I don't know if your infections are causing this directly (if so, I am unaware of the mechanism involved) but tick-borne infections can cause mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS). This condition makes the body intolerant of histamine, and people can have strong reactions and sensitivities to anything that triggers histamine, including stress, exertion, sensory stimulation, herxing, environmental irritants, mold exposure, COVID and other viruses, and high-histamine foods. People with MCAS often have strong, negative reactions to alcohol and coffee.* A mouthful of either one would ruin me for a day or more once I developed MCAS! I also didn't have MCAS until after I started treating infections (which I'd had for 14 years), so I think it was the physiological stress of herxing, rather than the infections themselves, that triggered the condition for me.
People think of MCAS symptoms as primarily anaphylaxis, respiratory tract symptoms (shortness of breath, air hunger, sore throat, sneezing, congestion, cough), itching, and rashes, but it can involve any region of your body because we have mast cells all over our bodies. My biggest symptoms of MCAS are brain fog, headache, fatigue, dizziness, anxiety, and digestive issues. It also messes with my autonomic nervous system, causing dysautonomia symptoms (including POTS) and dysregulated heart rate. Fermented foods (like alcohol) are by far my biggest trigger.
*Alcohol is high in histamine, like all fermented products, but coffee is usually not inherently high in histamine (although this varies depending on manufacturing practices). The issue with coffee is that caffeine exacerbates histamine response by preventing the body from clearing histamine, and the mold in coffee (unless you buy a certified mold-free brand, like Bulletproof, and keep it in the freezer) causes MCAS reactions as well.
Maybe something to look into?
I lost a lot of weight in a matter of weeks when I treated gut dysbiosis right after being diagnosed. My LLMD found dysbiosis with a GI Effects comprehensive stool text, and suggested a combination of berberine, artemisinin, olive leaf, wormwood, and black walnut. Some of those are heavy-hitters, so I would not use them if you don't have a dysbiosis issue, but again, it's something perhaps worth looking into.
Replacing the good stuff with probiotics is a good idea once you've killed the bad stuff, but if you have MCAS, then don't use probiotic foods (they are all high in histamine) or high-histamine probiotic strains. The OrthoMolecular Ortho-Biotic probiotic is the only one I've found that contains only low-histamine or histamine-neutral strains, but there might be others. Here's a list of which strains do what:
https://wholenewmom.com/low-histamine-probiotics/
Many of us are prescribed SSRIs by conventional doctors when we are developing the chronic complaints that lead to our eventual tick-borne disease diagnoses. Those can alter the way the gut behaves (as 90% of serotonin and other neurotransmitters are made in the gut) so some people find that intractable weight gain begins with an SSRI prescript
ion, even if the meds have been stopped long ago. By the same logic, chronic mental health complaints (PTSD, depression, anxiety, OCD, the stress of chronic illness, etc.) can also alter this neurotransmitter-gut-microbiome balance, so be sure to safeguard sleep, manage stress well, and do what it takes to ease those burdens on your nervous system, gut, immune system, etc. if you experience any mental health challenges. Everything is connected, etc.
Has your treatment been improving your symptoms so far?