Bartonella/Methylene Blue= headaches?

Some bartonella strains are reported to express beta-lactamase and are resistant to amoxicillin. If amoxicillin is having no effect, you probably got a resistant strain.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37210378/ found beta-lactamase in a small percentage of bartonella (<2%). I suspect this is not representative of bartonella spread by pet cats that have been given antibiotics.

My experience with bartonella was that many antibiotics had minimal or no effect, but I got a severe herx with certain antibiotics (especially atovaquone/minocycline).

I never tried methylene blue though, and headaches weren't my primary symptom, so I don't know if that's a herx or side effects of methylene blue. I had side effects from cryptolepis, so I didn't take that long enough to find out if it did anything to bartonella.

amoxillin on its own is not a typical drug used for bartonella
it has v little bactericidal effect - but is bacteriostatic

methylene blue seems to be highly active for bartonella and strongly bactericidal in higher doses - see work by Zhang et al at Johns Hopkins - it is also known to act on stationary phase bartonella cultures - which are more representative of chronic infections - and where traditional antibiotics tend to be much less effective.
MB also strongly potentiates some common antibiotics when used in combinations

so it could simply be that amoxillin on its own was having only mid effects - and then adding MB has significantly increased bactericidal effects and caused noticeable herxhiemer type reactions

i found adding MB to my existing regime dramatically increased herx - which for me includes headaches, fatigue, sleep disturbance etc - and i had to introduce at a low dose of around 10mg a day and work up slowly

Garzie said...
amoxillin on its own is not a typical drug used for bartonella
it has v little bactericidal effect - but is bacteriostatic

methylene blue seems to be highly active for bartonella and strongly bactericidal in higher doses - see work by Zhang et al at Johns Hopkins - it is also known to act on stationary phase bartonella cultures - which are more representative of chronic infections - and where traditional antibiotics tend to be much less effective.
MB also strongly potentiates some common antibiotics when used in combinations

so it could simply be that amoxillin on its own was having only mid effects - and then adding MB has significantly increased bactericidal effects and caused noticeable herxhiemer type reactions

i found adding MB to my existing regime dramatically increased herx - which for me includes headaches, fatigue, sleep disturbance etc - and i had to introduce at a low dose of around 10mg a day and work up slowly

This makes sense. I’m on my 4th day of 25mg will increase to 50mg tomorrow. Keeping my fingers crossed.