Antibiotics: Why or Why Not? PART 2

My personal opinion is that if they don't work after a few months then they will probably cause more harm than good. I made the mistake of staying on them for almost 2 years and I regret all of it. They only destroyed my GI system and killed my immune system.

I do think that they should be used for a new infection or for people just starting treatment.

Rikky1 said...
I got a better one for you Dude. My wife is also infected with lab positive Lyme, Mycoplasma and by symptoms is believed to also have Babesia and Bartonella. She either got sick from me via sexual transmission or her own tick bite (fairly sure its the former). She's been sick almost a year and she sleeps multiple hours a day on top of night time + all sorts of crazy symptoms.

Wish that black cloud raining on my family would move out to sea sometime...

Man, that totally and completely sucks. I'm so sorry for the suffering your family is enduring. I sure hope your little ones stay in the clear. I've put in a requisition for a gale-force wind to move that black cloud out to sea.

WIND, GALE FORCE, 1 EACH

I submitted it in triplicate with the canary copy going to purchasing, the lavender copy to accounting, and the cornflower copy to marketing.

It's on the way, my friend!

I use antibiotics and herbs. Some herbs have helped a lot. Others were like expensive bottles of foul tasting water. No matter what I take it seems to help for a bit and then I backslide to where I was before. It's depressing and I'm not sure why I am struggling like that. I just want to pull out the big guns. I too have kids that need their mom. I homeschool them and it's been so hard lately. I need to get better.

ChickNorris said...
I use antibiotics and herbs. Some herbs have helped a lot. Others were like expensive bottles of foul tasting water. No matter what I take it seems to help for a bit and then I backslide to where I was before. It's depressing and I'm not sure why I am struggling like that. I just want to pull out the big guns. I too have kids that need their mom. I homeschool them and it's been so hard lately. I need to get better.

"...expensive bottles of foul tasting water..." Funny, but very unfortunate.

You're chronically sick, a Mother, and you homeschool. Wow, that's really, really remarkable. Despite how you may think or feel, I hope you know you're amazing! It takes a special person to battle these infections.

MustardTry bvt with alinia , neem for the filarial...its guerilla warfare por vida eh
i know the trust thing too im two weeks dry of iv abx and expecting shoe or foot to drop ...roceph barely fazes ketes anyways

Mustard Seed said...
The thing I find the hardest is that after 1.5 years of antibiotics, giving up antibiotics now feels like giving up on life.

Buhner hasn't done anything for me personally.
Other supplements and herbals don't make any difference.
Detoxing makes no difference.

I think for myself anyway, stopping antibiotics at this point is akin to saying, ok, I've had enough, you win. That's pretty scary when I'm not even 30.

Mustard Seed: While I can never understand your pain and struggle, I do understand the "...ok, I've had enough, you win..." feeling. I've been there and still occasionally return. You're still so young, though.

Have you tried any of Dr. Jernigan's products?

hansacenter.com/product-category/supplements

While I know there's no magic bullet, Pirouette is right that there are other treatments to try - many of them. I know it can be exhausting. But, I hope you will keep going. You have lots of people that care about you.

Check-out the following, for some varied examples:

bit.ly/2qDfT1n
bit.ly/2rH7f6o
bit.ly/2rHnhNo
bit.ly/2qCT0PC
bit.ly/2rHeH1b
bit.ly/2rHbheK

(Everyone else: Please grant me some artistic license. Trying anything is almost surely better than doing nothing. I know all about doing nothing!)

Personally, I think it's better for most of us to have a coach, since many of us are quite compromised and impaired. I hope you will give it some thought.

Sincerely,
The Dude

abx long term weakens your immune system even more, creates havoc in your intestines and whole mind/body- its not a good option to stick with.

In chronic illness the bacteria are just part of the problem.

I mean I got viral issues, mycoplasma, candida, mitochondrial dysfunction, parasites, and heavy metals including mercury and lead. I also got a damaged thyroid.

Are antibiotics helping for these issues? I will actually say no they are not, and are probably making these other issues actually worse and so it gets to the point where they just aren't helping and need to focus on these other issues instead.

Mustard Seed said...
The thing I find the hardest is that after 1.5 years of antibiotics, giving up antibiotics now feels like giving up on life.

Buhner hasn't done anything for me personally.
Other supplements and herbals don't make any difference.
Detoxing makes no difference.

I think for myself anyway, stopping antibiotics at this point is akin to saying, ok, I've had enough, you win. That's pretty scary when I'm not even 30.

Sorry to hear this MS. You sure it's Lyme and not viral or some other thing? Did you ever respond to abx? Wondering why you have so little response. Buhners had me herxing bad when i first started. The good thing about herbs is plants have to fight everything. So there's something out there for every illness. Just a matter of finding it can be difficult. But i only say that not to push my beliefs on herbs, just to offer a little hope that your options aren't yet depleted.

Wow this community is fantastic! Thanks for all the responses everyone.
I hope it doesn't look like I was trying to take over a thread with some downer comments, I was just ranting after a grind of a day!

bluelyme said...
MustardTry bvt with alinia , neem for the filarial...its guerilla warfare por vida eh
i know the trust thing too im two weeks dry of iv abx and expecting shoe or foot to drop ...roceph barely fazes ketes anyways

Thanks blue. I've tried Alina twice once (once pulsed for longer duration, and once steady for a short duration), but haven't tried bvt. It's on my list of things to do this fall. My neighbor has hives, and he's told me I can use his bees.

Pirouette said...
Mustardseed-

There are other tx to try!! We will not let you give up yet.

Definitely try bvt. That's where I'll be towards end of year I hope.

And there are others... keep posting. We'll figure this out. Have you seen my "when tx isn't working" post?

-p

Thank P. Yup I'm right there with you hoping to do bvt by this fall. Right now I'm focusing on Babesia, but I'll be switching my focus in September if I continue to go without improvement by then.

I haven't seen your "when tx isn't working" post. Do you have a link???

The Dude Abides said...
Mustard Seed: While I can never understand your pain and struggle, I do understand the "...ok, I've had enough, you win..." feeling. I've been there and still occasionally return. You're still so young, though.

Have you tried any of Dr. Jernigan's products?

hansacenter.com/product-category/supplements

While I know there's no magic bullet, Pirouette is right that there are other treatments to try - many of them. I know it can be exhausting. But, I hope you will keep going. You have lots of people that care about you.

Check-out the following, for some varied examples:

bit.ly/2qDfT1n
bit.ly/2rH7f6o
bit.ly/2rHnhNo
bit.ly/2qCT0PC
bit.ly/2rHeH1b
bit.ly/2rHbheK

(Everyone else: Please grant me some artistic license. Trying anything is almost surely better than doing nothing. I know all about doing nothing!)

Personally, I think it's better for most of us to have a coach, since many of us are quite compromised and impaired. I hope you will give it some thought.

Sincerely,
The Dude

Thanks Dude. Thanks for all the information. I'm going to read through those pages now. The only Jernigan product I've tried was the Neuro-Antitox. I actually have only taken about half of the first bottle (I ordered two). At the time it was making me feel worse, and there was too much other stuff going on. Thanks for the reminder though, I'm going to give it another go.

Also, it's a few weeks late but welcome to HealingWell. Reading some of your posts I'm really glad you're posting here!

Girlie said...
Why would you be giving up on abx?
Did I miss something?

Nope, nothing missed!

I was just venting I suppose. Right now I'm on Mepron and Zithro everyday, and then I rotate Bactrim and Flagyl in and out. Then dihydroartemisinin, some herbs, supplements, detox, etc. I'll probably stay on these Babesia medications until the fall, unless my LLMD wants to try something like Mefloquine at that point.

Otherwise, in the fall, I'd like to try a combination surrounding Doxycycline and Flagyl. I've only been on Doxy for a total of 2 months thus far, and after seeing how strongly the cystic Borrelia react to Flagyl under the microscope, I really want to pair it with a good spirochete killer (maybe amox as well). I've treated Bartonella with Levaquin and Rifampin for a total of 9 months, and Babesia with Malarone and Mepron for a total of 9 months now (with some massive herxing on Babesia meds), so it may be time to change focus once again. I have a couple months to decide.

Psilociraptor said...
Sorry to hear this MS. You sure it's Lyme and not viral or some other thing? Did you ever respond to abx? Wondering why you have so little response. Buhners had me herxing bad when i first started. The good thing about herbs is plants have to fight everything. So there's something out there for every illness. Just a matter of finding it can be difficult. But i only say that not to push my beliefs on herbs, just to offer a little hope that your options aren't yet depleted.

Hey Psilo!

I know I have Lyme, I can see it under the microscope and the Igenex was positive. Whether the infection is actively creating my symptoms or it's something else, that anyone's best guess at this point.

My EBV test did come back positive. I don't know if/how I should be dealing with this. I don't even know if it's active, or what the symptoms would be. I do know that the majority of people contract it at some point in their lives. Unsure how to proceed here.

There hasn't been any antibiotic that has made me feel better, but there's a few meds/herbs that make me feel worse, most notably Babesia meds. Unfortunately no improvement after the feeling crappy periods.

I've toyed with about 80% of the Buhner protocol for several months at a time. The only herbs I omitted were the cytokine remodulators, as they had significant interactions with certain antibiotics I was on. Also skipped the gelatin. This fall I'll likely go all out on it, since I still have most of the herbs, and am currently doing a handful of them. I really enjoyed his book.

Sorry for the long post!

Psilociraptor said...
Hmmm... when you took the babesia meds did you take large doses? Sometimes i find that the only benefit is in taking doses JUST above the herx threshold and then adjusting, increasing dose slightly and so on. Sometimes heavy herxing is catalytic and doesn't lead to healing. So i've found for myself. So i go in small increments and allow myself to heal between each one. That's the only way i've survived the treatments i've done. I almost gave up after four different tries on the minimum recommended dose having such bad reactions i thought i was going to die. But i tried microdosing and working up slower and that did the trick. All the same side effects but rather than escalating with runaway inflammation they were less intense and subsided after a few days.

That's interesting about the EBV. There is some in vitro work showing that borrelia enhances the reproduction of EBV. So it's a possible coinfection in many of us.

Ya I've always found the EBV thing intriguing. I always think of EBV as causing a lot of fatigue and lethargy, which I don't really have.

Ya I usually go up fairly slowly. For instance it took me several months to get from 5 - 30 drops TID of MC-BAB-2.

Similarly, my Atovaquone dosage was originally 250mg BID (Malarone), and that seemed to almost kill me at first. The chills in particular were ridiculous. I now do 6x that dosage (Mepron) and don't find it nearly as bad.

Same goes with Cat's Claw... this stuff knocked me over at 1/4 tsp TID, but now I can do 1 tsp TID with no ill effect.

Yeah i hear you on the patience. I wake up some days like "i think i'm going to do a bit of healing today" almost like "i think i'm going to do a bit of reading today" and then quickly remember it doesn't work like that... 1 dose every six hours... wait for the next... maybe we'll be there in a year. I just want to bust out the tinctures and be like "bam, bam, bam! kapow!*rapid fire*". But this is such a passive slow moving process...