Bartonella / Herxheimer - joints & muscles

Hi,

I'm all new to this forum. Just a short introduction: I'm 33, was looking for a cause of many health issues since I'm 17. Two years ago I stumbled onto a Dr who finally listened to my symptoms and started looking for the cause of all these issues. June of this year, my third Bartonella (PCR) test was showing positive, so did the sequence test.

I started AB treatment in August (Zithromax/Plaquenil/Minocycline) - too hard to handle. Changed to Tetralysal+Rifampin, 'easier' to handle. Current CD57 is 15.

Since the beginning of August till now, I'm almost constantly herxing - sometimes I get 1 day off, but that's all. And since I'm still working (I need a full income to finance the treatment, because all of this is not covered by Belgian health insurances): a lot to handle, luckely I can do some home work.

I have difficulties programming detox. With a severe histamine intolerance it makes it difficult to use most of the detoxing advices I found on the internet. My appetite is terrible, I only crave for sugar and 'unhealthy' food (I really try to keep it to a minimum, but a real challenge with a limited food range). I also have a fructose intolerance, which eliminates fruit and certain vegetables.

I'm gaining weight by the day now - a lot of water retention.

I use dandelion and burdock tinctures for liver and kidneys, but can't use it each day, it causes a histamine reaction.

Can anyone help me with a remedy or something to soothe really bad joint and muscle pains? Painkillers cause more stomache trouble than I already have, so I prefer not to use them. When I'm sitting down for more than 5 minutes, I can hardly get up, it's as if my whole body is frozen, and it hurts so much when starting to move again. I'm seeing a good osteopath, but that doesn't help me enough.

Is anyone having the same issues with food-intolerances + detoxing measures?

Thanks!

M

 

Post Edited (MarieLS) : 12/1/2012 7:20:36 PM (GMT-7)

I agree glutathione is a miracle worker for me. I feel MUCH better after an IV of that. You'll have to find a doctor to administer it if you don't have a PICC line though.

I also use Turmeric/Curcumin and CoQ10 for muscle pain.

Hi Marie!
Welcome to our site! I'm so sorry to hear that you are so ill. Bartonella can be a hard one!

If you haven't already, I would like to highly encourage you to read through our "New to Lyme?...Start here!!", that sits at the top of our forum. It's packed full of relevant information, symptom lists and informative links that have been put together by some of our members.

For a lot of my joint/muscle pain, I really found the detoxing full bath to be very helpful - soaking in Epsom salts and peroxide using nicely warmed water always seems to help.

In the second post you will also find detoxing instructions that we encourage all of our members to use, as they have proven to be effective at helping our bodies detox these toxins.

You really should have been allowed to herx that long! Herxing is a healing crisis in the body - it can't do much until it gets rid of the overload of toxins, so it slows or, if severe enough, can completely stop healing. My Holistic doc says only 2 to 3 days of herxing are okay. If it goes on longer than that, or if it's severe, you should stop the meds (whether herbal or pharmaceutical) for a few days so the body can 'catch up' with detoxing and then restart the meds at a lower dosage so that the body doesn't become overwhelmed again.

My Dr. prescribed an inhaled gluthatione to use twice/week. Ordered through a compounding pharmacy. It smells and tastes bad, but my Dr. said that it's a good alternative to IV. It is effective in the inhaled form.

Marie,
It would be best to ask your doctor that question. None of us here are doctors, and even if they were, they wouldn't be allowed to give out medical advice on here. It's the rules and it's about liability for the site.