Treating bartonella

What treatments for bartonella have you SEEN work? Whether for yourself or someone you know. Very frustrated with this infection.

I tried treating bartonella with rifampin and clarithromycin, but that didn't work. I finally killed it with minocycline + valproate.

It's been about 6 months and it hasn't relapsed. I've had blood tests done, and my bilirubin remains normal. I am quite surprised. I thought it would relapse eventually, but it hasn't.

What is bilirubin Quin?

And what is valproate?

Sounds promising!

Quin said...
I tried treating bartonella with rifampin and clarithromycin, but that didn't work. I finally killed it with minocycline + valproate.

It's been about 6 months and it hasn't relapsed. I've had blood tests done, and my bilirubin remains normal. I am quite surprised. I thought it would relapse eventually, but it hasn't.

How long were you on this combo?

Hey Quin,

I am interested in trying that combo. Question - did u have a bartonella infection entrenched in the skin? All my skin is seemingly deeply infected and becomes very inflamed during treatment.

Would you say u have a very long standing, i.e. many years, bartonella infection?

Immunosuppressive to the point you would repeatedly get covid? That sounds pretty bad.
I tried minocycline for a couple weeks a few years ago, it made me almost suicidally depressed. I suspect it was some kind of herx. Maybe I’ll give it another shot.

The valproate I’m reading is a medication used for bipolar and epilepsy so that’s interesting it would do anything to kill bacteria.

Sounds like the combo was worth it for you in the end.

I was surprised how much trouble I had with covid. I went through several bottles of mepron dealing with that. Atovaquone stops the virus pretty quickly, within a few hours, but if I stopped taking it too soon, the virus would just come back. When I did finally get rid of the covid infection, after some months I would get re-infected again.

Part of the problem is that I have low levels of antibodies in general. This is a common problem with chronic infections, where the immune system just gets kinda overloaded and loses memory of old infections. But other people here also have this problem, and didn't seem to have so much difficulty with covid. I do live in an urban area where I had a lot of exposure to the virus.

The anti-inflammatory effect of minocycline does suppress herxing symptoms, but it's not good to do that too much because it's making the immune system less effective.

The anti-microbial effect of valproate has long been known, eg

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12755481/

Exactly why it works is not totally clear, but it is theorized to disrupt the cell membrane. It's also quite unusual in that unlike most antibiotics, the bacteria don't seem to react to it initially. It slowly accumulates until it becomes deadly to the bacteria, at which point it's too late for the bacterias resistance mechanisms to evade it.

One surprising thing I've noticed recently, is that since I've gotten rid of the bartonella, my immune system reacts much more strongly to the remaining borrelia infection. Even very small doses of abx make me herx a lot. I would assume that this is a good thing over the long term to keep the infection under control, but it's too early to tell for sure.

I've been here long enough to be skeptical of cures. Sometimes people will say they're better, but a year later, they're sick again and back on antibiotics.

I've seen a lot of interest in methylene blue to treat bartonella. Do people actually get better? There are very few reports of success.

Girlie, when you say rifabutin/mino/ceftin was effective, is the bartonella really gone, or does it come back eventually?

I keep wondering if my bart infection is gonna come back. So far, it hasn't.

JaSon2233 said...
What was the herxing like on the valproate minocycline combo?

The herx was crazy bad.

When I took the valproate, for the first few days nothing happened, but after a week or so the bacteria started dying, and the die off became more and more intense.

Borrelia just died from it, causing muscle aches and soreness wherever the bacteria were. Bartonella started to flare up, causing rashes and hemolysis. Once the bart came out, it was vulnerable to minocycline. The dead bartonella caused fevers (herx) and it smelled real bad. The toxins that bartonella releases end up in the bile, and I got painful diarrhea which also smelled bad.

The herx from this was so brutal that I stopped several times and it ultimately took over a year to clear out the bartonella.

I also tried clarithromycin, but the bartonella was resistant to it and just flared up and didn't die, so I went back to minocycline.

interesting observations and experiences Quin - keep 'em coming

Quin said...


I've seen a lot of interest in methylene blue to treat bartonella. Do people actually get better? There are very few reports of success.

ref Methylene Blue - i have done quite a bit of digging into it - and i think its best described as an adjunct to other abx combo's
in vitro work has shown it to be very effective in combination with:
1, azithromycin ( i assume clarithromycin also as they are so closely related but wasn't tested in the same study)
2, rifampicin - again completely eradicating bart biofilms and persister cells - something that v few combo's do ( including the commonly used azithro/rifampicin - or clarithro/rifampicin )

study here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc7149919/

there are some people trying MB on its own in high doses - i see on teh MB facebook group - and i think some in vitro work showing it can be effective against persisters on its own if the concentration is high enough - but i believe that's kind of missing the point that - its very hard to get anything close to these lab experiment in-vitro concentrations in humans in all tissues where the bartonella are - and its the combinations that work synergistically that have the best chance of success with the least chance of adverse events

i am taking 130mg a day in combination with high doses of buhner bartonella and co-infection herbs and an overall program aimed at strengthening my own immune system and i am making encouraging progress - approx. half way back now - but its slow going

i am keen to combine it with some short courses of clarithromycin to see if i can speed things up - but having ongoing heart palpitations / arrhythmias - mainly skipped beats and pounding pulse - so a little wary due to Clarithro's known effect on destabilising heart rhythms

interestingly - my skin has flared up and become more problematic as treatment progresses
- generally texture is rough - no longer smooth
- lots of pores blocked with hard white or yellow material - esp on arms legs flanks - shoulders forehead
- occasional whitehead like inflamed spots - scattered over same areas - slow to heal
- also itchy flaky lesions on scalp and ears

Thanks for explaining Quin.

RainyCloud said...
"flaky lesions on scalp and ears"

I have these too Garzie, interesting.

i have heard real old school doctors who had to figure out what was wrong with people through signs and symptoms - because diagnostic testing was so limited 40 years ago when they trained - say its usually a sign of bacterial infection rather than anything else

i guess that fits with lyme and bart - or any of the other co-s for that matter

Garzie said...
i am keen to combine it with some short courses of clarithromycin to see if i can speed things up - but having ongoing heart palpitations / arrhythmias - mainly skipped beats and pounding pulse - so a little wary due to Clarithro's known effect on destabilising heart rhythms

I took clarithromycin and it didn't mess with my heart too much but I noticed that at times I would feel a little bloated, and other times would pee more. I suspect it was messing with my electrolytes in some way, but it's kinda a subtle effect, and didn't appear grossly abnormal on blood tests (cmp). I could tolerate it, but if you're sensitive to this, you might have problems.

My big problem with clarithromycin was that it didn't work against bartonella. I did get some herxing from borrelia and possibly another infection, but bart was resistant to it. I guess that rifampin plus clarithromycin or azithromycin can work if you get lucky and don't get a resistant strain.

Garzie said...
i have heard real old school doctors who had to figure out what was wrong with people through signs and symptoms - because diagnostic testing was so limited 40 years ago when they trained - say its usually a sign of bacterial infection rather than anything else

I got peeling skin from covid-19, but if you don't have covid, it's probably bart.

Walkthelyme said...
How were you able to tell it wasn’t working against Bart but able to tell it was working on borrelia and another infection?

The bartonella herx is very distinctive, and different from Lyme. I tended to get a fever, dark urine, and stomach pain followed by diarrhea. Where I had skin rashes, it would itch. It also smelled awful.

I took clarithromycin and rifampin for 6 months and it killed some borrelia, but this just caused muscle and joint pain in whatever spots the bacteria were, and I felt tired from the herx. During this time, the bart would flare up occasionally and cause rashes, but mostly remained dormant, and didn't smell very much. I didn't make much progress with this combo of antibiotics, the borrelia didn't go away and the bart eventually came back.

Once I took valproate the bartonella flared up massively. I got a rash and bloody nose. I tried various things to try to get it under control, and when I took minocycline I got a huge herx and it smelled like death. This also caused way worse diarrhea than before. This actually got rid of the bartonella though, and the herxing became less and less over time.