I am on coartem and malarone and have been for 3 months. I also take doxy daily and tndy on weekends. over the last 2-3 weeks i feel AWFUL! can my babs be getting worse? Is it a super bug? My foot burning is out of control and I'm dizzy/have an out of it feeling lately. Any guesses? Stick with it? change?
Posted by carriekaye (Member # 43533) on :
My daughter has babesia, and has had it for at least 5 years. She never had sweats/chills until last month... 2 months into treatment with liposomal artemesinin.
She was really run down when that symptom crept up, and I think that contributed. The sweats stopped after she was able to get the sleep her body needed, and after we added malarone. Since the sleep and malarone came at about the same time, I don't know which of those is responsible for the symptom clearing up.
Posted by GretaM (Member # 40917) on :
I had mild symptoms of babesia before treating. Mainly sweating.
After trying mepron and zith for one month, all my symptoms are aggravated.
Soaking sweats, fatigue, sleeping like the dead, leg bone pain is worse (pretty sure another co is involved with that).
Stomach nausea and indigestion all the time now.
Honestly, I wish I never poked the hornets nest.
I think it is dose depenednt. Bacteriostatic vs bacteriocidal
Posted by oceangirlSA (Member # 40873) on :
I also got worse after I took meds for babesia. My symptoms intensified and they have never gone away.
I have constant chest pain, and sweats from babesia but I think it made my bartonella symptoms worse too whilst I was on the meds.
I haven't gone back to treating it yet - loathe it because my stomach does not like the meds.
Posted by TF (Member # 14183) on :
I had no discernable babs symptoms until I started treating it. Then, all hell broke loose.
My lyme doc put me on Bactrim DS for babs since I couldn't take mepron/zith.
As soon as I started the treatment, I got horrendous illness for 48 hours every week like clockwork. It always started about 7 p.m. on Friday evening and left at 7 p.m. on Sunday evening.
I thought I might be nuts when this happened each weekend. When I reported it to my lyme doc, he added artemesinin to encompass these "flares" as he called them.
I would become like a zombie, going in and out of consciousness. Not moving, talking, eating, drinking, going to the bathroom, etc. And, the entire time my mind felt like I was DOOMED!!!!
The art worked like a miracle. It made the flare go down to just 6 hours and mild. Then, nothing hardly at all the next week, etc.
So, this is what happened to me and I really had no babs symptoms to begin with, but I was positive on FISH from Igenex.
I can just imagine if you have babs symptoms to begin with how bad these flares could be.
My lyme doc said babs has a 7-day cycle and a 14-day cycle. Burrascano says it can be a 3 to 5 day cycle. I experienced first the 7-day cycle and then the 14-day cycle.
If you can see an intensification at regular intervals, take art right before the next flare is due to start and keep taking it until the flare subsides.
Hope this helps you. I got rid of babs over 9 years ago now. You got to go through it to get rid of it evidently.
Posted by Kbone (Member # 43682) on :
I am curious, how many of you didn't test positive for Babesia but are still treating for it?
I have a clinical diagnosis for it and my LLMD put me on Mepron which has just about killed me for two months. I am supposed to be on the Mepron for the next several months, but I am taking a break from it.
I feel better not being on it (and now that I am out of my moldy house), and was going to resume treatment but it's a really strong med.
I just can't decided if it seems silly to treat for it without the positive test on it or not. I still have to work full time and missed several days while on Mepron.
I did seem to flare a bit on it pretty bad, but looking back I can't decide if it was the mold doing that to me all along!
I'm all over the place and can't seem to get any concrete answers from doctor's Posted by GretaM (Member # 40917) on :
I was clinically diagnosed with babesia ducani.
No positive tests.
The co tests aren't that great anyways, and I can't afford any tests currently anyways.
Posted by Judie (Member # 38323) on :
No positive test either, but I'm responding great to malarone. Side effects are weird, but tolerable.
Hey Jessie - My doc doesn't want me to take doxy on the days I pulse coartem. She said there's some conflict.
I couldn't find anything online about it, so I don't if it's particular to me.
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
FOR SURE!! It's called herxing. (It's not worse, it just feels worse.)
I also had a great response with artemisinin and zith.
Posted by Mvdr (Member # 43034) on :
I'm curious how long (Months?, weeks?) you treated for Babs? How far into treatment did you feel better?
Posted by TF (Member # 14183) on :
I treated babs for 11 months. I didn't have symptoms until I started treating.
After about the first 2 months of treatment, I was pretty much back to my normal self.
The way we knew when I had gotten rid of the babs was when I didn't have any symptoms of a flare anymore. That included even slight things on my scheduled flare days, like the strong need to lie down and take a quick nap.
It took 6 months for me to be symptom free on flare days. Then, since winter was approaching, my lyme doc wouldn't let me stop treatment. So, I continued on the babs meds for 5 more months until spring.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)