Bartonella diet question: sugars

Im wondering how important (or not important) it is to cut out sugars if you have bartonella. Im having trouble finding much information about the subject, or even if there is any such thing as a bartonella diet. Ive heard there are things like that for Lyme, but as I understand it, bartonella and lyme, while transferred similarly and potentially co-infectious, are not related at all and function differently.

Also, just started clarithromycin yesterday, and its obvious theres some kind of herxheimer reaction going on. 20 minutes after taking it, it feels like I spontaneously develop a head cold, and the other symptoms I typically show with bartonella get worse temporarily. Im wondering about the correlation between sugar consumption and the intensity of herx reactions, so if anyone could shed any light on that potential connection, it would also be appreciated. Will be starting a second antibiotic in a month as well, so want to prep for that....

Im not a big raw sugar consumer to begin with, but I do eat starches like breads and sometimes pastas. Im thinking of cutting them out, if I can find evidence that it would have a positive affect on either or both, bartonella and herxing. Im planing for the herx to get worse, so Im starting now seeing what I can do to prevent it.

Hi On the herx,
Welcome to our community! I'm so glad you found us.

As PeteZa has suggested, if you haven't yet​, it would be helpful for you to start with reading through the thread at the top of the forum titled,"New to Lyme?...Start here!!", as it is packed full of important information, symptom lists, helpful links and pdf's, how to detox when one has these infections, information on probiotics and much more.

While more than slightly controversial, I have found no evidence that if a person is not having issues with gluten (typically causing issues with sugar, bread and pasta consumption), or Candida, that a gluten free diet will do much to help them. I wasn't gluten free at all when I healed the first time around, and although I was gluten free when I healed the second time I got infected, it was for another reason.

White table sugar is a no-no as PeteZa explained because it really encourages Candida and other yeasts to grow quickly when we are in treatment. And we don't need any complications to our already complicated infections!

With that said though, Candida can have a herx like reaction similar to Lyme and Bart when treated. Do you have any of the possible symptoms of Candida? Or are all of your symptoms explained by Bartonella?

What are you doing for detoxing though? Not that many people actually do enough to help their body detox. You can find a good list of suggestions in our "New to Lyme?" thread and on this page: www.tiredoflyme.com/detox-methods.html

Seeing as sugar is also important for brain function and bartonella is hard on the brain I feel like this a catch 22 question. I have tried sugar free and not sugar free and didn't notice much difference, however proper detoxing makes a huge difference.

It might have to be a bit of trial and error, you could cut out the bread and pasta for a month or two and see how that treats you? or even just scale back on those items? it definitely varies from person to person, I don't think there is one uniform holy grail method. I think bread and pasta (gluten) can promote inflammation in certain individuals, and possibly more so with those of us with these diseases.

Cutting out all refined sugars was helpful for me, I still do eat fruit so that is a way to still get sugars in your system but in a controlled way (the fiber in the fruit helps make you feel full and you don't consume as much as you would like drinking a pop, which is basically mainlining sugar). I don't think it changed the intensity of herxing for me though, but it helped with the severity of my baseline symptoms.

As for candida which several have mentioned, Im not sure I have it. I looked at a symptom list, and while I have some of the symptoms in that very long list, it doesnt seem like its likely. I dont rule it out, however; perhaps its just not that advanced.

I can attest to the sugar thing, but for me it exasperates my rapid heart rate. Heart palpitations of different kinds is known to worsen after eating large meals, but for me, there isn't much of a noticeable difference when eating say, piles and piles of veggies and lean meats, but I can eat say, a couple of cookies, and my heart just starts pounding away like there's no tomorrow.

I was wondering if the bath you took was in very hot water? That can cause heart issues as well.

I found that I did experience an increase in symptoms when eating sugar, or just starch, or carbs in general. But I don't get much of an increase in symptoms.

The sugar definitely feeds something, either candida, Borrelia, or Bartonella. I think for sure Candida and Borrelia, and at once I did think it fed bart as well. But I did read a study (somewhere on google, and I don't keep track of which studies I read)... But it said bartonella uses certain proteins as energy. So according to that , you would have to restrict certain proteins that bart uses as energy. It says bart doesn't use carbs or fat, just proteins... And this is in petri dish experiments using blood for culture. But in my experience I did get an increase in bart symptoms after consuming starch, so I'm not sure how true it is.

Really, Astroman? I thought Catelli was a well known company - they make non gluten-free pasta, too.
I didn't realize it was Canadian.