Which Treatment Affected You the Worst - Lyme, Babesia, or Bartonella?

For those who have been treated with multi drug regimens for all 3 B’s, which infection’s treatment was the hardest for you to tolerate in terms of herxing and/or drug side effects?

Bartonella/Persisters

I had severe herxing on that protocol - emergency room visit worthy. (very close to going to the ER.)

Non-specific: biofilms.

Though if I have to pick of those 3, it's probably Babesia for me.

running wild said...
Bartonella. I had very little negative reactions when I used Bicillin to treat borrelia and got so much better. Bart has been a total different story.

What drugs did you use to treat bartonella? Did you do any treatment for babesia?

running wild said...

Because of my kidneys, I have been very limited in what I can take. I’ve taken weaker drugs for Bartonella, such as Doxy, Amoxocillin and even gave Bicillin a try, but mixing antibiotics has been a problem because of kidneys.
.

for what its worth RW - penicillin's like amoxillin and bicillin should in theory have activity against bartonella - indeed studies done in vitro in the lab often show that it is

the problem is that these drugs when used in animal or human trails rarely prove successful

this is a known issue with correlation between bartonella in vitro activity and real world en-vivo trials that applies to most antibiotics

most older papers seem to leave it there - without going further into why this is the case - the explanation seem to be linked to the findings by Zhang et all in the last few years that found radically different activity against growing phase bartonella cultures and "stationary phase" bartonella cultures - where stationary phase refers to the population of bacteria no longer growing exponentially - but maintaining constant numbers - and is associated in many species with biofilm and persister cell formation.

we now also know that Bartonella does indeed form biofilms - again raising the likelihood that it also forms persister cells.

this is significant as cell wall protein inhibiting drugs such as penicillins will only be active when the bacteria are trying to grow new cell walls - and since persister cells are not growing - cell wall drugs can have only limited effectiveness against them

this is not quite the same thing as saying that penicillin's are entirely ineffective against bart.
they still could be just enough to swing the battle in favour of the host immune system in some cases.

its more the case that, in real world infections, the organism has ways of evading their action such that they are not one of the recommended antibiotics for bart.

its actually quite a similar story for several of the common bart drugs - doxy, azithro, etc - and we know start to understand why persister drugs are so important in bartonella treatment

Blazer i think i mentioned on your other thread that Lyme can cause antibodies to viruses in the herpes family - EBV, CMV, HSV1 etc - and this may mean that LTT can also cross react in a similar way

i don't think we have the research data to know either way at this point - the LTT manufactures will probably deny its a possibility - but logically, since in both cases the body is just detecting proteins - i think it highly likely

its worth remembering that they thought antibody tests were entirely specific for decades before they started to work out that some species of bacteria, viruses and protists cross react.
we have had no-where near the time and volume of research on LTT's - that it took to uncover this in antibodies - so its just too early to say with any certainty that its doesn't with LTT's in my view

its not possible to determined which is responsible by serology alone

unusually high titres - or unusual patterns of reactivity could be clues to this going on

one other option is - you can also have PCR tests for CMV which should easily detect copies of the virus if it is truly replicating enough to drive symptoms.

Astro said:

“ In my case, I have no idea. My LLMD really just treated for the most common tick infections in this area without putting much trust if any on testing. Well, unless your symptoms were very much an obvious specific infection.”

Well that’s pretty much what Dr J does. He treats you for Babesia and then Bartonella - which also treats lyme with those abx.
He doesn’t bother with testing

running wild said...
Because of my kidneys, I have been very limited in what I can take. I’ve taken weaker drugs for Bartonella, such as Doxy, Amoxocillin and even gave Bicillin a try, but mixing antibiotics has been a problem because of kidneys.

I want to get back in lower dose of Bicillin as some say it can also hit Bart, which others argue. The crazy price is the problem, and ordering through a company in India Rainy suggested has become a confusing process because of payment method.

It's possible to treat bartonella even if you have kidney or adrenal problems. I described what I took for bartonella here:

https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=4315526

None of those drugs affected my kidneys, except maybe clarithromycin, but I was able to use azithromycin and minocycline instead.

I never found amoxicillin or cephalosporins useful for bartonella.

Garzue - I have always wondered if the serrapatase I took the whole time I was using Bicillin before I got better helped with the biofilm to allow killing. That has been a confusing item for me - feeling close to normal after 18 months or so of Bicillin, serrapatase and Argentyn 23. Think the serrap. acated as a biofilm buster?

Quinn - Thank you for that information. I have an appointment with my doctor Nov. 20 and will bring up what you posted.

Rifampin treatment for bartonella hurt my body badly.
Tanked my thyroid function, which has not recovered.
I developed a large painful kidney cyst while I was on it, not resolved.
Developed many painful cysts on feet and hands that have not resolved.

Thank you WBF.
Lumbrokinase does help.

Thanks garzie i will keep it in the Back of my head. As for now i dont have much to loose and Just want to give valaciclovir a Shot because i really cant get much worse anyway...

Quin said...
If you decide to treat herpes viruses, be aware that I found borrelia to be very susceptible to valacyclovir, and in vitro research suggests that it is also susceptible to some other similar drugs.

I herxed severely from valacyclovir, and got unexpectedly serious side effects (eg TTP) due to how readily borrelia converts acyclovir to the active metabolite (acyclovir triphosphate).

I tried 500mg today (to Check If i can handle the stuff) and oh boy 1h after taking it felt Like dying for 2hours - lessend breathing, lung pain, Lots of weird Body pain, then it got better.

I will retry 500mg tomorrow but it Looks like i Hit on Something.

I didnt even herx from Ceftriaxon so this might be big for me.

Oh thats good to know.

I will retry it though because i have Had 0 effect of minocycline and Ceftriaxone.

The online antibiotic wich EVER Had a positive effect in me was Doxycycline, and that Not even for Long. Maybe 3 weeks.

Azi, mino, Tini, Ceftriaxone,... Nothing...

I am sick of abx so If this works i will Halleluja