I've been on Mepron/Zmax/Art for 3.5 months now and haven't improved; in fact I probably feel worse.
I haven't noticed any obvious herxes except possibly after the Art; I use Dr. K's approach, 3 days on 11 off.
I've been tested multiple times at Igenex, Bowen and MDL and only one showed IgG+, everything else was negative. That includes WA1 as well.
My question is, if this combination was going to work shouldn't I feel better by now? Has anyone felt worse for several months, 4+, then felt better?
I searched the archives and it seems most people herx hard the first several weeks then feel better.
I'm seeing my doc soon but wanted input from the list. Thanks much for any personal experiences,
Tim
Posted by Rene (Member # 4870) on :
Hi Tim,
I know it seems like a long time to be on Mepron/Zith for 3.5 months, but that really isn't very long. Babesia is a tough organism to kill. I took 10 months straight of Mepron/Zith. That combination did not get rid of my babs, and I am now on another combination of drugs, hoping that will do it.
Posted by Lisianthus (Member # 6631) on :
My sister has been on Malerone/Zithro for about 2 years(and still is). She is doing a million times better! For a while she couldn't go off of her meds, not even for a few days, the babs symptoms would come right back. Now she can take some breaks, the last one she took was a few months before symptoms came back. And it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been before.
Good luck, you'll get through this. Lisi
Posted by johnlyme1 (Member # 7343) on :
A lot of people hit babs straight for a long time and hard- I had 2 big runs of zith malarone and art in my 1st 6 months of treatments and then we backed off for awhile and worked on the other co-infections and lyme but I did pulse art during the break from malarone 4days on and 3 off for various runs. When ever I started the art I did get babs symptoms but they were not horendious like some experience.
After 14 month we started to add malarone zith and art again for shorter runs of 2 weeks a couple of times, yes still getting some babs herxes.
Then about 2 months ago added 2 more weeks of malarone and art - the fisrt 3 days major head babs herx and sweating then it stopped - I have not had any signs of babs since.
When I took the art the dosing was between 600 and 1000 art per day. I build up to this dosiing over all the malarone zith runs - in the begining I could not tolerate art at that high of dose - at the end there was no problem. For me this told me that the babs load was getting down - I even did a couple of days of 1200 art and it really did not hit me like it did in the begining of treatment.
I sill throw in a couple of days yet of 900 just to make sure its gone - no real reaction from babs anymore.
Everyone is different but I can't but wonder if this infection needs to be removed in layers like the rest. tust me I had babs very bad in the begining of treatment, chest pain, rib pain, heart flutters, air hunger, major sweats, head pain and so on. all gone now.
Posted by cactus (Member # 7347) on :
Yes - I felt worse for a long time before feeling better. In month 4, I still felt significantly worse.
I've been in treatment for year and a half - with one full year of that on some type of babs treatment (mepron + various macrolides, then malarone + zith). The most significant improvement has been in the past few months.
Are your babs symptoms changing at all? It can be difficult to differentiate between symptoms of babs and other infections. For me, the sweats, headaches, heart palps, night time fevers have slowly tapered off. At this point, I consider my symptoms more lyme-related than babs. Took a long time, though.
Keep taking that yummy yellow stuff!
Posted by docjen (Member # 7510) on :
I have been on meds for babesia treatment for a year now. I started on mepron/zith and developed resistance to mepron. I remember reading a lot of people saying they felt better right away when they started treating the babs. Not so for me. I am still after a year dealing with some sweats, headaches, insomnia...but it is getting better slowly. Hang in there!