Clarithromycin side effects or herxing

Roxy,
I do not know about neuropathy but i know about Clarithro per se.
I started this summer Clarithro 2x500 mg with Rifa 2x500 mg and I had the worst herx ever.I could not breath, agitated like crazy, mostly bedridden, severe insomnia.Probably I should have gone slower with it.I mean Clarithro makes a bad herx reaction and we all might herx differently.

As they always say-detox(you can read the info in ”New to Lyme” or let people here help you about it) and for neuropathy take ALA and something like gabapentin, amiltriptiline for neuropatic pain.Also, if you can try to stretch, do easy yoga or pilates at home.For me it helped with the pain and general feeling.I do 20-30 min. every 2nd day and 1-2 hours after I feel almost normal, pain diminishes a lot.

Also, please do not expect to get better in 1 month of treatment.Maybe in 6-8 month of treatment it is realistic to feel if you are improving.

All the best, and keep asking,
Ioana.

My neuropathy started on the combo Clarithromycin + Amoxicillin. After discontinuing clarythromicin i continued to have neuropathy for months, on all sorts of other antibiotics. So I doubt it's a side effect, i think it's a herx. My neuropathy is gone now.

I've had no neuro symptoms before that, but that was the first antibiotic i took in significant dosage and for 10 days. It's a good thing, it kills the bacteria which release toxins and they interfere with nerve conduction. Same thing happens in the heart and is the reason for the lyme heart block. It's good when you get more (of the same) symptoms on an antibiotic, it means the killing is more intense. Your body kills them too, but not that efficiently.

I remember i thought i have magnesium deficiency back then, i could feel tingling and needles on my feet, never happened to me before. I was taking the clarithromycin for h-pylori (misdiagnosis) so i had no idea how a Herx looks like

It's pretty bad on the liver. Make sure to take milk thistle with it...

Expect some pretty serious side effects on Minocycline. It gave me partial bells palsy (same thing, toxins from dead spirochetes near the facial nerve). It resolved in a week or so, never had that problem again afterwards.

For me Minocycline gave me my brain back. But the herxes were brutal... I used to take 300mg per day. It's a bit too much i think, 200mg should be enough, it is much more lipid-soluble than doxy so you dont need a dose that high as doxy.

Also expect intracrannial pressure with Mino, don't get scared but be prepared to lower the dose if you have serious side effects. What's your dosage?

My symptoms are mainly neuro. severe burning neuropahty, tendonitis, twitching, flushing and heat sensations. That is why they suspected lyme. Everything ruled out, except for hypothyroid possible hashimotos as my antithyroglobulin is high and tsh, not the Tpo. Thats how i got started on antibiotics but things have worsened. The clarythromycin worsen excisting neuropathy.

Im nervous as im not sure if i do have lyme baised on igenex results. Anyone with existing severe neuropathy taking antibiotics have you noticed a worsening and did it ever get better

Mpost, thanku for the reply. I see what you are saying, but the neuropathy is up to my knees and arms. Im afraid of the damage from antibiotics. Specially when i still dont have a positive lyme test. Its hard not to know your diagnosis and just go on symptoms. Symptoms can be of so many Illnesses,

I had to quit my job, ists been a yr and months since my symptoms begin. Im tired of so many doctors and poor quality of life. Every morning i thing if how i will deal with the pain and whether ive been diagnosed correctly.

Im sorry, i sound like a broken record. Im just afraid, depressed, in pain and unsure of my future.

Roxy - I encourage you to up your detoxing...read the detoxing lists again..and see what you can add to your daily regimen.
detoxing needs to be done daily...consistently....many methods.

You may also have bartonella.

Lymepickle - from my googling - I did read minocycline tooth discolouration is usually permanent. I hope those sites are wrong. But, I have had my teeth cleaned since I stopped taking it...and I have a bit of discoloration on the bottom 1/3 of my upper front teeth.
I read doxy staining goes away when adults take it, though.

Mino is a good antibiotic for penetrating the blood/brain barrier.

I requested it for that reason. I felt like my 'head' stuff needed to be addressed.

When I was on it, I was dizzy...but as time went on, the dizziness wasn't as bad.

It really helped with the pressure in my head - behind my eyes.

When I read the treatlyme.net (I subscribe to it - it's Dr. MR site) - it does appear he knows his stuff.
He also treated a very difficult case several years ago - a fellow Canadian and she is well. I know of other Canadians here in my province of B.C. who travel to see him and are happy with him.

Re: the difficult case - Her husband did a video about their journey...I won't post the link here unless you ask...there are parts of the video that are very difficult to watch (I cried several times while watching it)...but it has a beautiful ending.

Girlie - Perhaps it can stain in areas like the dentin? I think the enamel won't stain as much since it doesn't have all the microtubules going throughout it. But I have heard from others that they were able to get a tooth cleaning and all the dark stains from the mino went away. It happened to me too... My teeth look the same they did before so in my experience it did not cause permanent stains, but I maybe wrong and there might have been slight discoloration of the dentin but since I still have most of my enamel I may simply not notice it.

Quoted from ROXY
"Yes Im seeing Dr. MR in Washington. Im just so sensitive to anything i take. Do you thing mino or doxy is better and with less symptoms. I sent out the igenex test for a second time yesterday. Im already anxious about the results. I wish my burning pain in lower legs, feet and forearms would calm down and i could relax a little. I pray daily to the lord to ease my pain as i sit here typing cant help but cry and thing of my situation and how desperate i am."

I think your burning symptoms in lower legs, feet, and forearms is bartonella... A bartonella early treatment herx... that stayed steady with me for a month or so and then suddenly got much better... Best to just stay on the treatment train as much as you can!!! Well that is what I recommend, as in my experience missing a dose of abx has set me back months... others will argue to cut the dose when herxing, but I'm more of a stay on course kind of guy.

As girlie mentioned the mino is far better for brain and nerve penetration. In a german Lyme guidelines, it is mentioned that 40% of the minocycline will get into the brain and nerves! Which is pretty high actually. In comparison 14% of doxycycline will get into the brain and nerves, so mino get's into the brain and nerves 2.85 times better!

BUT doxy does have some advantages. In my opinion it is more effective for blood infections... Dr. MR argues that isn't the case as it still passes through the blood. BUT I have a strong argument against that in that it doesn't make as many passes through the blood as it quickly dissolves into the brain and tissue locations. Doxy makes many more passes in the blood stream and is the more water soluble of the two, whereas mino is the more fat soluble. So I would prefer to start with doxy (even though I never took doxy myself), and then finish later on with the mino.

I think the dizziness that Girlie is talking about in the first few days, is a side effect of minocycline, and as she mentioned how it got better over time, it also got better for me over time. I tried reintroducing the minocycline, and I got dizziness again! So I think it's just when starting the mino that this problem occurs.

Mino has a disadvantage in my opinion in that it can blacken the thyroid, and there have been some suggested cases of thyroid cancer from longterm mino use. I myself now have thyroid issues so it may have been my longterm mino that caused this, or the infections. But my thyroid was very healthy before.

Doxycycline doesn't have the same negative impacts on the thyroid but has some sun sensitivity issues when on it, in that your skin is much more sensitive to the sun. Mino also has this issue, but not to the same extent as doxy. Doxy also has less of a negative impact on the thyroid. It's a pick your antibiotic based on slightly different pharmacokinetic properties that the two have in the body. Primarily that minocycline is more fat soluble, and doxy is more water soluble.... Although they are both more fat soluble than tetracycline is (thus tetracycline is probably the very best choice for blood infection). But they all affect the bacteria exactly the same.

There really is no choice of "less symptoms"... The majority of the symptoms I think is from herxing. I would say maybe "less toxicity" is an option. Because keep in mind I was on the minocycline/septra DS/clarithromycin combo with basically no symptoms... Taking the abx felt like just taking another pill. That is after having steady solid herxing, burning of the limbs like you mentioned for over a month. Then it just got better.

I think Dr. MR is a pretty decent LLMD. He is not as much of a pure detective like for example Dr. H is like a perfectionist almost and emphasizes looking into so many different issues. I think Dr. MR realizes the complexities but suggests in the majority of cases we don't need to look into all these complexities, so he focuses on the 3 Big B's that makes up Lyme disease... That is Borrelia, Bartonella, and Babesia. He addresses the yeast in a preventative fashion, and goes from there. He actually grew on me quite a bit in the past few years, and was he suggests is actually right... Had I not had 2 LLMDs and researched extensively I would have been much better off right now.

The only thing I don't like about what he suggests... He mentions that Bartonella takes 4-6 months to resolve and that 95% of the time people are able to get over bartonella. So that made me think I was good after 4 months! But I was not! I also had no bartonella symptoms. So it is better to treat bart for a 6 month minimum in my opinion. Far past the resolution of Bart symptoms... He suggests he treats Bart until the majority of bart symptoms appear resolved.

Roxy68,

the Dr. that you have seems a very good one, you just have to make it clear when you can not handle the herx.DO NOT FORGET TO DETOX.

IF you are in need always ask here, people are very nice and knowledgeable and they try to help a lot.

I cried a lot not because of pain but because I felt very bad, almost like dying and I am much better, waiting my new LLMD appointment next month.I do not cry anymore for more then a month, I think I feel better.

I do not know what to say you about positive diagnosis, maybe do a Dark Field Microscopy or a cd 57 to support your Igenex WB?And post here your WB, Girlie and Traveler I think have the right explanation about the bands.And in a few months your head will feel more clear as you get sure about dgn. and feel a bit better on treatment.Unfortunately, you have to be extra patient with the sickness and with yourself.

Have a New Year that clears it up a little and get better.

Re: mino and tooth staining:

www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/acne/news/20030602/acne-medication-discolors-teeth-gums

"Similar cases of gum and tooth discoloration have been documented following long-term use of the acne treatment, she writes. In fact, up to 6% of long-term minocycline users develop dental staining.

Tooth staining can develop right away, but it is often delayed -- sometimes for as much as two years, she writes.

After people quit taking the acne treatment, the bluish color will likely begin fading. However, this too is a slow process and may take several months before the staining fully disappears -- and some permanent teeth could remain slightly discolored, Ayangco writes."

So, I stopped the minocycline in November...maybe mine will fade with time.

ROXY - the only information i've read about permanent neuropathy is from the fluoroquinolone class of antibiotics (and it can also cause tendon rupture).

i am on biaxin, too.

Oh no!!



I just started it! Maybe I should stop or slow down?

If I'm taking it for a resp. infection, is it ok to slow way down?

M

about three days! It's kinda awful. Flagyl was really horrible too; I took that a little more than two years ago for c. diff. It made me psychotic (!) but only on a full dose.

If this herx continues, I'm going to have to slow down on the Biaxin; this is untenable.

M

your partner in a Clarithro herx!