I finally decided to add l-arginine to my protocol and I wanted to share my experience and thoughts on this as I was reluctant for a while to try this one but I added it 3 weeks ago and I believe it has been beneficial for my bartonella.
FWIW, here are my thoughts....
I think I've made some progress on all three infections. I seem to alternate between babesia dominance and bartonella dominance. I'm not sure where lyme fits into this because of overlapping symptoms. I think (hope) I'm slowly whittling away at them as my symptoms seem to be getting better but every time one infection retreats a little the other one seems to come to the front with renewed symptoms (less than before I think/hope but stronger than when the other one was at the front).
At the beginning of this month bartonella came to the front for me so I finally decided to add l-arginine and it really seemed to reduce my symptoms over the three weeks I've been taking it. I started at 500mg 3x a day and eventually doubled that to 1g 3x. I was worried about
possibly reactivating anything viral particularly cold sores as I'm prone to those. My main trigger for the cold sore virus seems to be sunlight so fall seemed to be a good time to try this. I did have one start up after a long walk but I quickly stopped the outbreak by taking a high dose of lysine in-between my arginine doses so that seemed to be ok. I understand these two amino acids use the same channel so I wanted to avoid any interference and lysine seems to work very quickly if I take it in time.
I've had the possibility in mind that EBV might be a part of my fatigue but last year I tried taking high doses of lysine for a few weeks to see if that made any difference and it did not so I'm assuming that this virus isn't a part of my picture.
I have been taking Dan Shen for over a year which is also supposed to increase NO but the arginine seems to be better for this I'm guessing.
It's always hard to tell when you're taking a bunch of things at once which helps or not but since it's pretty much the only change in my protocol this month I wanted to share my experience. It also may be more obvious for me as I feel like I've been making real progress on these two (babesia and bartonella) over the last 5 months.
EDIT: (March 2020 additions)
I wanted to update this thread with some final thoughts on arginine.
I am finally no longer taking arginine but that was a very long stretch and overall a very beneficial supplement for me.
The last two times I tried to stop taking arginine I had an increase in overall body pain but not the bart-like symptoms I had earlier. I read that arginine is also an anti-inflammatory which is another reason that it was probably so beneficial for me. I probably could have stopped it several months ago if I had substituted something else for general inflammation.
My biggest concern, now, with having used arginine for so long is that lysine is apparently important for collagen in the body. My joints did not worsen over the time that I was on arginine, they have actually improved somewhat but remain un-reliable, so I suppose this could have been an issue for me. I am now focusing mostly on a diet that supports collagen, strengthening weak muscles, and trying to loosen tight muscles to reduce stress on my affected joints.
If anyone is considering trying arginine it is a difficult decision. Be sure to read up about
it thoroughly to consider all the possible risks first.
Post Edited (sandyfeet) : 2/19/2022 5:56:34 PM (GMT-7)