus, heart palps/high heart rate.

I also get a decent amount of headaches, have mild POTS, thyroid issues and adrenal fatigue. I have had night sweats but they are infrequent. More recently, I have begun to sweat excessively if I get slightly nervous. Never had that before.

If I had to pick my #1 symptom it would be numbness.

It seems very similar. I've read an instance where the doxy/rif or mino/rif didn't help until plaquenil was added in. I will be on doxy/bactrim/plaq/rifampin. I did however find this excerpt:

Based on currently available evidence, there is probably a lower incidence of total drug treatment failure in people that take doxycycline plus streptomycin instead of doxycycline plus rifampicin to treat brucellosis. However, we are uncertain whether either one of these two treatment regimens results in people having fewer adverse drug reactions.
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Acs - Hmmm...very interesting! Does your llmd feel it's lyme cross reacting or bartonella? I've also read yersinia, francisella, e coli, some salmonella, and moraxella can all cause false positive IGM on Brucella.

K07, were you diagnosed with all of those through igenex? Thank you!

There does seem to be quite a bit of symptom overlap between bart and brucella. Brucella is often associated with cattle and considered extremely rare (so rare spellcheck on this site doesn't recognize it as a word) While not considered officially tick borne by the cdc, (whatever that's worth) it is found in ticks just as bartonella. The CDC claims that eventhough these pathogens have been found in ticks that there is no proof that ticks can spread them to humans through a bite. Gotta love those CDC guys. They sure do go to great lengths to deny the obvious. More research is needed to prove these are indeed tickborne, but nobody is researching so it's left up to us laypeople to figure it out.

As far as having a positive LabCorp test for Brucella, I'd say that's some pretty darn strong evidence. As you know this isn't some experimental fly by night lab company. LabCorp and quest aren't very sensitive, but are pretty specific. I'd question my LLMD a little further about his cross reactivity theory and research to see if there are any examples of Brucella cross reacting with other bacteria in the literature. May even help to take these results to a ID doc and not mention lyme, as there is not as much controversy about treating Brucella longterm as there is for Lyme for whatever reason.

The doctor who thinks my positive Brucella from Labcorp is a false positive is an ID doctor as well as an LLMD, Dr. J in DC. If I can't trust his opinion I don't know who to trust. He also thinks my positive RMSF is a cross reaction with Ehrlichia, I just did the Igenex test for lyme, Cos and RMSF so we will see what that says. I see my other LLMD tomorrow, not Dr J, I will ask her about doing further testing for Brucella so we can find out if I really have it or not. When I first received the Brucella positive I did a lot of research about it and I have every single symptom, a few of which don't apply to Bartonella.

Acs - we have a lot of similarities with the positive brucella and rmsf. What state are you in? I'm in NC.

I have many of the brucella sx too - in fact when I first got sick and posted here someone alerted me that my sx sounded like brucella.

I also see a well known llmd (dr. H's clinic) and hope they can help me figure it out.

Interestingly, i was bit by a german shepard prior to getting really sick and it had tested positive for erlichia the month it bit me. I have not tested positive for it yet.

Please keep me updated on what you find out. Any suggestions on further tests? I have a local doc I can see as well to figure things out between my llmd appts.

Post Edited (k07) : 8/22/2016 11:40:09 AM (GMT-6)

I am on doxy and just started bactrim. Then adding plaquenil and pulsing rifampin. I am feeling worse than when I was on just herbs. More numbness, internal buzzing, insomnia and down in the dumps with no energy.

I have had 3 neg ehrlichia tests. My rmsf was igg but brucella igm.

Do you have high viruses too? I am on famvir for those (ebv, hhv-6).

Sorry, one more thing - did they say if the 6 week protocol would take care of the brucella if you had it? I hate being on antibiotics already and would like to go back to herbals only very soon. I am still taking the old buhner protocol for Lyme.

Ok, thanks. I did find a study that said brucella should convert to IGG in 3 months. My potential brucella infection is 2 years old so I'm thinking this may be cross reaction.