Herbs & bartonella resistance?

At the start of this month I switched back to antibiotics. Minocycline & clarithromycine. Before the switch I was taking Sida Acuta & Houttuynia. A ton of my bartonella symptoms had disappeared but I felt like I hit a plateau so I switched.
After two weeks a lot of my symptoms starting coming back, I figured there must have been antibiotic resistance and switched back to the herbs. But now I feel they don't work anymore either. I know some of you will say I need to give it more time but no, I'm 95 % sure what I feel isn't a herx. It feels different. It's all the crap that was gone coming back and getting worse every day.
I'm not sure though, is that even possible? I thought Buhner said resistance wasn't possible with herbs.

Also not sure what to do if I'm right.

resistance to clarithromycin is reported less often than azithromycin
similar situation i think with minocycline and doxycycline - mino seems to be more effective for bart

i know rifampicin needs only a single small genetic mutation to render the bacteria tolerant / resistant - so that one is advised not to be used as a stand alone therapy for bart - not so much the others

there will be people here that feel their bartonella is resistant to both clarithro and minocycline - but according to all the papers i have read - documented resistance of bart to both mino and clarithro when given together is v rare indeed in the scientific literature.

bart is just a very difficult organism to eradicate - that part is clear

it is also known to cause relapsing remitting or undulating type symptoms in some people - so it could be due to some kind of flare despite the abx

i think abx ( in fact all treatments we have at the moment ) just grind it down very gradually rather than wipe it out in a few weeks

also if that combination of abx was effective before - and then those drugs were taken away - there would be no natural selection pressure for the bacterial population to develop resistance in the period that the abx were withdrawn -
and in fact when the abx are removed from resistant populations - the lab experiments show that the resistance genes may actually be easily lost again ( gene mutations always have a cost as well as benefits to the organism and are not normally maintained if the benefits are no longer realised )

i suspect something else is going on

exactly what - i cannot say
possibly - and i am just making guesses here
that antibiotics are known to suppress the immune system
i have not tracked down the exact mechanisms of this but it seems to be a known feature of abx treatment that 1, some cytokines are suppressed ( macrolides and tetracyclines both do this ) - and cytokines are the master regulators of immune function - so its possible cytokine suppression is in some way turning down the immune system in a way that herbs were not.

2, i have also read that abx therapy causes a reduction in neutrophils ( white blood cells that fight bacteria ) but not necessarily to alarming levels - but still significantly reduced from normal - i am unsure if this is from the above cytokine related mechanism or something else

a couple of weeks might be around the kind of time frame for these things to happen - and if that was the case could feasibly cause a flare in symptoms

just brainstorming ideas

Great points Garzie! As I'm sure you already know Bartonella also makes persister forms (and biofilms) to a greater extend than Lyme does. The persister form is especially difficult for abx to get to. Bart will also lower Th1 so the immune system isn't really fighting it as well as it normally can. In addition to the points you made above. It's a mess. I think you're on to something.

Just to add a bit of information here:
Buhner is right, it's very rare for any bacteria/virus/parasite or whatever to build resistance to "whole herbs". I specify whole herbs because some use herbs that have certain constituents removed (example: Cat's claw vs Samento). While there may be a time and place for using herbs that are no longer considered a 'whole herb' extract or whatever form, most of the time we need to use whole herbs. Here's why -

The whole herb will usually have between 100 - 300 different constituents (think chemicals for lack of a better word), all of which usually do something to help the body. Compared to pharmaceuticals, which only have one or two (unless it's compounded with others, but is still very limited), it's really amazing.

I don't know about now, but I know that a few years ago, combining abx and herbal protocols was a completely normal thing. I was one of those that couldn't use pharmaceuticals while healing from these infections. I discovered it was because the herbs gave my body a lot better support.

Quin said...
I had bartonella that was resistant to clarithromycin, but not minocycline.

I later found that adding mepron restored its susceptibility to clarithromycin.

Amantadine and hydroxychloroquine can have similar actions. Here's why:

"It has been suggested that when Bb is within a cell, it is held within a vacuole and bathed in fluid of low pH, and this acidity may inactivate azithromycin and clarithromycin. Therefore, they are administered concurrently with hydroxychloroquine or amantadine, which raise vacuolar pH, rendering these antibiotics more effective."

Vimzor said...

I was under the impression Bartonella is one of the most difficult things to get rid off. And that disulfiram doesn't kill Bartonella, just aggravates it.

Yes, disulfiram will aggravate bartonella, but once the bartonella becomes active it is easier to kill with other antibiotics. Disulfiram + minocycline + rifampin was discussed here:

https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=4198587

I couldn't tolerate disulfiram so I took valproate instead, and found valproate plus minocycline quite effective. Valproate plus atovaquone and clarithromycin or azithromycin was also quite effective. The limiting factor was the severe herx.

As for how hard it is to get rid of, I had it relapse after about a year. So while I've found it very treatable, to the point where I no longer have any symptoms, it's hard to know if you've fully eliminated it.

Quin said...
"

That quote is from Burrascano, but he was referring to borrelia:

https://www.ilads.org/research-literature/leading-research/advanced-topics-in-lyme-disease-by-dr-joseph-burrascano-pdf/
.

True - but we now know Bartonella also live mainly within vacuoles inside human cells - so the same could well be true for them