Bartonella nothing working!!

Anyone have any success in treating bartonella?? I just came off rifabutin and clarithromycin and it has gotten worse. But I can’t go back on antibiotics because I have Candida issues and I don’t want to just keep going on antibiotics when they are only working a little. I’m also doing IVIG right now and I can’t do herbs because of mast cell issues I have. I feel like nothing is working at all.

I was on it for around two months. And because I didn’t feel any noticeable change on it we came off and decided to add back the fluconazole since you can’t take fluconazole and rifabutin together. How long were you taking antibiotics for it to get better?

Did you take anything else for bartonella that helped??

Patient 166, just curious, how do you distinguish between Candida and Bartonella symptoms? There seem to be a few areas of overlap that I've seen on symptom lists for both - fatigue, irritability, brain fog, muscle twitching, etc.

I am nearly certain I had a serious Candida problem pre-Lyme and have had difficulty separating that out from my Bartonella symptoms (especially now that my "unique" Bartonella symptoms have seemed to lessen with herbs).

Yes it I was tested for it and had very small amounts (The kind you get from food)... still went on medication for it and noticed no difference.

Post Edited (Patient166) : 9/10/2020 10:15:05 PM (GMT-6)

Patient, what are your main symptoms?

There’s some good comments already on here.

I’d take a mycotoxin urinalysis to role out mold. Do a provocation first as you may not be detoxing.

Then maybe work on the MCAS and then candida. Then go to bart.

I wouldn’t say two months is always long enough to see improvements. I’m just coming off of 5 of rifampin / azithromycin. Also doing buhners herbal protocol.

DNRS is also helpful.

i think it's just a tough one to get rid of and especially so when co-infected with lyme - which seems to be a high proportion of the chronic Lyme community.

the issue seems to stem from the fact that Bart forms persister cells and all the antibiotics commonly used to treat bart in people are found to have a limited effect on these persisters. Bart also suppresses the immune system - weakening its ability to clear the organism ( and other organisms that you may be carrying)

either at least 4months of combined antibiotics ( combos of 2 or 3 or more ) as a minimum
or at least 2 months after symptoms resolve.

I had to break after 3 months due to liver issues - and had improvement but not fully resolved

there are some herbal approaches that many people seem to benefit from
Buhner herbs - sida acuta, Houttuynia, etc ( i am following this approach now)
there are also Byron White formulas, nutramedics etc

but i favor Buhner because he gives his information freely and is not linked to a product and it is also some of teh most thoroughly researched and well-presented material on the subject i have read.

there are studies showing L-arginine can reverse many of the changes bart instigates and that it may be useful in fighting a chronic infection - so i am using 4-5g of that a day also.

overall - it seems apparent that to clear such difficult infections its not just a case of popping a pill -= but we have t do everything we can to, rebuild the immune system and restore health.

this seems to point towards a comprehensive program of diet, lifestyle, sleep, gut health, exercise, hormone balance etc to remove as much load from the host as possible so it can fight off the pathogen.

many of us here are on this type of program - progress can be made but it is often slow and steady.

Patient166, I get a coated tongue at times with my infections but don't think it is connected to yeast. Thinking it's related to reflux caused by infection because of improvement when infections successfully treated. It sounds like sometimes the infections can cause MCAS and treating the infections (or mold, etc) will resolve it.

I can't remember if you have any other infections like Babesia? Babesia can get in the way of successful treatment for other infections. I've had only slight improvement with Rifampin and Biaxin but took Ivermectin and have had significant herx with improvement. The Ivermectin could be hitting Babs?

Girlie, did Rifampin/Minocycline or Rifampin/Biaxin work better for you?

I got curious about whether the oral thrush could be something else, and just a very basic search showed lots of possibilities I wasn't aware of. A coating on the tongue would indicate candida to me normally, but just in case: https://www.mayoclinic.org/symptoms/white-tongue/basics/causes/sym-20050676

May as well post this link to a Dr. J interview...he discusses Babesia and importance of treating it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wde0l-5ykvi&app=desktop

Patient166 said...
I usually think of my symptoms increase at the same time my oral thrush is worsening... it’s probably a Candida issue. Also, when pain on the soles of my feet is in the mix of worsening symptoms i guess that it’s bartonella. I guess the symptoms are different for everyone though so I don’t know if that helps

I used to think the foot pain was bart, too. Then I got relief from it after clearing some gut pathogens with antifungals. I was shocked. Even Shoemaker identifies sore feet, especially in the mornings as a CIRS symptom.

Mold/yeast/fungal stuff can cause it, too.

Cignet said...
Any infection could cause it but babesia might be the one letting that infection get a foothold. Look here. I've found the same thing being said on the forums as well. I will post a few of them, you can see how things go yourself. It's just an observation I've made now, that is too hard to ignore now.

Look up "malarone" and "rowingmom" and "sebreg" in the search bar you will find these posts.

https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=3335348#gsc.tab=0

rowingmom said...
With the addition of malarone to the bartonella abx our daughter was taking, she experienced improved cognitive/executive function, but not an improvement of the last 20% of the bartonella pain symptoms we had been looking for.

She did not herx with malarone, but did with CSA - overt babesia symptoms that we had never seen before, and indeed we didn't know she had babesia until she took CSA.

So, for our daughter, malarone helped cognitive function but didn't produce a babesia herx like CSA did; and didn't give us the resolution of bartonella symptoms that were obviously the result of an undiagnosed, underlying babesia infection that CSA did.

https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=3470163#gsc.tab=0
"Asymptomatic babesia, treatment resolves 'bart' symptoms."

I'll try to find more, but this is a trend I'm seeing that's too hard to ignore. Especially given that I have treated with rifampin, mino and all the others for bartonella, only to get sicker, not herxing but actually sicker...

I'm not saying dont pursue it- definitely do- but I thought the same. Bartonella treatment gave me no improvement and everything pointed to babesia so I went to Dr J, treated lyme and babesia and still saw no improvement. Im pretty focused on mold & biotoxins now