What is a Herxhiemer reaction ....?

When I was at the Biologix Center for a total of three weeks, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Jernigan at least six times - usually in casual conversations and therapy based conversations. He oversees operations there, is available for ideas, and staff doctors see the patients. Dr. Jernigan took the time to sit and explain/try to help me when it was not expected.

In that time and my time at Biologix, I found Dr. Jernigan to be a sincere person who really wants to help people. At the same time, he does make a living at doing so. But, to me, his intentions were always good, and his belief in what is being done at the Biologix Center is strong.

That does not mean the treatment "cured" me, but the attempts to do so were not simply financially based. While I cannot detail what leads me to that conclusion, I can say Dr. Jernigan's generosity went above and beyond what I expected. It was not, at least with me, just money driven. I did see improvements from my visits there, but they have not lasted. Part of that was phage treatments.

Phage treatment did seem to help a lot with EBV, but did not do much for the tick born relapsing fever. That is just being honest. This could have been because you have to find the exact phage treatment to treat an infection, if I remember correctly. I do know the staff made every effort to help, and did not try to raise the cost of treatment to do so. Even a year after my last visit there, I would still receive calls from Dr. Jameson from Biologix asking for updates and suggesting things to try and find an answer. They were courtesy calls.

Garzie posted a very fair post with his words and thoughts. His points are well made and make a lot o sense, so this is not questioning his post. It is simply writing about my experience with Dr. Jernigan and phage treatment. Are there enough phage treatments to treat all the different bacterial infections, including tick born relapsing fever? That is, to me, the biggest possible weakness.

Is Dr. Jernigan's theory on herxing valid? It does make sense, but only time will tell if it is indeed correct. While at Biologix, I met at least 5 people who said the treatment with phages and at Biologix saved them, and they come back to make sure all is still good or to reinforce what good has been done. I'm sure there are other stories that would not have the same results. I'm one of them. But, like so many other options we try in attempting to eradicate or, at least, control Lyme and co-infection symptoms, there are no guarantees.

Dr. Jernigan makes a good living at what he does. So do most all the doctors I've seen over the years. The difference is Dr. Jernigan and staff went WWAAYYY beyond any others have in attempting to treat my problems.

As Garzie wrote, " we would do well to seek independent confirmation" on Dr. Jernigan's statements. That would be the prudent thing to do.

My comments are not to say whether he is right or wrong. They are just observations and thoughts formulated from so much contact with Dr. Jernigan and the Biologix staff. And I have nothing to gain or lose with these comments.

I'm glad there's a term for it. Although yes I agree the mechanism by which it happens is up for debate.

Imagine living before it became known though...
You'd probably be like "this medication isn't working for me, it's just making me worse".
Would be quite difficult.

I agree with the links Girlie posted. The Jarisch Herxheimer Reaction is caused by a spirochete like syphilis and Lyme. I don't know what die-off reactions from other bacteria/parasites are called.

thanks for the input RW - always welcome

for clarification - i didn't mean to imply that Dr Jernigan is being deliberately dishonest - ie promoting something which he knows does not work - fortunately i think there are few people like that in the Lyme world.

more that there is a potential for unconscious bias whenever someone's living or vocation depends on them believing something to be the case.

somebody was once famously quoted as saying
"its impossible to convince a man of something if his salary depends on him not being convinced of it"
which was speaking to this unconscious bias

i think you understood my drift - and i am interested and grateful for your input - but i clarify for anyone else reading

so back to the topic

this theory does seem to explain why bartonella could cause extreme herx like reactions - as are often reported here and in other bart patient groups - even though the bacteria itself has very little lipo-polysaccharides in its outer membrane - which is attributed to be the cause of inflammation in the conventional theory of herxhiemer reactions.

it doesn't seem to do so well at explaining why sometimes a person can experience a herx reaction from treating with abx or herbs which are supposed to stay in the gut - and not be absorbed systemically - unless perhaps enough gets out in these cases t somehow disturb or incapacitate bacteria systemically - and then they get eaten by phagocytes and trigger inflammation.

here i suspect the involvement of immune intolerance to our own gut bacteria in many with lyme disease and co-infections. Which would seem to fit with the above theory
it may also help explain why things like carnivore and gaps diets can work

interesting topic .....

yep - i think the paper he is quoting on that is credible.

the issue is though that all conventional antibiotics work only partially on bacterial biofilm communities - and yet this is the exact form most of the bacteria in chronic infections are in - several papers have documented microcolonies in biofilm in lyme and mixed bacterial biofilms - so by definition abx will only work slowly / partially on chronic infections.

the issue is the bacteria change phenotype when in biofilm colonies - from susceptible to abx when free swimming - to 500-1000x more resilient to them when in biofilm colonies - not because of physical protection provided by biofilm - but because the bacteria residing there have switched off the genes that the abx were targeting.
ergo partial killing is the norm in chronic bacterial infections - and that, along with the fact that these biofilm colonies form a substantial reservoir of infection that has to be broken down seems to increase both the degree and duration of herx like reactions.

maybe some agents disrupt more biofilm than others
maybe some agents cause faster killing than others
i have certainly had some of the worst herx like reactions to herbs vs abx

i recently tried only a small amount of xylitol for just 4 days - which is not anti-bacteria itself - just helps weaken biofilms - but alongside mainly strong herbal antimicrobials - my symptoms were stable before - but i have been suffering increased symptoms for around 1 weeks since stopping after only 4 days at 2g per day of xylitol

this makes me wonder - if you take things that weaken biofilm ( xylitol is supposed to be taken up by the bacteria and used by them to make their biofilm because they think its is a sugar - but because it is not a sugar it does not behave like one in the biofilm structures and they are weakened as a result ) then this weakening of biofilms could be a longer term event.
As biofilms do sustain long term - so its logical to expect weakened ones to be weakened for some time after - ie until their building materials were replaced - meaning more bacteria could be ingested by WBC even for weeks afterward - leading to long term herx reactions

i think this is at the edge of what is known at present