Topic: Beating Chronic Lyme with Pulsed Amoxicillin or Rocephin
Bugg
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Member # 8095
posted
I posted a link to a study recently that was showing these two abx were proving efficacious against persisters in chronic lyme in petri dish studies. I was wondering if anyone on this Board pulsed either of these abx and feels like it helped them beat chronic lyme?
Posts: 1155 | From Southeast | Registered: Oct 2005
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TF
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Member # 14183
posted
I got rid of chronic lyme by taking high-dose amoxicillin DAILY. I did NOT pulse it. My doc followed the Burrascano Guidelines. So, that tells you how much I took.
I didn't get rid of lyme with amoxi only. I DID get rid of it when I went to a lyme doc who gave me amoxi plus flagyl daily. (And, probinecid as required)
I had undiagnosed lyme disease for at least 10 years before I was tested and found out I had lyme. I wasted 2 years with a doc who had me on amoxicillin continuously (with probinecid).
Any time I stopped the amoxi, I was back to square #1 within 2 weeks.
Then, I switched to a Burrascano type doctor who told me that the 2 years of amoxi had turned all of my lyme into the cyst form.
So, he had me stop it for 1 week to get the lyme out of cyst form. Then, he put me back on amoxi but this time with flagyl added. It was an ambush!
I got my first herx. Then, after a month, he stopped the amoxi and continued the flagyl for another 30 days. That is how I cured chronic lyme over 10 years ago now.
The doc then went on to treat me for bart and babs following Burrascano.
So, by pulsing amoxi, you are going to get it to come out of the cyst form and will kill some spirochetes. But, to get rid of lyme in all forms, you are going to have to take another antibiotic. That is what Burrascano says and my experience definitely lined up with that.
Posts: 9931 | From Maryland | Registered: Dec 2007
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CherylSue
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Good info. Thanks.
Posts: 1954 | From Illinois | Registered: Aug 2007
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hiker53
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TF. I used amoxi for awhile with tindamax and then switched to Zithromax with flagyl.
Added some bicillin and minocycline along the way and never even herxed (but lost over 30 pounds that I did not need to lose).
Went to alternative treatments--photon therapy etc. and am much better--not well, yet, but getting there.
Everyone is so different.
Burrascano sort of pulses. He has used rocephin until the symptoms die off and then waits without drugs until they come back and hits it again. Repeats until no symptoms come back. He may also add other drugs--am not sure about that, but read a book by a patient of his.
-------------------- Hiker53
"God is light. In Him there is no darkness." 1John 1:5 Posts: 8890 | From Illinois | Registered: Aug 2004
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droid1226
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Member # 34930
posted
Dr. J is seeing success with pulsed flagyl, roceph, mepron, zith with someone I know. She says he's pulsing more. I don't know that for a fact.
I don't know the schedule exactly but I know someone who's getting better, no doubt, on this pulsed protocol.
posted
TF - how did you know your lyme infection was gone? What symptoms left forever after the month of Flagyl? What symptoms did you continue to have from co-infections?
Posts: 123 | From Washington State | Registered: Dec 2013
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TF
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posted
SLML--to answer your question, at the time I was a lyme patient, I didn't know that the 2 months of flagyl and amoxi had cured me.
I was an obedient patient who just did what my lyme doctor told me to do.
When the doc moved on to treat bartonella, I didn't even know it.
It seems to me that my doctor wanted to knock down the lyme, then hit bart and then hit babs. He told me that he expected he would have to re-treat lyme at the end of all of this, but that turned out to be unnecessary in my case.
He told me at the start that I would NEVER get well unless I did the Burrascano exercise requirement (which is one continuous hour of weightlifting every OTHER day--a full body workout each time). So, I began trying to do that from the first.
I give the credit to the weightlifting that I was able to clear lyme without re-treatment.
The weightlifting requirement is awesome. It really works, just like Burrascano says it will. I credit it with the fact that my body was able to clear all of these infections and I never relapsed!
So many people don't get told that the weightlifting is a necessity. That keeps you from any chance of getting rid of this horrendous disease! And, don't think it was easy for me to do this, because it wasn't.
My main symptom for at least 10 years was extreme muscle weakness. I couldn't stand for more than a minute, hold the phone to my head for more than 30 seconds, or hold my mouth open to have my teeth cleaned. That is how weak I was. Still, I started to try to do the 1 hour.
At first, I could just lift an empty bar maybe twice and do one leg lift. I had a difficult time going down our stairs into the basement where our weight bench was. My legs shook like jello.
But, I persevered. That is the key. Over the next few months, I was finally up to a 30 minute routine and eventually I got to the one hour requirement.
So, focus on that and see how much it helps you.
Since my treatment ended over 10 years ago, I can't tell you what symptoms went away in the first month of treatment or second month or 3rd etc.
Instead, I will say that I noticed gradual improvement over time. Most of my symptoms went away slowly--like my false menopause. I slowly (over 3-5 months) noticed signs that my body was again producing sex hormones. (False menopause is a lyme symptom.)
I would say that I regained the ability to sleep in the first 2 months of treatment. The mental things returned slowly. I don't know when I noticed that I no longer had word-finding problems or memory problems or derealization problems.
The extreme muscle weakness (a lyme symptom) went away over months of doing the weightlifting.
I really had no symptoms of babs and bart, so the treatment didn't remove symptoms from me. I just realized that over time I never got episodes of horrendous abdominal pain anymore. (That was my bart symptom--abdominal pain that was unbelievable.)
Posts: 9931 | From Maryland | Registered: Dec 2007
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posted
I hate to throw cold water on this idea ...
But I would think tons of chronic patients have tried this since Pam W wrote about it in Cure Unknown, and so far we have not seen tons of people coming forward, screaming from the rooftops about being cured and having their lives back.
I think Dr B, along with most LLMDs, paint way too rosy a picture regarding the outcome for late-stage patients.
Posts: 845 | From Eastern USA | Registered: Jul 2006
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Exercise holds an element of terror for me and yet is my #1 goal. I have so much weight to lose from the inactivity and inability to exercise as well as the effects of lyme-induced biotoxin illness (disrupting hormones).
Let me explain.
I believe I was bitten in May of 2007 in Albany, NY. I had a flu - that no one else in may family got - and I was extremely weak - like no other flu - where I could not lift even my arm or hairbrush. I recovered after 10 days but then went on to have alot of foot pain, hot flashes and mood swings.
I decided to get healthy in December 07(I had just had a baby in January 2007) and I had some weight to lose. I had been a runner since a teenager with no problem at all and had grown up hiking with my family.
I went to the gym every day - ran - and did weights. I ignored the intense foot pain that happened with each step determined that it would not hold me back. At the 3 week point I woke up in the dead of night with a feeling of having been punched in the gut and began a massive anxiety that never went away for long from 2008-2012. It wasn't a real anxiety - just a constant feeling of nerve shattering nervousness that disabled me. The nervousness was not specific to anything. Before this point, I had never had anxiety in my life.
In May 2009. I tried to exercise again - and went on a hike and nearly passed out and suffered massive mental confusion. The exercise sent me into a deep chemical depression (nothing in my life to be depressed about). That was at the 3 week point of my exercise regimen of running and hiking.
In April of 2012. I tried yet again. I had been taking vitamins and feeling a bit better. I ordered a weight machine for the house because I had read Burrascano Guidelines. I had been diagnosed with a positive Western Blot for lyme and had taken medicine for a few months but was off of it because I had moved to a new country and was scared to not have any lyme specialist available if I had problems with the medication. 3 weeks into doing a routine of weights every other day for 30 minutes - my speech began to slur, my blood pressure went up and down, tremors ran through my body like undulating waves. This lasted for 2 weeks and then died down and took me 2 months to recover. I was terrified and in foreign country where no one knew about lyme.
I am terrified of exercise. But I have been doing Burrascano treatments for what will be 2 years this August (covering all three forms at high doses concurrently) and am beginning to try once more at exercise. The elusive 3 week point awaits me. I now know - it was a massive herxeimer reaction (lyme dying) that caused all those terrible reactions at the 3 week point. Hopefully I have done enough detoxing and medication that this won't happen this time around. However, I am starting very slow. I want to walk 5 days a week for 30 minutes without any herxeimer before I begin a weight routine.
But I can't help it. I am apprehensive.
FYI - I was clinically diagnosed with Bartonella because of the foot pain and intense anxiety. I had a borderline positive result for Babesia Duncani and I am actively treating that infection as well (definite response to Malarone/A-Bab). Anxiety has been gone for 2.5 years now. I did Buhner Herbs while I lived in a foreign country for a year before I moved back to the states and started antibiotics.
Last but not least, I really appreciate you staying on the forum after you healed TF. Your story of recovery (and those of your friends) has encouraged me many times when I have read different posts of yours and appreciate you paying it forward.
Posts: 123 | From Washington State | Registered: Dec 2013
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TF
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Member # 14183
posted
I advise you to stop walking and definitely don't do any running. You never see in Burrascano that you are to do these types of exercise.
Instead, you see him say over and over and in BOLD print that aerobic exercise is NOT allowed. Walking (except briefly for a warmup) and running are AEROBIC exercise and they are not allowed.
So, do what Burrascano says and don't do the things he does not allow you to do. First, you are breaking the Burrascano rule by wanting to exercise 5 days a week. You are only allowed to exercise at a maximum of every other day. At first, you must allow yourself more than one day to recover. Perhaps 5 days. Go by what your body tells you. Read this section of the Guidelines carefully and obey.
Second, you are not to walk for 30 minutes. (This type of exercise is OK once you are nearly recovered, but not now). It will decrease your immune system for too long of a time. See what I mean?
You are to do a full-body workout of weightlifting. That is NOT walking!
Study Burrascano and do exactly what he says: light weights, many repetitions, no aerobic exercise. Otherwise, you will DECREASE your immune system and make yourself worse. You could even damage your heart.
And, you must lay down and rest or nap after each workout. Start out with a 10 or 15 minute workout to help ward off anxiety. See how you react to that. Then, work up to 30 and eventually 60 minutes. Take your time working up to the full 1 hour. Pushing yourself is the wrong thing to do in this case.
Posts: 9931 | From Maryland | Registered: Dec 2007
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Do you have to do it for the rest of your life to keep the lyme in check?
Posts: 832 | From Somewhere | Registered: Nov 2010
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TF
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 14183
posted
Read pages 31-32 for Burrascano's explanation of why he thinks weightlifting works.
It definitely worked for me twice. I had a period of time about 5 years ago where I was catching every illness that came down the pike. It was unbelievable.
I realized that the nasal spray my pcp had given me was a steroid! Nasonex, I believe. It was weakening my immune system! (I was using it daily for 3 months.) Some lyme doctors don't believe this will happen with Nasonex, but it did to me. Do an Internet search and see where it tells you this--stay away from sick people, people with measles, etc.
So, I stopped the spray and started up the weightlifting again and I stopped getting sick totally. Just like that! It was amazing to me.
So, I proved to myself that it boosts the immune system.
When in treatment, they believe it drives the meds deeper into the tissues. That is why it has to be a full body workout.
When you do weightlifting, you increase the blood supply to the muscles you are using. That will naturally increase the amount of antibiotic going into those muscles also.
I did the weightlifting for at least 1 year after I completed my treatment. I was really enjoying the strength it gave me and the look of having a little muscle.
After a while, I tapered off but since I have osteopenia, I still try to do at least 20 to 30 minutes of weightlifting twice per week.
You certainly can stop the weightlifting after 3 years of being free of lyme. I base that on the statement I heard Burrascano say that if a person gets rid of lyme and has no return of lyme symptoms for 3 years, then he will NOT relapse.
I completed my treatment over 10 years ago now and I am still symptom free. There is another cured lyme patient on LymeNet who did pilates and got cured that way. She says that it is also a form of weightlifting. It is sixgoofykids, I believe. She also credits this form of weightlifting for getting her lyme-free and not relapsing.
Posts: 9931 | From Maryland | Registered: Dec 2007
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posted
Nice to see the pilates provides a similar function. I have a hard time forcing myself to lift sometimes, can't do a lot of stuff when my joint problems flare.
I think the increase of blood flow is a huge factor, getting meds and nutrients in and carrying toxins out. Resistance exercises also create adaptations in the CNS and can stimulate the production of growth hormone, both of which help increase immune system functioning.
Posts: 474 | From US | Registered: May 2014
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