Herx reaction or drug allergy?

Hi. Sorry for my english.

I have never been diagnosed with Lyme, but I would like to know one thing. I have very strange reaction after taking penicilin and my question is: do you think this is more like Lyme disease herx reaction or drug allergy? My symptoms:
Day one
-i took first penicilin at 1PM, just seconds after I took it I had very small problems with breathing and small diziness, it lasted very short, just few seconds
-then with every hour more weakness, more brain fog, and everything seemed to irritate me
-in the evening it looked like flu
-I took second penicilin 11PM the same day and I went to sleep
-Sleeping impossible, I was very nervous, heart rate 120, my irritation was bigger than in the day, bigger flu-like symptos, more brain fog, and new symptoms after second pill - bone pain in my legs has started. I didn't sleep that night
Day two
-All symptoms the same as before in the morning
- I took third pencilin 8AM
-after the third pill my symptoms were worse, more brain fog, more flu like symptoms, more bone pain, heart rate 120 with stronger 'feel', irritation, and small breathing problems has started once again, it was nothing serious but i have difficulty breathing and i had all that symptoms all day

After three penicilin I decided not to take fourth pill in the evening(although I had to take 14 pills in 7 days). My symptoms switched off about 10PM that day and that was massive switch off (almost all the symptoms just went away totally). Without this drug i slept very well that day
Day three
I was ok that day, totally normal.

Could somebody tell me if this is more like Herx reaction or allergy?

Thank you very much for your answer :) Penicilin was related to tooth infection - after removing my tooth an abscess was found.

But I have a lot of other symptoms. My history is very long, so I will paste this from other board where I wrote some time ago:
My symptoms from March 2013:
-weakness, sometimes really huge
-brain fog, contentration problems, intelectual power very low
-my hands, legs and tongue sometimes start to tingle, numbness etc
-I have werid feeling like being on small amount of alcohol, or being on medicaments like xanax etc, but I'm not drinking and I dont take pills
-fasciculation
-nausea, a loss of apetite, lost 10kg between April 2013 and June 2013
-dramatic feeling when air pressure are going down, this is so bad that I'm afraid I could faint
-dizziness, espiecially when sitting, after emotional stress, after physical tiredness
-feeling that my body is very stiff, it's not stiff, its just the feeeling
-sensivity to light
-loss of memory (mainly short term but also long term)
-I sleep 7-8 hours but i don;t feel this in the morning, its just like I'm on permament non-sleeping mode
-lost of feel, i touch glass with tea and i don't know if this is hot or cold,
-bath problems, like I'm going to faint during bath
-electrick shock symptoms in the night, for example i'm woken up and i feel like electrick shocked over my body
-"Electrick shocks" in my head - this is very difficult to explain, for example I speak with other person and for short moment of time (less than one second) I have just grey vision, buzz in my ears etc, it similar to situation when very old tv set breaking up - i hope you know what i mean, just "bzzzz" for short moment
-after bowel movement i feel very sick, just like in fever, in last about 4 hours
-feeling that my legs are very light
-pain in knees
and very werid month cycle - all 3 attacks was on the full moon.

I had brain MRI, neck doppler, x-ray chest, x-ray spine (all parts), heart checking (ekg 2 times, echocardiogram), blood values, CRP, abdominal ultrasonography, blood tests for chlamydia p, mycoplasma p, Lyme disease, stool for parasites, blood for parasites antybodies, spirometry and saturation tests, liver tests (alat, aspat from the blood), thyroid (tsh), glucose level (random glucose test) and some more but i don't remember now. Basically all those tests were ok

Hi Matthew
Welcome to our community!! I'm so glad you are asking questions, but I'm afraid that you may not have given us enough information to be of much help other than a few guesses - which wouldn't be fair to you.

As Girlie has indicated, maybe you could tell us a bit more? Why were you taking the penicillin? What were your symptoms before hand?

I have a severe penicillin allergy, and I know that if you have an allergy to a medication, the reaction will only get stronger each time you take it. I no longer accept penicillin for any reason because the last time I had it, my hives were going down my throat and into my ears. So if it's an allergy to the medication, you will know.

matthew22 said...

I had Western Blot lyme test - totally negative, 0 in both IgM and IgG. I generally don't believe that I have Lyme and after almost 3 years of searching i tend to believe that I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Now, after 3 years basically only fatigue and brain fog is still with me compared to 2013. I was never diagnosed with anything.

What lab did the Western Blot?

If it was any lab other than Igenex, I wouldn't rely on the results at all. Mainstream labs like LabCorp, Quest, etc. don't even test for the Lyme-specific bands.

Have you ever seen a LLMD? He/she would be able to sort through everything for you.

Even the CDC says Lyme is a clinical diagnosis - based upon symptoms.

Symptoms coming and going are hallmark for Lyme.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is a catch-all phrase used to describe a constellation of symptoms with no known cause.

Many Lyme patients are erroneously diagnosed with CFS....and countless other diseases such as MS, Parkinson's, ALS, etc.

cd3764, I live in Europe, in Poland and my test was done by local lab and then sent somewhere (I don't know where because at the time of the test I didn't understand anything). But there is a name Euroimmun and then 'Medizinische Labordiagnostika AG' so this probably this. But in this test there is something interesting and I would like to ask if somebody could help me with this. Below in the link there is my test, its a diagram of antigens reactions - all reactions in relation to Lyme (p17, p19, p21, p25, p30, p31, p39, p83 and vise) are negative. But there is a positive reaction somewhere in the middle between p31 and p39. I have few questions:
1) is this something important?
2) is this something related to Lyme or this is reaction to maybe other infection? If yes, maybe somebody know what it could be?
Here is the scan: http://i.imgur.com/EHITtOX.jpg I'm talking about this 'spike' between p31 and p39 (sorry for quality)

I need to read about this Igenex test now too.

I am going to chime in on the symptoms. It really doesn't matter if it could be Lyme. All of those symptoms could be a severe drug allergy. With that difficulty breathing, dizzyness and rapid heart rate you should always question a reaction to a drug you have never taken before.

Sometimes it won't set in quickly. I was given Tylenol with coedine and watched for 2 hours before they released me then almost crashed my car when I started sweaty and my vision blurred. I got home opened the front door and then lost all control of my muscles. I lay there for 45 minutes before I could get up.

I've also had trips to the emergency room with sky-high blood pressure within an hour of taking a medication.

Many of the things that you mentioned can also be put down to anxiety. I once went to the ER because I couldn't breath after taking a new med. When I finally left, I looked down at my checkout sheet it said "anxiety". I related the story to my doctor and he said I'd be anxious too if I couldn't breath.

Penicillin is one of the most common drug allergies and should always list it as an allergy from now on. Better safe than sorry. That also excludes a bunch of different medications.

The allergy could be to something used as a filler or the dye or the capsule. There is no way to know. I once had an allergic reaction to a nasal spray and the doctor told me it wasn't possible it was a new drug. Yeah a new drug which uses the same delivery method as old drugs.

Every time I take anything new, I have to watch myself. I now carry and epi-pen. I haven't needed it, but my husband and i both feel better having it.

Positive test or not, many of the things that we all were diagnosed with all have allergic reactions to food, medication and just about anything we put on our skin as a symptom.
The reactions range from hives to throat swelling. Hives I can take, but we all need to be able to breath.

All of these reactions can be serious. Deadly serious. Don't take a chance. Add penicillin to your list of allergies and don't take it or any of the related drugs.

Kim