DrJ for Bartonella?

Garzie said...
acc to Dr J its the infections that mainly damage, dysregulate and suppress the immune system

as the infectious load comes down your immune system is likely to improve - but its a gradual process that takes place over many months of steady treatment

antibiotics may contribute to a dysfunctional immune system by disrupting the microbiome - which is involved in training an regulating the immune system
but the microbiome is typically very messed up by the infections anyway via a variety of mechanisms - like gut inflammation, direct infection of the lining by organisms such as bartonella and borrelia, leaky gut, immune dysregulation, motility issues etc - so its not really a reason to avoid them.

also studies have shown it can in any case be rebuilt over time via things like
-varied diet - in particular the number of different plant species consumed is linked to microbiome diversity (although a person might need to overcome infection induced gut issues before many foods are tolerated)
-lifestyle changes (sleep, exercise, stress reduction, time in nature have all been show to improve microbiome diversity)
-fermented foods (and probiotics to a lesser extent)
-social contact ( which is where we get the microbes in the first place )

there may be other blocking factors affecting the normal functioning of the immune system - but since their approach centres around trying to get the hosts immune system to take over the role of keeping the infections under control - so if you don't respond to treatment as expected over the coming months i think they will likely look into this in due course

all the best !

Interesting as they told me the antibiotics are one of the biggest immune suppressants! And they think that was my biggest issue. Too many antibiotics and not enough breaks for my immune system to recover so it just stopped working on its own. So they are trying to “rev it back up” so it’s starts working properly again.

My diet is extremely clean. I have also been doing the 30+ different plant foods for a while now too after hearing about its benefits for the microbiome. That along with some other gut health supplements completely healed my leaky gut and it was amazing. My zonulin markers went down to almost nothing, could tolerate higher histamine foods, digestion and everything was perfect. But that was during IV abx. I go back on oral abx and it messed my gut up again but still maintaining gut health as best I can.

Post Edited (Cece98) : 12/7/2023 3:13:32 PM (GMT-8)

The known mechanism of action of atovaquone is to block the cytochrome b complex and collapse the membrane potential. This affects the mitochondria in babesia, but also prokaryotes that rely on the TCA cycle for ATP production, such as bartonella. Borrelia has no TCA cycle and is unaffected by atovaquone.

Many efflux pumps rely on the electrochemical potential across the cell membrane as a power source. As far as I know, no one has specifically investigated whether this is the case for bartonella, but that's how it works in most bacteria, so it's reasonable to assume that this is the case for bartonella as well.

I definitely noticed that I had an increased reaction to antibiotics (herx) when taking atovaquone, and wladek83 and others have reported this also.

Eliminating bartonella requires more than just antibiotics. You also have to hit the persisters with something that will cause those to come out. I did it successfully with sodium valproate. Although it worked for me, that drug doesn't seem to be a particularly popular choice, many people prefer using methylene blue or other things.

I noticed increased herxing typical of bartonella die off when I took atovaquone and azithromycin at the same time. I would not expect an effect nine months later.

I also did get some herx from Bactrim/Septra, but had to stop taking that as it was messing with my potassium too much.