detection of endotoxins during Herx reaction

Spirochetes from lyme are unique in that even though they are gram-negative, they don't have the typical endotoxins (LPS). They do have lipoproteins on the outer membrane, but these are already what most of the tests revolve around.

ie. OspA, BmpA, flaggelin etc.

Hey Bhava, no problem. Yes the western blot, immunoblot those kinds of tests.

They are not specific to herxes. There has been some talk about whether inducing a herx will make the test more effective, but this has never been studied as far as I'm aware.

Bhava, I'm curious what your goal would be in testing for endotoxins? Would it be to measure how effective a treatment is at killing microbes? Or to determine whether symptoms are from herxing or not?

Dear Garzie, Saraeli and RainyC, thanks for your answers.
Sareali - my goal is twofold, outer and inner. Outer is - in my country, persistent, chronical lyme and co is not officially recognized by medical system, health ministry etc. My assumption is to try, if it is actually possible, to be able to give some evidence - after common, say 21 days of abx for neurolyme - which is our medical standard - how come that a patient, after a month, takes again abx, and, herxing - there is lyme endotoxin in the blood. If the first course of 21 days would indeed be enough, how is it possible that one is again herxing and there is evidence - in the blood, that there were persistent spirochettes. Something that is trackable, concrete and could eventuallly be accepted. Not like post-lyme syndrone or that sort, but an indirect evidence. That is one reason.
Secondly, for myself, to have more clarity on what is actually herx and what is perhaps neuropathy or other non-herx type of pain or response. Since many of these phenomena are mixed, anything that could bring more clear sense of knowing what is what, and thus can give an indication of something, would be useful. Because I m assuming that chronical pain, such as herx pain, if it is overwhelming, can perhaps be tracked not only from blood, but perhaps also with some EEG device.
I have found some chinese endotoxin kits, like self-diagnostic test, but these are probably not for lyme, as Garzie and RainyC say.
Again I m not saying these are very important things, but can be useful, I guess. But perhaps I m wrong and off-track. Anyway I m curious to learn more. Best wishes

i think the confusion is arising because "endotoxin" is a general term
just meaning something that is made by the microbe that is toxic to the host

lipopolysaccharides made by most gram negative classical bacteria are just an example of one group of such endotoxin chemicals

this is the best known group - and some very specific examples are known and well studied - and so in some writing may be confounded with the general term "endotoxin" - while in reality many other types of endotoxins may exist - that are not lipopolysaccharides.

in fact Wikipedia says the two terms are often used interchangeably - even though it is not strictly correct to do so as clearly bacterial endotoxins exist that are not LPS - for example the lipoproteins of borrelia species mentioned above. and Wikipedia gives some other examples

Wikipedia said...
Today, the term endotoxin is often used synonymously with LPS, although there are a few endotoxins (in the original sense of toxins that are inside the bacterial cell that are released when the cell disintegrates) that are not related to LPS, such as the so-called delta endotoxin proteins produced by Bacillus thuringiensis.

in fact - if LPS a component of a bacterial cell wall - is considered and endotoxin - one could consider anything that is immune stimulating and therefore inflammatory to the host as an endotoxin in the general sense - in which case just about every part of a bacteria - its body, its cell wall, the hundreds or thousands of chemical compounds inside - and the substances it exudes to influence the hosts immune system - or for instance build biofilm could equally be considered toxins.

the same is true for other bacteria - like for example bartonella - which is not thought to produce conventional lipopolysaccharides - and yet people report some of the worst herx like reactions from treating it - indicating that there are other things at play aside from lipopolysaccharides in driving a herx reaction.

overall there is ample scientific evidence that borrelia infections survive 4 weeks or more of antibiotic therapy - both in animals and in humans - each fully demonstrated by either PCR testing or the gold standard method - culture - there are at least 20 peer reviewed papers on this point alone.

here is a list of such studies
VIEW IMAGE

sadly - although logically one would think one would just need to show doctors evidence and the point would be settled - in practice dogma wins -
if you can even get a conventional doctor to look at evidence - 9 out of 10 times they will dismiss it - as it doesn't fit with the dogma they have absorbed.
( i have tried at least this many times - and this is about the batting average - at least in the UK)

Dear friends, thanks for your kind answers. Garzie, could you re-post the list for these studies please? It does not seem to appear in your post.
Then coming a little back to one of the original question, if one where to measure or say detect the extent of Herx reaction, by commonly available tests or means, which would be closest to say something indicative?

If there will be such a discussion, it would be useful to show some of the studies, but still, giving more concrete evidence form my own blood sample indicating herx inspiste of long term-abx treatment could be still more convincing.
Best regards,
B.

Dear Garzie,
thank you for your answer and the link. I have looked roughly in the PubMed and looks like most studies of Herx are concerned with early lyme, not many are found in persistent, chronic lyme... in any case, best wishes, B

Dear Quin,

thanks for your asnwer. In the other tread you wrote:

"Yes, I found that the Herxheimer reaction showed a distinctive pattern on a complete blood count (CBC), typically with increased neutrophils and low eosinophils. The eosinophils aren't gone, but migrate out of the blood to the site of infection.
It usually isn't necessary to document herxes in this manner, but fairly easy to do so if desired."

So just to see for myself, next time while in a severe herx I will go for blood test and will try to see if there will be increased neutrophils and low eosinophils...

Best regards,
B