loratadine and valproate

I've noticed that taking claritin (loratadine) seems to disturb borrelia in a way that makes it more susceptible to various antibiotics.

I've been doing this for about 6 months, and have been able to reduce that amount of antibiotics that I'm taking while still making progress against Lyme disease.

Since I've been feeling better I decided to step it up a bit and try to tackle the remaining borrelia infection.

The most potent drug for killing borrelia that I can tolerate is sodium valproate. I've tried disulfiram and that didn't go well, so the next best thing is valproate.

Normally valproate is rather slow acting, taking several weeks to build up sufficient amounts to kill the bacteria. However after stressing the bacteria with loratadine, when I took 500 mg sodium valproate, I got a fairly big herx in about 24 hours.

I've been doing this for about a week now (10 mg loratadine plus 500 mg sodium valproate) and it is causing a pretty intense herx. I tried taking azithromycin and atovaquone one day but it didn't seem to make much difference besides giving me more diarrhea, the herx was about the same. I'm getting some diarrhea either way, which I suspect is due to the phenomenon where the die-off releases antibiotics from long ago which have been trapped in the biofilm or whatever.

The die off seems to come in bursts where I will get really sick for a day or so and then it lets up for a few hours and then I get another big herx. I can't really tell how much more is coming.

I'm not getting a whole lot of side effects from the valproate yet, but I got one small mouth sore which I suspect is some sort of herpesvirus reactivation. Valproate is known to do this, which usually triggers an immune response to the virus, and having used valproate in the past I suspect I've gotten my viral load down quite a bit, but these viruses are almost impossible to eliminate, and I've apparently reactivated something.

I did also get the thing where old scars become inflamed and red. I'm not sure if this is just due to valproate increasing the skin healing response (a known effect) or if there was some borrelia hiding in there.

Valproate tends to make bartonella flare up, but so far I don't seem to have any bart symptoms so I suspect I have already eliminated the bartonella (or nearly so). I might try taking some minocycline just in case there is any remaining bart.

I really hope this fully kills the borrelia infection because this herx is bad enough that there were a few days this week where I barely got out of bed.

I took 100 mg minocycline. It gave me diarrhea, but I'm herxing just as much as before, the minocycline did not seem to change anything. I did not get any signs of bartonella herx, no smell, no dark urine. So I think I already killed off the bart with the last round, which is a good thing because I wouldn't want to deal with a bart herx on top of this already bad herx from killing borrelia.

I'm getting a lot of sweating, hot flushes, and maybe a bit of a fever. I woke up twice last night to pee. I'm guessing that is eliminating some toxin from Lyme. Most of the urine is clear, but occasionally a bit opaque or cloudy. I've noticed this before when I herx and I'm guessing the cloudy urine is some sort of bacterial debris.

I'm really tired and achy, and any time I try to get up and do anything I feel so weak I just want to go lay down.

I feel a little bit of neuro effect from the depakote, it feels a bit like painkillers. Maybe a slight hypomanic effect, but not as much as from disulfiram. It's not that strong of a painkiller either, I can still feel the sore spots in my muscles where the bacteria are dying.

>> "I took more antibiotics (atovaquone, azithromycin, minocycline) 2 days ago and this did surprisingly little. "

Interesting Quin, after I took Alinia I'm having the same response to antibiotics.
Not sure what to think of it either.

I was going to say to keep at it (because when I quit disulfiram prematurely my lyme came back), but the insulin thing is concerning indeed.

Wish I could be of more help. Is there any way you can measure your insulin levels on a daily basis?

Good point Quin, I'll have to see what happens if I go after the dormant ones.

Hope you continue to feel better!

Dr M talks of profound widespread arthralgias in the middle to latter stages of treatment being a key feature of treatment in his bart patients - he puts this down to the formation of "immune complexes" - which i understand to be insoluble products of the immune system reacting with bacteria - once the immune system is less suppressed and capable to do so.
could be that is what is going on ?

what kind of lumps under the skin do you have Quin?

we have a discussion running in a thread called "Gritty Bumps" - where several people here describe hard waxy granules around 1-2mm in size that appear to form in the pores of the skin and either block the pore - or very slowly make their way to the surface where they can be felt as rough spots in the skin as you run you hand over it. if the skin is broken they tend for form small sores that are very slow to heal

so far this seems to be in people who have either confirmed or suspected have bartonella in their system - but its not clear if its something driven by lyme or bart or something else
its seem to get worse when treating bart and lyme though.

I tried taking another dose of claritin. It made the herxing stop for about 24 hours, now the muscle aches and arthralgia are back. Even after not taking any depakote or antibiotics for a week, I am still herxing.

Surprisingly though I did not get a lot of detox, sweating and adrenal stress which borrelia usually causes when I hit it with claritin. So I'm guessing the bacteria are mostly dead, but the debris are still causing inflammation.

I still notice the slight vinegar-like smell when I pee. Where does it come from? Dead borrelia? That's definitely not something I would want to be smelling if I had been taking disulfiram.

The herx just keeps coming. Now I smell like garlic. Apparently borrelia accumulates allicin too.

Maybe? I don't think it's fat, the lumps are very hard.

Valproate did not kill bartonella, it made it more active. When I first took took valproate, the bartonella infection got much worse. At the time I was taking clarithromycin and rifampin, which bartonella turned out to be resistant to. When I switched to minocycline, the bartonella died. I seem to have eliminated the bartonella now. There might be a tiny bit left, it is hard to tell. The bartonella scars are still there.

At first I started with 250 mg per day sodium valproate (or sometimes 500 mg every other day). Recently I upped it to 500 mg every day.

I never took valproate for more than 3 or 4 weeks at a time because it causes a major herx that lasts a very long time. I stopped taking it 2 weeks ago and I am still herxing. It makes me herx even more than disulfiram (but I did not take such a high dose of disulfiram).

I haven't had any significant kidney issues, but the herx causes me to pee out a lot of junk. I often get smelly urine and sometimes slightly cloudy or opaque.

It's been a month since I last took valproate and I am still herxing, although it has diminished a bit. It seems to come in bursts, I suspect when a cyst ruptures it releases a bunch of toxins.

I can't tell if the bacteria are alive or dead. I took some more antibiotics last week and it didn't seem to do much except that minocycline suppressed my immune response for a day or two, then the herx came back.

Strangely one of the herxes smelled like bartonella. I don't seem to have any active bart symptoms so I don't know if this is a reactivation of infection or this is just some long dead bacteria that is slowly dissolving away.

The lumps under the skin are still there and haven't changed much. My muscles still ache in certain spots, so I suspect that's where most of the dead bacteria are.

Should I wait to see if all this dead stuff eventually dissolves away, or should I try something like boluoke?

Quin said...
After being in remission for more than a year, somehow I again got active bartonella.(..) This crap is so frustratingly hard to get rid of.

It feels like it comes and goes. Perhaps it takes years of antibiotics and a maintenance protocol afterwards (just like Girlie does it) to achieve a lasting remission?

JMF84: what's your protocol?