My LLMD has diagnosed me with relapsing babesia WA-1. I treated it a year ago for 6 months with zith and mepron. He wants me to start mepron again with the zith and bicillin. Any words of wisdom. Do you think this will work the second time around?
Posted by trails (Member # 1620) on :
Oh geez what a nightmare!
I am in a nightmare too, but of a different type.
Liz28 has been sharing very good and specific ABX protocols for relapsing babs that she has been trying. I dont know if your LLMD is willing to try new things, but if they are then this might be the thing to do.
good luck! Trails
Posted by david1097 (Member # 3662) on :
Happened to me also. About a week of malarone +artiminisin +zith brought it under control. The difference was extremely noticable, like a switch being turned off.
I have tried to stop the babesia meds since then but it comes back. I have also had it for almost 30 yars, and long before I had Lyme, so maybe that is part of the problem.
Posted by 5dana8 (Member # 7935) on :
Hi surg
You may want to ask you doc about adding the arteminisisn
I feel it helped alot.
good luck and hang in there
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
This is typical for babesia treatment. Most patients have to be treated several, if not MANY times.
Hang in there. I think the artemisinin works well too. I had MANY rounds of clindamycin/quinine over several years time.
I think I'm babesia-free! Haven't taken any meds for it in over a year now.
Posted by liz28 (Member # 4946) on :
I have to agree with what others have written here: atovaquone cannot eradicate some forms of babesia. While researching this subject, you may wish to learn more about plasmodium vivax, the most prevalent worldwide form of relapsing malaria, whose characteristics closely resemble what many Lymenet members have experienced with relapsing babesia.
Rather than wasting your money on mepron while your doctor is still open to new ideas, you may want to explore either quinine or chloroquine, with primaquine added as a "cyst buster." I'm not saying this just to make life more complicated for you--I took both plaquenil (which is a weaker cousin of chloroquine) for 2 years and mepron for 1.5 years, and developed drug resistance to both of them.
I've never done quinine. For the past three weeks, I've been symptom-free of babesia after taking two months' worth of primaquine on a four-day-on, two-day-off pulse, and then three short courses of chloroquine, with 600mg on Day 1 taken in two doses, then 300mg on Days 2 and 3. Then I took a three-day break, using mepron to suppress a mild return of babesia symptoms, and started again.
Primaquine is still pulsed, but I don't take it every day, and it no longer produces any noticeable effect. I try to take about 45mg, or three tablets, of primaquine over the week.
If this protocol had not worked, I'd have moved on to quinine. And even if the babesia does not return after these three chloroquine courses, I will still take 300mg per week, the normal preventative dosage taken by travelers to protect against malaria, for at least two months.
[ 21. June 2006, 12:00 PM: Message edited by: liz28 ]
Posted by Michelle M (Member # 7200) on :
Surg and David, where were you when I was looking for babesia WA1 buddies!! :-)
I'm in my second month of treatment.
Me and Tabby Tamer were feelin so lonely...
I'm not likin hearing this atall.
Mepron/Zith/Art is my regimen, which is helping immensely, and has given me back my brain, and taken away my years-long migraine.
I'm saving this thread, fer sure. I have noticed a severe shortage of WA1 success stories.
Liz, thanks for the great ideas. You're our babesia pioneer.
Wish I could help but I'm too much of a babesia virgin to offer anything but a hug...
Michelle
Posted by david1097 (Member # 3662) on :
Liz28.. What abx are you taking with mepron? I have found that with no abx or THE WRONG abx the stuff DOES NOT WORK...
![[Frown]](frown.gif)