Coming off Antibiotics

I’ve been wondering when is a good time for me to come off antibiotics. When I come off I notice my fatigue gets worse along with oral thrush. So I feel like I need to go back on antibiotics. I’ve been having some success with magnet therapy (a lot of herxing after my appointments) so I want to try and come off antibiotics and focus on that. But it’s hard when I get so tired coming off of them and feel like I need to go back on!!

Thanks for any input.

Regarding the initial question about when to come off antibiotics: unless there's a reason you need to stop treatment, I believe that one should be largely symptom-free before discontinuing antibiotics. Of course there are alternative treatments that some people may choose instead, but it's pretty well documented now that there is a high change of relapse if you still have symptoms when you discontinue abx.

My personal history is that for years I was on a "maintenance dose" of Malarone for Babesia, and every time I tried to taper off, my symptoms would increase. Eventually I began to doubt myself, and wondered if my remaining symptoms were due to other factors, such as CoQ10 depletion from the continued Malarone use. I stopped the maintenance dose of Malarone, and then relapsed significantly. Still really regret that.

So yeah, as someone whose illness has recrudesced multiple times, my bias is definitely to treat until you're really, really, really sure that you're done.

Thank you for the input. Adam B... how did you know the antibiotics were working and not just keeping things undercover and the lyme (babesis/bart) is coming back as soon as you are off antibiotics? I'm worried the antibiotics are just making the bart/ lyme hide away and not actually killing it and that is why I feel worse when I am off the meds. Should I still stay on them until I can confidently come off of the antibiotics?

Regarding the magnet therapy for USSBainbridge, the first couple months I wasn't positive if anything was happening. When we started working on EBV, I felt like a had a lot of energy for about a week which was great. When we worked on mycoplasma, I has fevers, sweats and swollen lymph nodes. We are now working on rickettsia and I have some swollen lymph nodes. I don't have a lot to show for symptom improvement. However, I do have days now where I am functional and have energy. Which sounds small but I never had energy before so I'm hoping this is a positive sign and the magnet therapy will hopefully work. Please post your progress with magnet therapy because it is hard to find others who have gone through it and it is nice to hear where someone else is at.

@patient166 will do. I’ve heard some close to miraculous stories of patients recovering with magnets. They’re saying after they work on my mycoplasmas I should start to get relief...

Have you heard of any stories or know anyone who got better with magnets?

If I were in your shoes and the antibiotics have given me any benefit whatsoever I would stay on them. But the other side of that is clearly the magnets are doing something given the herxes so if the antibiotics haven't done enough for you, you could say what do you have to lose and go for it... It makes sense in theory to me, but I can only speak for myself and ceftriaxone is the only antibiotic that's helped me so for now I'm planning on staying on it.

How long do your herxes last from the magnets??

Patient166 said...
I’ve been wondering when is a good time for me to come off antibiotics. When I come off I notice my fatigue gets worse along with oral thrush.

What meds are you on/coming off? Any of them antifungals?