Guess the Herx: Digestion and Back Spasm Edition

VTdad

Regular Member

Joined : Oct 2021

Posts : 29

Posted 10/10/2023 4:54 PM (GMT 0)

Hi everyone,

It's every lymey's favorite game - guess the herx! (Apologies for my attempt at humor, it's a coping mechanism smile

)

I think I'm having a herx or some sort of acute episode but can't quite make sense of it. I'm having a crippling bout of back pain, where I can't walk and have intense muscle spasms in my spine, so painful that I can't do anything but lie down. This is alongside a bout of diarrhea and kind of flu-like feelings, where I can sleep for multiple hours a day, which is not my usual energy level. It's come on quite suddenly after being stable for several months and functional this summer. I used to get this exact muscle spasm frequently when I was at my most sick, and it got better and less frequent with treatment. A few months ago I went to an osteopath to address a leg length discrepancy and since then haven't had a single episode after he gave me some wedges for my shoes. My working theory was that I had some sort of manageable inflammation/weak point in the spine that was being attacked by something opportunistic like bart or borrelia when I was ill. I've had scans/MRIs/etc and there aren't any disc issues.

I haven't done anything unusual with my meds - I'm off antibiotics and am taking a ton of herbal supplements, histamine support for the MCAS and methylene blue, which I've been ramping up slowly without issue. about two weeks ago I had to take my mycotoxin test and took glutathione for a week, which made me feel pretty tired (this is normal), but a week passed between then and this episode. There also isn't any injury or activity I can think of that brought this one, I've been keeping up with my stretches, core strength etc.

Anyone ever have this particular combo? In the past I've had the three bs, mold and MCAS (which is still a challenge, particularly at night), but never these symptoms particularly in the middle of a stable period.

Thanks!

Quin

Veteran Member

Joined : Oct 2018

Posts : 1923

Posted 10/10/2023 5:51 PM (GMT 0)

Oh, another fun game of guess the herx!

Well, there's a lot here. Muscle pain I usually ascribe to borrelia, but muscle spasms are more often endocrine in nature, which can have multiple causes. HPA dysfunction can cause beta-endorphin release and a tolerance/withdrawal effect which leads to muscle spasms. Hypercalcemia can disrupt insulin release, although I find that this tends to result in muscle weakness rather than spasms. The distinguishing symptoms here are that HPA axis dysregulation and beta-endorphin tends to result in alternating constipation and diarrhea rather than just diarrhea. Hypercalcemia tends to result in increased stomach acid, rather than just diarrhea.

Diarrhea from herx can be either borrelia or bartonella, but I found it much worse with bartonella. I could usually tell when it was bartonella because dead bartonella has a very distinctive swampy, sulfur, or asparagus-like smell.

Bartonella die off also caused very dark urine (bilirubin) which borrelia did not. Borrelia did cause some smelly and cloudy urine, but borrelia doesn't destroy red blood cells and cause the dark urine like bartonella or babesia does. Bartonella die off also caused much more fever and flu-like symptoms, borrelia herx tended to cause more sleep disruption, sweating, and endocrine disruption.

For me, changes in leg length and foot size were due to borrelia, and persisted even after successful treatment of bartonella. What was surprising about this is that it was not initially painful, the joints just expanded. Over several years I was buying bigger shoes, but it was slow and I didn't notice it much at first. By the time it became painful, it had gotten pretty bad. In contrast to borrelia, bartonella is known for causing acute neuropathy and foot pain, but this was not a major symptom for me.

So what you describe seems like borrelia, mostly, but there might be some some bartonella or babesia symptoms in there. Borrelia also dies off much more slowly than bartonella or babesia, so if you're getting die off a week or more after stopping antibiotics, I'm going to guess borrelia.

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