I will be speaking with my LLMD next month about possible Babesia treatment.
Are the different options: (1) Clindamycin and Quinine sulfate (2) Mepron and azithromycin
Is Malarone used for babesia? Can it be used alone? What type of drug is it?
He mentioned treating me without the use or oral antibiotics, since babesia is a parasite, and since I am still weaning off the oral vanco for the C. diff. So, I would guess that means he would not use option 1 or 2, since they are both antibiotics....
I'd love for those who have been treated for babesia to post their symptoms prior to treatment, what treatment they used, any syptoms that were exacerbated because of treatment, and if the treatment was helpful or had side effects.
Thanks in advance..... Timaca
ps....I had moved my last phone consult with my LLMD up a day. When he started talking to me, he asked if everything was OK, since I had moved my appt up a day. He wondered if I was having "a catastrophe". I assured him everything was ok...I just wanted to spend the next day with my husband. I'm sure my LLMD sees me as an "accident waiting to happen" since every phone call since December has been a "catastrophe" of some kind or another....fungal infection in picc line, 3 bouts of C. diff, ER with tachycardia, and round, red rash! Oh well....here's to a better month (I hope!!)
Posted by jwenny (Member # 8831) on :
I just started my fourth week of babesia treatment. My symptoms are:
- night sweats - chest/abdominal tightness/discomfort...feels like I can barely move my diaphragm and hard to talk loud....this tightness actually goes around to my back spinal area.
I am currently taking daily 2 x 1 tsp mepron and 2 x 250 mg zith. I recently added artemisin...i heard the recommended dose is 300 mg/day.
I have not noticed any significant improvement yet, but would welcome those with similar symptoms to tell when they started improving.
Hope this help and best wishes!
Posted by Hides1 (Member # 6348) on :
HI
Let's see where should I start? I will try and be brief. I finally got diagnosed with Lyme in 2002 after a few years of not feeling well. My doctor prescribed the normal lyme drugs but they were in low doses. Rarely did he do combos, etc. He supposedly treated me for the Bartonella and Mycoplasma. However, I never got better- just always worse. I was on IV Rocephin for 2 months then again a year later for 6 months. No one ever found the Babs until I met Dr. B last year.
Last April he did the Igenex FSH and IGM and both came back positive. I had a very high level and he said all that lyme treatment didn't help much if we didn't address the Babs issue. I was bummed but also finally relieved to realize there was something else involved that was causing my illness.
I look back when I did lyme treatments and I didn't have the severe Babs symptoms (that's probably why it wasn't recognized.) I had an occasional chronic cough and had a little swagger when I walked. My blood tests always showed a slightly lower Hematocrit level (which leads to anemia). My main thing was my headaches which were more of an encephalitis type and my chest pains.Lyme meds rarely took care of this.
I started the Mepron/Zith/Artemesinin combo in June and didn't herx right away. But a few weeks later my head was in a real fog and my eyes killed. I started getting fevers and just alot came out. I started having real night sweats. By November I was starting to feel a little better and my chest pains actually started to die down.
I needed to be treated for Bartonella again so they took me off the Mepron and put me on Malarone and Levaquin. Malarone is an Atovaquone like Mepron but it has a sulfate in it. I did fine on that. They took me off all Babs meds this past January. A few weeks later I went down hill hard.
End of January I became very anemic and weak, chest pains killed, fevers and sweats and finally the dreaded air hunger I had always heard about. It was just awful. They finally put me back on Mepron, etc the end of February and I am just starting to feel a little better.
The only thing that has turned around a lot are my head pains. Which is a good thing! The inflamed feeling is not there as frequently. Since starting the Mepron again my fevers are only once in a while now and my night sweats are less. I am no longer anemic since taking more iron supps and montioring my levels. I think I have imrpoved but I think I have a long way to go since my levels were still high in February.
I don't know what the answer is but I hope the Mepron/Art continues to improve and these darn chest pains go away again. I hope this has been helpful. Please PM me if you need any more info.
Posted by seibertneurolyme (Member # 6416) on :
Malarone contains mepron plus another drug -- not sure what 2nd drug is.
The Dr B told hubby to treat for babs for a minimum of 4 months continuously with no breaks (average life of red blood cells is 120 days) so babs would not become drug resistant.
In my opinion, this bug is just about as difficult to get rid of as Lyme itself -- hides out in the liver and can come back to haunt you.
Dr B also suggests including artemisinin in treatment protocol.
Hubby is just getting ready to restart babs treatment -- think this is more important than going on to IV Vancomycin at this time.
Night sweats have come back although milder than before. Also chills -- temp yesterday went from 96.1 to 97.9 in about 5 minutes.
A sense of imbalance -- not true room spinning vertigo -- is a clasic sign.
Another option would be to try Flagyl first before regular babs meds -- some anecdotal evidence of benefit -- stopped sweats and eye pain for hubby last time in 2 weeks at dose of 1/4 pill daily.
Will be posting an abstract on some new babs herbs in a couple of days when I get my notes together. These are things I have not seen mentioned on LymeNet before.
Rash with Mepron seems fairly common -- very difficult in some cases to determine if it is a true allergy or simply a die-off reaction.
Bea Seibert
Posted by Nukegirl (Member # 6809) on :
Hi,
I just sent my blood to IGenex to see if I have any co-infections. I am waiting to hear and will find out on 05/05/06 when I go back to LLMD
I have all the classic signs of Babesia.
Shortness of breath Chest pain/tightness in chest Hoarseness night sweats
Posted by Nukegirl (Member # 6809) on :
Oh, by the way. I forgot to mention I am being treated with Biaxin 500 mg twice daily. I have been on that for 3 weeks now and I feel like I'm starting to get better slowly. Currently, I am trying to add Bicillin IM shots to my regiment.
Was diagnosed in 02/05 and treated with my old doc for a year on an inadequate dosage of Ceftin.
Posted by janet thomas (Member # 7122) on :
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Oh well....here's to a better month (I hope!!)