What infection to treat first?

Apologies if this is a remedial question, but I've been through so many books, blogs, websites and other resources and can't seem to locate a simple answer as to which infection do you treat first if you have multiple co-infections? Or do you treat multiple at once?

My situation in a nutshell is I've been sick for about 20 years. It started when I lived in Los Angeles for 3 years. Did a lot of hiking with the dogs in the mountains. Both me and the dogs started getting sick. Dogs eventually died of kidney and liver failure with enlarged spleen, vet could never really pinpoint why (I'm still heartbroken over not being able to help them). I moved from CA to North Carolina for about 5 years and then to Ohio. I have same story as most: decades of increasing symptoms and 50+ doctors dismissing me, patronizing me, misdiagnosing me, telling me I'm crazy and some actually trying to help but just didn't have the knowledge or skills. I ended up getting fixated on the various symptoms and just clinging to those as my "illness" i.e. ok I have hashimotos hypothyroidism, so that must be the root of all my problems. Did that for years and just got sicker. I had surgery in 2018 that seemed to put everything over the edge. I just could not recover from a routine surgery that most people are back to normal in 2 weeks. Within 6 months neurological symptoms and back pain accelerated to frighteningly debilitating levels. I knew something much much more than just my thyroid was happening at this point. More docs, more patronizing, more misdiagnoses and I was bed ridden from 2019-2022. I am very, very fortunate to have already been working from home when things got bad. I had been tested for Lyme twice on standard CDC tests in 2012 and 2016 (only after I demanded the tests), both were negative, so I dropped it off my radar for years. When all the neuro symptoms exploded I kept getting Lyme stuff coming up in my research, so I gave it another look finally. Still somewhat brainwashed by the docs that insisted I could not have Lyme, I decided IGenX would be a waste of $$, but then I came across a sale on DNA Connexions Lyme panel urine PCR. Decided it was worth it since it covered all the co-infections + lyme at a fraction of the IGenex panels. I spent 40 minutes on a vibration plate and another 30 minutes deep tissue massage with a massage gun to invoke before collecting a sample. I collected 4 voids instead of just 1. Results are positive for: Babesia ducani, Babesia divergens, TBRF and Erchlichia chaffeensis. Strangely enough, not positive for any of the 4 b. burgdoferi strains or bartonella, despite the bulk of my symptoms matching these. I ran an EBV panel and my reactivation numbers were off the charts over 1000 as well. I now plan to do the IGenex panels and suspect I will get positives for lyme and bartonella with their blood tests. The Babesia result was unexpected but makes sense now because I recently did a 3 week parasite cleanse with Wormwood in it and I felt remarkably better afterwards, but then slowly slid back into some symptoms after about a month.

I've been a registered nurse for 20 years, trained in herbalism, naturopathy and I'm over half way done with my Family Nurse Practitioner licensing program. But I got so sick I had to stop the program and take a medical leave. I plan to self treat with herbal/natural methods of well known Lyme docs and herbalists, but not sure where to start. I found a LLD GP that is actually in my insurance plan, but she seems to only want to do heavy handed antibiotics/antiparasitics which I know I am too weak to handle. I've done a series of general parasite,kidney and liver support protocols and much detoxing as well and plan to start treating infections next. Do I start with Babesia treatment first since it's parasitic, then move on to microbial infections? Or can I treat more than one at a time? This is probably in all the writings I've read somewhere, but my short term memory is not the best right now as many of you can probably relate. Thankful for any answers to help...

Post Edited (peakers) : 6/7/2023 6:55:18 PM (GMT-8)

Hi, peakers:

I'm sorry you have a need to be here, but welcome. I hope you find this forum helpful.

If you've not already seen the following resources, they may be worth skimming.

• www.TreatLyme.net - In particular, from the menu bar just below the Treat Lyme logo, please select "Lyme Protocol" and "Online Lyme Guide."
  
  
• New to Lyme?...Start Here! - This thread can be found pinned above the other posts on the main page of this Lyme forum.
  
  
• My Chronic Lyme Disease Journey - Article by Bill Rawls, MD
  
  
• Boiling Point: The Lyme + Fibromyalgia + Chronic Fatigue Connection - Article by Bill Rawls, MD

Best of luck on your journey. I wish you much success.

Dude

With herbs, it’s easier to treat multiple infections at once. Many people do a mixture of Steven Buhner’s protocols to treat all three B’s - borrelia, bartonella, babesia.

I wouldn’t write Rx drugs off entirely, especially antiparasitics. You already have noticed some benefits there. Some alternative docs like Klinghardt start with treating worms and parasites. You might want to look into doing the Klinghardt parasite protocol to start with.

I would recommend not trying to treat everything at once, because the herx can get bad. Babesia is often reported to be one of the easier infections to eliminate, so it makes sense to start with that one.

As for the negative bartonella test, bartonella can be elusive and I had a false negative on a PCR test. After repeating the test, I did get a positive result. One telltale sign of bartonella is the large amount of vitamin B6 that it produces, which showed up repeatedly on my blood tests.

You can try treating EBV with valacyclovir, however I found that valacyclovir also kills Lyme, and I got a surprisingly big herx from it.