Lyme disease revelation. This info needs to be known

What is the treatment?

Thanks for your post! I'm sorry you have to go through all that, however I can relate.

Brucella is on my list of tests to get when I have enough extra (ha yea right extra!) money.

I also think Tularemia flies (hehe no pun intended) under the radar also, you can get it from deer flies, horse flies; it's also on my "haven't tested for it yet" list.

Anyway thanks, for some of us it might just be that one test that finds the pathogen finally and put us on the road to relief.

I wish there were (maybe there is?) a comprehensive infections test like "the works" where u get "everything tested" even the exotic stuff. Not sure how the labs work, but I would love to give a lab a pint of my blood, let them spin it, chill it, send it or whatever, seems like it could be cheaper (like 29.99 NOPE!) but in medicine things are never cheap.

One last thing, blood tests hmmm, well using a car analogy...that's like saying a mechanic knows everything wrong about a car just from checking the oil.

I have positive igm for brucella but a negative agglutination test. Did you test for both, and if so was it positive?

I was under the care of dr. H at the time and they seemed to think it was positive due to a cross reaction with other intracellular infection (like bart).

Post Edited (k07) : 11/15/2018 7:35:41 AM (GMT-7)

Thank you for sharing! I think brucella and bartonella are very similar if I recall correctly.

I found this from a post dated a few years ago which featured notes on a talk by Dr Steven Phillips on brucella:

"-Muscle pain, creaking and cracking, fever, malaise, sweats, arthralgia, back pain, chills, significant weight loss, fatigue, headache, and other symptoms can present with Brucella.

-Elevated CRP, Elevated ESR (sed rate), and anemia may present.

-Lyme disables many from their career; Brucella disables you from every aspect of your life. It is incapacitating.

-Underdiagnosed illness.

-There is a range of symptoms as with many zoonotic infections.

-It is a gram-negative intracellular microbe.

-It becomes the puppet master of the cell. Unpasteurized dairy, animal exposures to body fluids, hunters, and laboratory exposures by aerosolization are common sources of infection.

-Humans are dead end hosts though transplacental, breast milk, and sexual transmission have occurred in the literature.

-12.8% of cases happen in the winter; 78% in spring and summer.

-It has been isolated from ticks and fleas for 60 years.

-Transmission has been demonstrated with lice and blood-sucking insects in nature.

-It is not as hard to culture as Borrelia, but very close.

-It is slow growing; takes weeks for a culture positive with frequent false negatives.

-Bone marrow would be the best culture source.

-PCR is useful but new strains are commonly found.

-Chronic cases are often seronegative.

-ELISA and Agglutination Antibody testing are the most common; complement fixation testing is available in Europe and is better but not available in the US.

-Streptomycin, Gentamicin, Doxycycline, Rifampin, Bactrim, or quinolones may be used.

-It is resistant to Ceftriaxone.

-Earlier treatment results in better outcomes.

-Single agent treatments don't work.

-Treatment less than six weeks results in high failure rates.

-Herxes can be severe or fatal.

-Aminoglycosides may be used for 3 weeks with Doxycycline or Doxycycline and Rifampin for 6 weeks.

-Aminoglycoside and Doxycycline combination is more effective.

-Streptomycin is equivalent to Gentamicin in terms of effectiveness.

-There is no agreed upon curative treatment for chronic Brucellosis.

-It has blebs, L-forms, and biofilms.

-Levamisole is an antiparasitic and immune potentiator.

-Antibiotics plus Levamisole were better than antibiotics alone; though Levamisole can cause autoimmune disease and was taken off the market in 1999.

-Ivermectin may be a good replacement for Levamisole and does potentiate immunity.

-Vitamin C may help.

-Polyporus umbellatus (mushroom) reverses Brucella induced immune anergy and activated macrophages.

-Gamma interferon is the principle cytokine involved in the protective response; no studies have been done.

-In a study with 3 groups of Brucella patients, the first group had Interferon Alpha, second had Levamisole, and third had conventional antibiotics. Groups 1 and 2 had clinical improvement and immune response. Group 1 did better than Group 2. Group 3 had no change.

-Liposomes mimic cell membranes and the immune system sees them as a foreign invader and gobbles them up. This can be used to enhance drug delivery and improve the outcome of some medications. Anionic (negative), Cationic (positive), or neutral.

-Liposomal Gentamicin study eliminated infection from monocytes; was 20 times more effective than free Gentamicin with reduced side effects.

-Would like liposomal aminoglycosides to be available.

-Brucella is related to Bartonella.

-True Brucella infection is not as common as Bartonella.

-Aminoglycosides may be a helpful option for Bartonella."


*Notes taken by Scott Forsgren (betterhealthguy)

My first LLMD tested me for Brucella along with EBV and the usual TBDs.

I would disagree. It's not a single "disease" or a single pathogen. Far from it.

Have you been treated and symptom-free for at least 6 months?

I think I probably have brucella, but I never got tested. I definitely had all of the symptoms though.