herx reaction confirmation?

Hello!

Its been a long journey for me. Initially I hurt my back about 2 years ago what seemed like nothing serious just felt week bending over. A couple months later I got pertussis (whooping cough). And my back blew up unbelievably tight. Finally got MRI's and xrays no one could tell me what was wrong. Said my back looked fine. Figured it would get better on its own. It never did at about the 6 months mark I started to have stabbing pains in my hips weak legs and burning feeling in my thighs. Tingling in my feet. Went to a neurologist, rheumatologist, endocrinologist no one could give me an answer all my tests came back normal. Had more xrays/mris no nerve is pinched. After 2 years of this I had a lyme test done at my insistence. The ELISA test came back positive and the Western Blot was positive on band 39 only. Ive had several tick bytes treated once and find ticks on me several times a year. I live in the northeast. Im waiting to see a LLMD doctor in May now the other doctors are dismissing my test results. I have some other strange symptoms muscle twitching in face at times, cold body temp at times some fatigue although not ridiculous.

I started the Buhner protocol all I have taken is the Japanese Knotweed 1/8 tsp three times a day day 5 now. Ive noticed my back and legs start to hurt more within 20-30 minutes of taking it and my face twitches a bit more.

Is that a sign that I have some type of Lyme infection in those areas? I would think a allergic reaction would be more whole body.

Thanks everyone.

Hi, skinny_joe!

Try not to get too hung up on testing. Testing is notoriously unreliable to the point that some LLMDs consider Lyme (and co-infections) to be clinical diagnoses, based on signs and symptoms rather than bloodwork. Also keep in mind that tests only look for specific strains, and in the borrelia genus alone there are dozens of species capable of causing illness in humans; despite this, most people are only tested for borrelia bergdorferi in the U.S. and often aren't tested for any co-infections. Definitely worth looking at your symptoms with a qualified healthcare practitioner with significant Lyme experience. (Many of us use "Lyme" as a catch-all term for various tick-borne infections.) Specialists who are not well-versed in Lyme generally will tell you that you're fine, since in terms of the disorders they are familiar with, you are. :-/

Your reaction to the Japanese knotweed sounds like a pretty straightforward neuro herx to me. Personally, I would keep the dose low until those symptoms subside, and then increase slowly. Do plenty of things to soothe inflammation and help the bacteria being killed move out of your body ASAP. There are countless threads on here about detox and herxing, and feel free to start a new one if you need more ideas. I'm in the Northeast, too, if you need any regional recommendations.

Good luck!

Coolio278 said...
All I needed to hear is the twitching. Unexplained twitching is lyme 100%. Before my lyme symptoms showed up I would get a few twitches a year (I think everyone gets them once in a while) but now I get several per day. It's getting less and less but before antibiotics I was getting over a 100 all around my body. I think it's called beneign fascilliation syndrome or something like that.

Benign fasciculation syndrome is when there isn’t a known cause - ie idiopathic - BUT this is caused by an infection - ie lyme.