what to expect from bartonella treatment?

Hi!

I would like to ask the experts: how long should one treat bart, until the symptoms get better, or disappear?
What to expect from treatment? Is there a herx from bart? Do the symptoms get worse and if so, for how long before it starts to get better?

Thank you!

I've been treating Bart with Abart for about 2 months. I've had major Herx. My fatigue, brain fog, dizziness, and swelling have all increased dramatically. I'm hoping it will lighten soon. Good luck to you!

I have used a lot of those things you mention bluelyme. I'm also a bit of a throw the kitchen sink at this stuff mentality, especially for the difficult cases. I like the idea of first explore your basic frontline conventional therapies and then build up from there. I was surprised how effective alinia was for me.

I've never tried propolis. Any particular brand you recommend?

In regards to treatment length so hard to say. Depends patient to patient. Can be a while though unfortunately. My case of bartonella is tenacious as heck, but I've had it a long time. Personally I'm pretty highly certain bartonella is my main infection driving disease, and I herx a lot whenever I target it with antimicrobials. Two camps on bartonella herxing, one says it doesn't happen based on the biochem, another says it does. Both camps have solid experts, maybe it depends on the species and strain and patient genetics, but personally I lean towards bartonella can definitely cause herxing.

Post Edited (sebreg) : 4/27/2017 11:16:51 AM (GMT-6)

Yeah alinia I def herxed from and it helped, but that's the thing that's so hard to say. It may have been hitting lyme or some sort of underlying protozoal infection as well? I hesitate to say it hit bartonella, I have no clue if it can work for that infection. Supposedly it is a good antiviral, anti-parasitic, and good for lyme especially cyst form I think. Not curative for me but just one of those meds that pushed me along a bit! It is quite a safe drug too from what I understand.

I've def heard of patients who herx from treatment for bart, and I've also heard the opposite as well. If we had gold standard diagnostics (also measuring pathogen titers) we could better establish what infections are in the mix and which infections are getting hit and causing these reactions. Because one thing that could happen is I might think I'm herxing from bartonella but the med is actually hitting another underlying infection which is the actual cause of the flare... my intuition for my case, and I feel quite confident about this, is that it is bartonella causing these herxes but I can't be 100% sure of that given the murkiness of it all!

It's interesting, I think this is a pattern for quite a few patients, we are on a particular antimicrobial or set of antimicrobials and after a certain point we reach diminishing returns and plateau, maybe the meds keep the infections in check but then you need some fresh rotations to hit the infections from a new angle. That's been a pattern for me for sure.

Good luck with your bart treatments! do you know what you will be taking treatment-wise for that infection?

Rikky1 said...
rotational abx approaches is not a new concept. brian rosner actually believes in this along with using rife machines to continue to throw different things at it. bart is a tough mudder for sure.

Heck yeah I think rotations are often needed in many of the cases, def not a new concept! Especially good strategy for the more difficult, intransigent cases. Bart can be such a monster. I also wonder if I'm having some success with the rife because it is able to reach the pathogens that are holed up and sequestered in difficult areas that are hard to reach for antimicrobials. Or maybe it is helping empower the antimicrobial therapies as well, weakening or exposing the bart??... either way, I'm liking this combo for my case.

that's what I hate with these diseases is it can be incredibly hard to get clarity and figure out what is what.

I tend to herx quickly, as in 30min-1 hr after I take something. But I thing that is somewhat atypical. For a while though I couldn't establish my herx patterns because I was so sick and symptoms were so overwhelming I was in a sea of sickness, I constantly felt terrible.

I know quite a few people herx hard some weeks into their treatment. Did you have flare-ups like this before antibiotic treatments? I don't want to say everything is a herx because it's easy to just assume that and then make some mistakes, but in your case it could very likely be a herx. I think it is a good idea to wait for things to settle down before throwing another abx into the mix!

Houttuynia doesn't make me herx much either... some herbs make me herx but that one not so much. Sometimes it's hard to know what to make of these things!

Good luck!!! hope things calm down soon.

Thank you for the answers!

Sebreg, I don't know really... These symptoms flare-up also when I end treatment, so therefore I guess this is a flare-up - or at least it resembles a flare-up.

Since then I waited for 2days until my body calms down and took 3days zithro (a week course) and tetracycline. Then my small intestines had major pain, so I suspended tetracycline for 2days now. Systemic and neuro symptoms are controllable for now, but increasing.

God, I don't know, what will be the end of this...

sebreg said...
that's what I hate with these diseases is it can be incredibly hard to get clarity and figure out what is what.

I tend to herx quickly, as in 30min-1 hr after I take something. But I thing that is somewhat atypical. For a while though I couldn't establish my herx patterns because I was so sick and symptoms were so overwhelming I was in a sea of sickness, I constantly felt terrible.

I know quite a few people herx hard some weeks into their treatment. Did you have flare-ups like this before antibiotic treatments? I don't want to say everything is a herx because it's easy to just assume that and then make some mistakes, but in your case it could very likely be a herx. I think it is a good idea to wait for things to settle down before throwing another abx into the mix!

Houttuynia doesn't make me herx much either... some herbs make me herx but that one not so much. Sometimes it's hard to know what to make of these things!

Good luck!!! hope things calm down soon.

I did have daily flares prior to any treatment...so sometimes for me it's difficult to assess what is what