Treatment reaction as diagnosis?

This might be a stupid question, but:

If you are having a bad reaction while on abx / herbs for an undiagnosed TBD, is that a 'positive' sign that you have toxins and die-off? Or is it just the reaction to the abx?

If you go off abx / herbs for 24 hours and still feel bad, does that rule out it being just a drug reaction and make it more likely the toxins irritating you are die-off related?

Of course, this is after you've ruled out other issues with MRIs / specialists / bloodwork / nerve conduction studies, etc.

Thank you

Thanks Girlie for all the feedback I really appreciate it

Some symptoms last two days are familiar to months ago: feel like I ran a marathon and my legs are super lightweight, swallowing slows down, head pressure and headache. Or burning tongue in various ways

Some are new (or maybe I forgot) like hiccuping for no reason for 5 minutes.

What you’re describing does sound like a herx.

Do Epsom salt baths help? They were the most helpful for me when I herxed.

Drink lots of water.

Fresh squeezed lemon juice in water.

Alka Seltzer “gold” is supposed to help - although it didn’t work for me.

Nutramedix Pinella and Burbur.

I have been taking detox like activated charcoal and burbur Pinella but it doesn't seem to help much

Feels like every day I'm hover around the same level of bad / maybe getting worse

I dunno if this means in on the wrong track, and I know it'll take me weeks and more tests and I've rules everything out and I don't know where to look next.

This HAS to be it. It HAS to be some infection, HAS to be a bad reaction to it. I have no other possibilities I feel but I feel like dying every night

I haven't had exposure to mold I don't think I lived in a house with others who seem healthy

Tremors are back, leg fatigue trouble walking and some kind of shock after ashwagandha

Spent the night in the ER again **** me I'm dead

Somebody said...
This might be a stupid question, but:

If you are having a bad reaction while on abx / herbs for an undiagnosed TBD, is that a 'positive' sign that you have toxins and die-off? Or is it just the reaction to the abx?

Sorry to hear that things have gotten so bad, but it's an excellent question and I don't think anyone can have a solid answer very often.

In my opinion LLMDs are often too narrow in their assumption that the pathogens targeted are being killed.

My view (kinda a step backwards) is that all Lyme symptoms are ultimately caused by pre-existing or ongoing inflammation and that if an intervention causes an increase in our usual symptoms, all we know is that it has flared that inflammation. A major flare is always bad. I think that any respectable LLMD would tell you to slow down or stop treatment if it is causing you to go to ER. A minor flare may be good in the long run, maybe bad, or perhaps neither.

I also don't think you need to worry so much about pathogens gaining more of a foothold while you're not treating as they are already in a sort of balance with your immune system. I'm not really familiar with your history, but it may be best to stop all treatment for a couple weeks while focusing on healthy lifestyle habits to see where that balance truly has you, and then slowly add in treatments from there. If using herbs I would suggest starting with the milder immune modulating ones and going low and slow. Some of them might even make you feel better without the initial struggle

What I'm wondering about is in the upcoming days when I'm not treating and feel symptoms I'll be thinking have I let this infection whatever it is regrow?

What if it's something more aggressive than the others? What if it regrows stronger?

Sigh. I'm so sick of being sick.

AST and ALT are measures of liver functioning, not inflammation. You can have massive inflammation with normal AST and ALT.

With the severity of symptoms you have, you really should seek out a Lyme and mold literate medical doctor.

These practitioners with ISEAI are mold and Lyme literate:
https://iseai.org/find-a-professional/

ILADS can send you a list of LLMD’s.

You can start a new post “Looking for Practitioner near ____” and list the city, state, or area where you are able to travel.

How many days of this hell do I have to look forward to?

If someone is taking antibiotics and herbs that kill Lyme and having all of these horrible symptoms then the most likely conclusion is that they are herxing. 1 + 1 = 2 and it doesn't make sense that it's just "inflammation" at all.

Take a look back at OP's other thread and all of the things they were taking:

//////
I'm about 5 weeks into treatment, and it's been pretty crapty still but some days are good, and symptoms return. Is this normal? What am I missing? My treatment so far:
+ 5 weeks of doxy (2x 100mg a day)
+ 5 weeks of buhner / samsara herbs (knotweed, cat's claw, houttynia, crytolepis root and leaf)
+ 4 weeks biofilm breaker powder (bumeric, sparaganium, stevia) off amazon
+ 2 weeks of cowden protocol (banderol / samento / bulbur pinella)
+ 3 days of pulsed artemisinin a week, week 3
+ just started day 2 of rifampin 300mg 1x a day
+ activated charcoal

https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=4261983
////////

YOU NEED A LLMD.
I personally would stop treatment and detox if you feel like you're dying. That is what I did. The infection is not going to get worse if you stop treatment temporarily.

orbitingaround: herxing would be a subset of the more general "inflammation" that I was referring to

Thanks all for your feedback

I'm at the ER again to maybe get detox help and ask about a muscle relaxer to sleep

Can't detox if I don't sleep, can't sleep if I don't detox.

Left all my burbur and activated charcoal stuff at home, those didn't help much either.

I don't think the stuff here applies to my body unfortunately. Ashwagandha yesterday for example caused me to flare up REALLY BAD even at like < 100 mg. 31 yr old asian male fyi