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How to 'survive' 4 weeks of no Abx / Herbs

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Posted 7/17/2023 4:42 PM (GMT 0)
Hey guys, LLMD is a fan of torture I guess.

She needs me to stay off of Abx and Antibiotic Herbs for 4 Weeks to make the Testing for Co-Infections more accurate.
I looked it up, she is right - the LTT is more acurate when u stay off 4 weeks - so technically she isn't wrong about this but How to handle the coming 4 weeks?

I am taking beta-blocker for my heart so far, drinking my 'healing earth' (is this known in america?) and taking epsom foot baths (no bath tub for full bath sadly), take my vitamins/minerals, diving into stomach health as mentioned in my last post...

But I am really afraid of the coming symptoms. I have felt bad with antibiotic already, just less threating. After a intense course of 10 week abx and herbs acompanied by incredible herxing she says this is the next step to address every co-infection correctly (i agree) but i as i said - I am a bit scared.

Maybe i just need mental support...

Greetings from Germany - Blazer
Posted 7/17/2023 9:32 PM (GMT 0)
I know it's scary. I wish there was something I could do for you, you can always come here to talk. You're not the first one going through this and while it's hard, difficult and unpleasant, usually it gets better. You have to see it as a marathon.

Some LLMDs use pulsing as a way to treat Lyme. Kill the bugs, then stop so they come out of hiding again, start killing them again, rinse repeat. So if you don't have bartonella this could be a good thing.
Bartonella is one that can't be pulsed.
Lyme itself doesn't grow that fast. Symptoms will come back but it's gonna be slow. A month isn't that long.
https://www.treatlyme.net has an article about pulsing somewhere, sorry, don't have time to look for it now. The whole site is worth reading anyway.

Personally, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't care about tests. They are all crappy anyway. If you feel some symptoms coming back within a week, that's most likely bartonella. I would start treatment again.

What were you taking?
Posted 7/18/2023 6:13 AM (GMT 0)
Thanks vimzor!

I was taking:
- 3 weeks of doxycyine 200
- 5 weeks of minocycline 200
- 2 weeks of Azithromycin 250/d + cryptolepis

I took 500mg artemesia with everything.

Actually my LLMD suspected i used to have Bart but got rid of it fast since bart-like Symptoms subsided very fast - i am Not Sure but i Wish that is true.

Do you know If Low blood pressure is Bart specific? Havent Had It since Treatment.
Posted 7/18/2023 6:57 AM (GMT 0)

Vimzor said...
I know it's scary. I wish there was something I could do for you, you can always come here to talk. You're not the first one going through this and while it's hard, difficult and unpleasant, usually it gets better. You have to see it as a marathon.

Some LLMDs use pulsing as a way to treat Lyme. Kill the bugs, then stop so they come out of hiding again, start killing them again, rinse repeat. So if you don't have bartonella this could be a good thing.
Bartonella is one that can't be pulsed.
Lyme itself doesn't grow that fast. Symptoms will come back but it's gonna be slow. A month isn't that long.
https://www.treatlyme.net has an article about pulsing somewhere, sorry, don't have time to look for it now. The whole site is worth reading anyway.

Personally, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't care about tests. They are all crappy anyway. If you feel some symptoms coming back within a week, that's most likely bartonella. I would start treatment again.

What were you taking?

LLMD MR doesn’t believe in pulsing abx but Dr J in Washington DC (who has been treating Lyme for over 25 years) does.
I did his protocols and am now in remission.

It can take awhile BlazerGermany and some ups and downs throughout - keep at it - never give up- but breaks are needed sometimes.
Posted 7/18/2023 9:34 AM (GMT 0)
Thanks!

I actually trying slow healing Yoga and breathing paired with 'healing music' now to calm down my severe anxiety Levels (fear of death etc). I figured that If the Symptoms are Not that severe in the currect moment it works quite okay.

A do have a further question tho.
When I get stung by a bee etc and i cratch that i Develop LOTS of petechia (bloodwork fine). I was wondering If there is a specific co infections known to cause petechia so fast uppon scratching
Posted 7/18/2023 11:42 AM (GMT 0)

BlazerGermany said...
Thanks!

A do have a further question tho.
When I get stung by a bee etc and i cratch that i Develop LOTS of petechia (bloodwork fine). I was wondering If there is a specific co infections known to cause petechia so fast uppon scratching

a photo would help quite a bit as that sounds a little unusual

you can upload to sites like imgbb.com and post the link here

however - in general - exaggerated skin reactions to stimulus are quite common in lyme and co-infections - as the whole system - including immunoreactivity tends to get dysregulated - reacting extra strongly to a simple scratch - but almost not at all to other things like intracellular infections or infections in the blood which would normally drive 104 fevers -

so the particular reaction on teh skin - if due to a scratch may not be indicative on any specific infection - just reactivity in general

some infections like bartonella do sometimes have specific skin manifestations - but these are normally spontaneous - popping up at any time - or not due to anything in particular - or sometimes during antimicrobial treatment -
Posted 7/18/2023 12:12 PM (GMT 0)
https://ibb.co/Wc8fbwM

Everytime i Scratch somewhere These small Round Marks Develop.

Its linked to Low platelet Count but Mine is the Same it Always has been.
Posted 7/18/2023 12:17 PM (GMT 0)
some kind of increased skin sensitivity i think

pretty common in people with these infections

some get welts ( hives) - some get hypergraphia ( increased redness of skin where it touches things or get scratched )
Posted 7/18/2023 12:21 PM (GMT 0)
hmm that sound possible. i didnt have it before i developed symptoms.
Posted 7/18/2023 2:32 PM (GMT 0)
Dermatogrphia (a.k.a. dermatographic urticaria) could be what you are experiencing. Another related possibility is mast cell activation syndrome. MCAS makes my stings and bites tend to look like hickeys!
Posted 7/18/2023 2:39 PM (GMT 0)
Lol my LLMD actually indeed suspected mcas as a co-disease i will get my results in 2 weeks.

Hopefully ITS that (Sounds crazy) but i would enjoy a Break from Symptoms with ketotifen or similar.
Posted 7/19/2023 11:29 AM (GMT 0)
ringringring:

I just wanted to update that this petechia is linked to damages in the smallest blood vessels wich is ACTUALLY ALSO LINKED TO BARTONELLA INFECTION

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0btoy3wr2lu&ab_channel=mg1010
Posted 7/19/2023 6:16 PM (GMT 0)
is there any reputable science linking worsening tests sensitivity or specificity with herbal antimicrobials ?

i think there may be in the case of pharma antibiotics as some of them are known to suppress certain white cells or be be anti-inflammatory which could interfere with some immune function - since is it mainly regulated by inflammatory cytokines and chemokines

but i am not aware of any research that says herbs have the same effects
Posted 7/19/2023 6:42 PM (GMT 0)
i am not totally sure, but they are not doing elispot (arminlabs) they are doing LTT for my diagnosis. and i know that for a LTT to be positive your immune system has to be confronted with the bacteria. and to make the immune system 'more' confronted therefore increase the sensitivity, she advised me to stay off all antibiotics.

i guessed she meant herbal antibiotics aswell, but i am not really sure about that. i just guessed after the said mechanism it might do the same with falsifying LTT diagnosis.

https://www.imd-berlin.de/spezielle-kompetenzen/borreliose/ltt-borrelien

"Erfolgt daraufhin eine effektive antibiotische Behandlung, wird der LTT- Borrelien ca. 4 bis 6 Wochen nach Therapie überwiegend negativ"

translates to:

"If the antibiotic treatment was effective, the LTT for Borrelia bacteria will be predominantly negative about 4 to 6 weeks after therapy."
Posted 7/19/2023 7:00 PM (GMT 0)
U know what? I just asked the Lab itself via E-Mail lol.
Posted 7/20/2023 6:29 AM (GMT 0)
Hello Blazer, I did this exactly last month, so I can speak from personal experience here.
- avoiding Atbx for one month in order to have serology tests - but I did not do LTT but Elisa - and what happened was that even I was on Buhner wihtin that month, avoiding ATbx my symptoms got worse. (so I understood I need to take Buhner with Atb).
- in the Lab I was told that when Bart is strong it will show even in the middle of ATB treatment. And he was right. I did Bart testing and was positive for both IgG and IgM.

Strangely, it is difficult to see which symptoms are caused by Lyme which by Bart, since it changes quite often, I m currently taking general treatment of Combined Atbx (Mino/doxy + azithro) with Buhner - increasining dosages and I keep observing how it will work and adjust accordingly - based on which syptomns will get reduce and which will remain or be increased - and adopt treatment more towards either Lyme or Bart.

Best wishes and good luck in healing for everybody!
Posted 7/20/2023 7:24 AM (GMT 0)
it would be a real blessing if i was allowed doing herbals. i will post the lab's answer here so anyone knows regarding ltt diagnostic
Posted 7/20/2023 11:43 AM (GMT 0)

BlazerGermany said...


https://www.imd-berlin.de/spezielle-kompetenzen/borreliose/ltt-borrelien

"Erfolgt daraufhin eine effektive antibiotische Behandlung, wird der LTT- Borrelien ca. 4 bis 6 Wochen nach Therapie überwiegend negativ"

translates to:

"If the antibiotic treatment was effective, the LTT for Borrelia bacteria will be predominantly negative about 4 to 6 weeks after therapy."

i personally think that there may be a misunderstanding or misinterpretation here.

statements like this about test methods are usually generalisations made about common infections - eg typical acute infections

such generalisations are aimed at a typical acute infection scenario where one has a confirmed infection - tests positive for that infection with a LTT of some other method - then tests again 4-6weeks AFTER COMPLETION OF SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT - at which point those Lymphocyte reactivity numbers are expected to have dropped dramatically.

so here the immune reactivity is reduced 4-6 weeks after the infection has been cleared / is under control by the immune system - not 4-6 weeks after stopping antibiotics.

do you see the distinction? the two things are just sometimes associated in common simple infections and can be confused because of that.

chronic infections are very rarely successfully treated in just a few weeks - many months or years is more common.
so they would not be expected to be under control by the immune system after a stopping treatment for 4 weeks and the immune reactivity of lymphocytes would not be expected to return to normal levels if the infection is still present/ active.

there may be separate studies or reasons for taking a break from abx before testing - but if its based on these general statements about LTT only - then i am not sure the logic is intact.

sorry if this conflicts with what you have been told - i see a lot of faulty statements and reasoning around this disease - which is not surprising given the wide array of misinformation and disagreement amongst so called experts
i am mainly trying to help by getting at the truth - or as close to it as we can.

ultimately i don't think the stakes are super high either way - as 4 weeks off treatment is unlikely to be a deal breaker - as its a slowly progressing disease - but like you i would like to know if its justified
Posted 7/20/2023 1:10 PM (GMT 0)
Here is what the Lab Said:

"There are of course no studies on this, but I personally do not believe that herbal antibiotics are so effective that they make the LTT completely negative.

But if they were so effective, they would reduce the LTT just like antibiotics. It should also be the case that the LTT reflects the current pathogen reactivity. That's the whole point of the test. If the LTT activity would not decrease, then the antibiotics would be

Of course, the LTT can't tell you what it would look like without antibiotics. Therefore, probably the recommendation of your doctor to omit the antibiotics to see what is only suppressed by the antibiotics"
Posted 7/20/2023 1:15 PM (GMT 0)
In Addition: i am Not offended in any way. As you I am seeking for the truth.

I really find your thoughts and Insight helpful. I have also thought about this.

But the Lab answer suggests it May actually result in a lower Test result. Wich may actually result in a false negative in some cases...
Posted 7/20/2023 4:42 PM (GMT 0)
OK happy to have the discussion - glad its taken as constructive as intended

however, i am not quite following the reasoning behind the lab statements

are they thinking that - if a herbal antimicrobial was truly effective it would remove (or reduce dramatically) the levels of the offending organisms in 4 weeks - and therefore - the lymphocytes would have none (or much less) to react to - and therefore the LTT would be more negative?

if so - then again - i think this is unfounded with chronic infections - as antibiotics simply do not work this well in the case of chronic infections - most common antibiotics are in fact bacteriostatic ( tetracyclines, macrolides, cephalosporins etc ) rather than bactericidal - so they do not actually kill bacteria - just slow down their replication/ metabolism - and so you might only reduce total infectious load by a small fraction in 4 weeks - so would this really reduce the reactivity of lymphocytes - or actually ramp it up - as slowed down bacteria under the influence of bacteriostatic antibiotics get captured more easily by the immune system....

or

are they thinking about some other mechanism - are they maybe assuming that the immune suppressing effects of antibiotics - are also be present in herbal antimicrobials in the same way.

i don't think this can be demonstrated to be the case - plant sourced herbal antimicrobials are widely varied and act in different ways to the most common antibiotics - which are mainly sourced from other microorganisms

its hard to evaluate the labs statements either way as they didn't provide any basis for what they believe - just stated their beliefs

as a patient i have experienced many confident statements presented to me as established facts - which later, after a bit of inspection, turn out to be, at best, speculative theories and at worst utterly unfounded misinformation - with probably good portion somewhere in the middle - more like a misinterpretation of one thing taken to mean something different, with good intentions but nonetheless misleading.

as i mentioned before, there are plenty of case studies of patients who were seronegative for infections before antibiotic treatment becoming seropositive during treatment
i.e. the opposite of what we are told to expect
presumably due to come kind of immune suppression due to infection becoming reversed during long term abx treatment - this immune reconstitution phenomenon is also seen in AIDS patients during anti-retroviral treatment - so there is a precedent.

and my Elispots (a LTT test) for lyme and bartonella were negative when i actually had both lyme
( both IgM and IgG positive from the same lab ) and bartonella (100% confirmed by blood smear) - so these tests are simply not as accurate as the labs say they are, ad this tells us we don't yet fully understand when they work will, when they don't, and therefore what factors are at play.

the more imbedded in a structured knowledge system a person is the more the following seems to apply
https://www.thinkindependent.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/aint-what-you-dont-know-image-mark-twain-1200x480.jpg

smile
Posted 7/20/2023 5:41 PM (GMT 0)
Their way of thinking could maybe be explained through Round Bodies and persisters.

I dont know If its true but it would make Sense to me If:
Antibiotics etc are actually effective in atleast chaning the behavior of the chronic bacterial infection. Therefore more Round Bodies and persisters Forms etc would Pop Up, some bacteria would flee to tissue etc or go dormant.

Since now the lymphocytes have less confrontation with it (we remember its a lymphocytes test) it actually is indeed negative.

However this theory has one flaw: persisting Symptoms can Not be fairly well explained is If this was true Symptoms should reduce drastically right away and we now this is only true for some single Symptoms but Not for the majority of Symptoms.

The Tests beeing inacurrate in General is indeed a big issue. Therefore i am looking Forward for darkfield microscopy. I would Love a blood smear but i have No good Access to it....

However i do think that reduction of test results from abx is indeed possible. A negative however May Sound illogical tho.

And for the Future. I Love medicial discussion. The West (USA,Europe) culture has been damaged by this 'offended' stuff so badly that now a intellectual has to be careful where He speaks truth to Not offend idiots. I think this is a horrible direction we are heading in General but thats fairly Off topic.

Greetings my friend!
Posted 7/20/2023 6:09 PM (GMT 0)

BlazerGermany said...
T

The West (USA,Europe) culture has been damaged by this 'offended' stuff so badly that now a intellectual has to be careful where He speaks truth to Not offend idiots. I think this is a horrible direction we are heading in General but thats fairly Off topic.

Greetings my friend!

i absolutely agree - as a society we are losing the ability to deal with opposing viewpoints and opinions without taking mortal offence - despite that exact quality being the epitome of true diversity - which we say we aspire to.

kind greetings in return!
Posted 7/20/2023 6:49 PM (GMT 0)
I would agree with the laboratory BlazerGermany. Having worked in a laboratory myself, it's fair to say that they know very well what they are talking about (it's a lot of repetitive work)

I do agree that the pace of bacterial multiplication may be slowed by certain antibiotics, but this does not necessarily render the germs more vulnerable to immune system capture. It's actually the antigenic characteristics of the bacteria and the efficacy of the host's immunological defenses that dictate how the immune system reacts to bacteria.

Let me be more precise - phagocytes and lymphocytes can identify and attack external invaders like germs. They accomplish this by identifying particular antigens and surface chemicals on the bacteria. Antibiotics that are bacteriostatic do not specifically change these antigens or make the germs easier for the immune system to identify - even with bactericidal drugs, the immune system still plays a major role in eliminating bacterial infections.

None if this truly matters - as stating that bactericidal drugs won't interfere with testing due to their mechanism of action is mostly semantics. When reducing the bacterial load one can expect there will always be less chance of obtaining accurate results.
Posted 7/20/2023 6:54 PM (GMT 0)
This statement of your would indicate that, bactericide ABX would have said effect on reducing the LTT, as while bacteriostatical would not, did I grab that information out there correctly?
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