bartonella

I have it. Its a DOOZY...to say the least. I do not have a positive for it...but have a clinical diagnosis based on my symptoms being primarily bart as this point.

Bartonella is all over the world. There are many different strains and the tests only test for about two of these I believe. It also messes with your immune system and that also will mess up the testing. Not everyone with lyme has it but it is one of the more popular Co-infections with lyme.


The symptoms are:

Fatigue often with agitation

Low grade fevers especially morning or later afternoon. Feelings of coming down with a flu or virus

Sweats often morning or late afternoon

Headaches especially frontal or top of head

Eye symptoms including blurry, dry or red eyes

Ringing in the ears

Sore throats (recurring)

Swollen glands

Anxiety or worry attacks

Poor sleep quality

Joint pain and stiffness

Muscle pains especially the calves -may be twitching and or cramping also

Foot pain involving the heels or soles

Nerve irritation symptoms which can be shooting, vibrating, burning, numb

Tremors

Heart Palps or strange chest pains

Episodes of breathlessness

Strange rashes occuring on the body

Gastrointestinal symptoms, abdominal pain, acid reflux

Shin bone pain and tenderness

Burning neuropathy


Its hard sometimes because symptoms "over-lap" with lyme symptoms.



xx's-Courtney

Post Edited (orchid_rain) : 11/15/2014 12:07:44 AM (GMT-7)

Hi IHL,

I have bartonella. Do you have any weird, red or purple "scratch marks" on your skin? The first time I got sick, I had them on my legs. The next time, they were on my stomach. The ones on my legs are gone and the stomach ones are almost gone. ( Yes! I do not like them :) ) I would also get crazy sweating, as in drenching multiple shirts.

I have Bart and Babesia. Hard to differentiate from the two.

Bart seems to be more CNS related. I don't have "scratches" very often on my side but I do get them when I herx. Mostly I get red dots all over that follow my nerves. Lots of nerve related issues too. All aweful. Hardest symptoms I have.

Sweats / flu like chills seem to be both Babesia n bart for me. I was walking around last week and was sweating buckets for no reason like I ran a mile. Oh did I mention it's 9 degrees out.

Daxwell, I'm glad you're posting that test,I sure hope it has more accuracy than what's been used.

IHL, my bartenolla streaks usually last a day or a few hours,
I've had long ones, short ones,
Some bleed and the cuts last a few days,
Sometimes they burn
Sometimes they are light,
Or skinny,
Or fat,
it's super odd,If I wasn't living it,
I wouldn't believe it
=]chloe

Ps they seem to come out too when I sweat,
Not always though
ODD

After I get out of the shower I'm covered in a rash! My knees hands and feet will be purple. The scratches sometimes look like indented welts. Sometimes they look like I've just been itching myself like crazy. I get palm sized deep red blotches with scratches coming out of them. I get a lacey looking rash where my whole body will be purple red and white spots. I get this really weird one on my face where my whole face swells just a tiny bit and is dark red and stops in straight lines around my jaw and leaves 2 perfect circles around my eyes. I think I look like a ratcoon. I have these gross red circles and blobs all over my face that have been there over a month. They almost look like scars or something.

Sometimes the rashes are uncomfortable, sometimes I don't even notice until someone else tells me to go look. I really hate taking showers for alot of reasons but my skin is one of them. I found a tea that is supposed to be good for your skin but it's not doing anything yet. And all of this comes and goes. I get embarrassed, but it's out of my control. I've also started breaking out really bad. I got angiomas or whatever where your blood vessels grow outside of the skin. On my privates and my shoulder :( and I recently grew some skin tags :( I'm only 25. I got a huge nodule on my cheek a few weeks ago and it finally went down but left a huge black, yes black spot.

Hopefully it's all and infection and goes away with treatment. Sick of being so sick.

Bumping this old thread for the newer members who wonder about bartonella. Lots of symptoms listed by folks in this thread.

Chloe24 mentioned bart scratches that bleed. I had those on my left shoulder blade every morning for well over a year. I would see them in the bathroom mirror when gettin in or out of the shower. When I'd take my night clothes off, I'd have spots of blood on the back of my shirt and sometimes on my pillow. I couldn't fgure out for the life of me how I was scratching myself in my sleep in exactly the same spot night after night. I don't have a clue I had bartonella or Lyme at the time.

I also had very splotchy skin with pink patches everywhere, and purple and white honeycomb pattern all over my body under the surface of my skin, especially if I was cold, which I usually was during the day. I did have night sweats, though.

I had afternoon fevers and headaches, too. Reading these old posts reminded me of so many symptoms I had most of my life that have occurred less if at all in the past couple of years.

I really hate bart...just saying

My Bart symptoms are

Stomach gastritis ( the worst symptom I have)

Cns twitches and inner chills down spine/legs

Deep ache in shins and butt bone/sitbone

Autonomic issues- pots, wonky pulse and bp

Dry red eyes

Anxiety

Yup that describes it. Sent you a pm

Yea Bart is a nasty one, symptoms are wide ranging (most mentioned above in this thread already) I had serious vascular and CNS involvment. It caused a bout of myocarditis in 2013 and in 2017 it led to spinal ischemia, recently (before treatment) it started to affect me cognitively including serious memory issues, rage, irritiation, migraines, vertigo etc etc.
Since I have been on treatment I have seen massive improvement. BP stabilised to 120/80 (was averaging 160/100 since the myocarditis in 2013), my memory is back, my concentration level is back, no more irritiation or mood swings. You need a doctor who will take it seriously, that was my biggest challenge over the years.
Did you test postive for Bart? And if so which variants? (I have B Henselea and B Quintana, Assume I got them as a child from my Cats and there resident fleas)
This is not a bug to underestimate, I dodged two bullets already over the years because of it...

xpeetzax said...
I just tested positive for bart through quest and galaxy (very high IGG titers >256) and I exhibit almost all those symptoms!

Fatigue often with agitation

Low grade fevers especially morning or later afternoon. Feelings of coming down with a flu or virus

Sweats often morning or late afternoon

Headaches especially frontal or top of head

Eye symptoms including blurry, dry or red eyes

Ringing in the ears - not ringing but pulsatile tinnitus.

Sore throats (recurring)

Swollen glands

Anxiety or worry attacks

Poor sleep quality

Joint pain and stiffness

Muscle pains especially the calves -may be twitching and or cramping also

Foot pain involving the heels or soles

Nerve irritation symptoms which can be shooting, vibrating, burning, numb

Tremors

Heart Palps or strange chest pains

Episodes of breathlessness

Strange rashes occuring on the body

Gastrointestinal symptoms, abdominal pain, acid reflux

Shin bone pain and tenderness

Burning neuropathy


A lot of those symptoms listed above got better with 30 day course of doxycycline...but I'm still quite sick particularly with the fatigue/air hunger/bodyaches/anxiety. Just started on a treatment plan of Clarithro/Rifampin along with multiple enzymes (serropeptase/lumbrokinase/NAC) to help me absorb better and break biofilms. My LLMD is telling me 4-6 months. I also tested positive for yersinia enterocolitica but my symptoms seem more indicative of bart.

Good luck treating and lots of patience is required...I'm going to start my rifampin doses soon here in a couple days and can't wait to get all better. I have been confined to my home for the past 7 months except for doctors visits and itching to get back out there again.

You mentioned air hunger which is classic Babesia - so keep that in the back of your mind going forward.