Which Treatment Affected You the Worst - Lyme, Babesia, or Bartonella?

biofilm agents hit me the hardest

i think this is mainly when you are taking other antimicrobials at the same time - as you are supposed to do - as you don't want to break up biofilms only to let the bacteria released colonise somewhere else

my herx reactions from most common antibiotics are relatively mild - then when i added even 1g a day of xylitol for a week - it was like the antibiotics were suddenly supercharged - 2 or 4 fold more herx

it also took over a week to recover after stopping the abx and xylitol!

this is even though i am 60% recovered

i guess after being ill for 8 years a fair bit of biofilm has built up and will take a while to break down

hi Bhava

i am not sure if i am following you exactly - but if you are saying you are not herxing as much during treatment now vs at the beginning - that's pretty common

this is likely because after a few weeks of antibiotics our bodies have cleared most of the easily accessible bacteria - but the infection remains deep in tissues, as persister cells that are not killed by most antibiotics and also in biofilms - which are harder to get at and relatively unharmed by antibiotics - so subsequent doses of abx seem to do less

rifampicin and minocycline are a decent place to start - but when that is stable you may wish to add some further abx for lyme and for persister cells -
a beta lactam antibiotic like ceftin is often used with those - another alternative is amoxillin
alternately azithromycin is used as a third abx with rifampicin and a tetracycline class drug

these are still relatively mild / basic abx with good safety profiles - triple and quadruple abx combinations are typically used by experienced LLMD's for lyme, Babesia and bartonella infections

oregano oil and lumbrokinase are also good additions - oregano oil exact mechanism of action seems to be as yet unknown but it does seem to be very powerful - both from lab studies and patient experiences - it seems to be able to attack established colonies not only fast growing bacteria
lumbrokinase may have some impact on biofilms - but its main target is fibrin deposits - known to be caused caused by babesia and bartonella infections in particular

coconut oil is often confused with monolaurin - which is an antibacterial product made from it -
coconut oil itself is v mild in terms of antimicrobial or antibiofilm action

so you may want to consider adding something additional for biofilms also
they all act via slightly different mechanisms so it works well to combine several of these
xylitol is another low cost safe option - it works by a separate mechanism to the above - and is favoured by Dr J - so seems a good choice

i am using it now and finding it very powerful

the doses for lyme for all drugs are typically the maximum dose used for that antibiotic in adults for other serious infections see for example https://www.drugs.com/dosage/azithromycin.html

when combinations are used each drug in a combination is typically used at this dose.
but each may be started at lower doses to establish tolerability

these are all relatively safe drugs - but everyone is different, lyme and co may weaken the function of organs and multiple drug combinations increases the risk of liver, blood count or sometimes kidney issues - so safety labs should be performed each few weeks

the other approach to consider is pulsing - for example - Dr J favours this for all his patients
pulsing reduces the risks of taking multiple antibiotics.
in this case a greater number of different types of antibiotics are typically used
but they are not used continuously

Dr J has videos and lectures available on YouTube if you want to get a feel for the concepts and approaches used

sure

Dr J talks about his philosophy for treatment and pulsing here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukdanbxsbb4
and on his YouTube channel here ( all of his videos are worth a watch )
https://www.youtube.com/channel/ucoon1xk3dmcrl6idxjhjgbw/videos?view=0

you will find other videos and presentations if you just google his name and a few key words like "Borreliosis", "Lyme disease" etc

Dr MR talks about his pulsing philosophy and gives examples here
https://www.treatlyme.net/guide/lyme-pulse-antibiotics