posted
I just got diagnosed, and have probably had lyme and babesia for 20 years. I'm concerned about antibiotics as I've had allergies and bad neurological and stomach problems from them. What are the treatments that people are having the most success with? Has anyone had success with using antibiotics once a week or less? Is there success with any alternative therapies?
This is a good place to be. Sorry to hear you've had this for so long. Others will be here shortly to help out.
Antibiotics are King, Queen, and dictator rolled into Number One! Let no one convince you otherwise. All else adjunctive, to greatly varying extents; some other therapies,have a good killing profile, but come no where near the killing profile of abx, both in spectrum of bugs killed, and the intensity of the killing profile. I would suggest a good abx regimen first, then, incorporate other therapies over time.
Tick-borne infections are not infections to take this chance with.
For starters search the following names: Treepatrol(for links and leads); Tincup(links and leads); Marnie(The role magnesium plays); DiffyQue(How to increase chances of testing positive if you have lyme).
dontlikeliver
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 4749
posted
I'm not against complementary and alternative medicine - but, I certainly wouldn't try to tackle this beast without antibiotics as part of the programme, the major part.
DLL
Posts: 2824 | From The Back of Beyond | Registered: Oct 2003
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treepatrol
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 4117
posted
You cant avoid abx's for Lyme and youll need anti-babesia drug therapy and if you have had babesia 20 years I doubt because you would have severe fevers chills like malaria or your one tough individual. But lyme you could have that long you should be having sever joint pain fevers aches tired all the time etc. There are alternatives rife lyme, arteminsin babs,
But I would still try to get the bacteria load down for the lyme with abx's theres NO easy cure all. Orals abx's will do it but it takes longer and great many combonations get your self a LLMD. Good luck.
WELCOME To LYMENET
Here's more goodys! A typical response to newcomers.
Hi and WELCOME! Get a LLMD or at least Dr that is willing to learn about lyme. Borrelia Burgdorferi is a clinical diagnosis, based on symptoms and on your response to treatment. Good Luck, bumpy road ahead.
Post for a LLMD inSeeking a Doctor. Ps remember I am not a Dr, just a fellow sufferer.
quote:Originally posted by treepatrol: You cant avoid abx's for Lyme and youll need anti-babesia drug therapy and if you have had babesia 20 years I doubt because you would have severe fevers chills like malaria or your one tough individual.
Well, I don't know which one it was for me. Guess I'm pretty tough. I believe I've had babs as long as I've had Lyme.
Angie, rife may work for you, but I would tackle it with abx first. After 20 yrs you've got plenty of bacterial load to conquer.
Many of us use adjunctive therapies, but yes, the antibiotics are necessary.
posted
The side effects of abx can be minimized. I have been on 5250mg of Amox for 5 months and 500mg of Zithro for 3 months and have not had any stomach problems.
My LLMD had me started on Samento and a probiotic (I use Pro-5 from Klaire Labs) a month before I started on abx.
Just watch out for the yeast. Even taking ADP (Oil of Oregano) and Florastor (good yeast), I still had a nasty run in with those buggers.
posted
University of Northern Iowa protocal for the treatment of Lyme. Irrigation of silver hydrosol as been paramount in my treatment. Silver may or may not in itself be sufficient for lyme treatment.
V.Treatment - antibiotics - orally or IV
Early Lyme disease almost always responds to antibiotics but if untreated, can progress to late Lyme disease with arthritic, neurological and cardiac manifestations which require more intensive therapy and may be permanent.
1.Tetracyclines - bacteriostatic. Can also be taken into cells and fight intracellular bacteria.
a.Doxycycline and Minocycine - can reach spinal fluid and brain
2.Penicillins - bacteriocidal but don't fight intracellular bacteria
a.Amoxicillin - effective against Lyme disease; safe for pregnant women
b.Penicillin G - not effective against Lyme
3.Macrolides - bacteriostatic and kill bacteria at high levels; good tissue penetration and fight intracellular bacteria
4.Cephalosporins - bacteriocidal and penetrate tissue, spinal fluid and brain.
5.Use of colloidal silver in treatment
Colloidal silver solution is taken by the patient. Used as early as the 1800s and is currently considered a drug supplement. Side effect is skin turning gray
Prolonged antibiotics can result in killing of beneficial bacteria in gut and can lead to overgrowth of yeast - thrush. Eat yogurt or take acidophilus tablets to combat it.
Posts: 731 | From Humble,TX | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
I can't tell you all how grateful I am for all the time you are taking to advise me. I do have a couple of questions.
What is silver hydrosol? I have my own colloidal silver maker. Is it different?
What category does a drug like zithromax fall under?
What is the drug for babesia?
Do you go after the babesia at the same time as the lyme?
To the folks who were sick for many years before diagnosing lyme, how are you now? How long does it take to feel better? (Less pain, fatigue, weakness, etc?)
Thanks so much everyone. If anyone has any other thoughts or suggestions I would welcome it!
posted
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Angie: [B]I can't tell you all how grateful I am for all the time you are taking to advise me. I do have a couple of questions.
What is silver hydrosol? I have my own colloidal silver maker. Is it different?
Nope, It just means that the ions are what is important. I use a grossan irrigator and clean my sinuses with the stuff. Great for the "brain fog" in my case. Oral use did not work for me. Make my own also! good luck
Posts: 731 | From Humble,TX | Registered: Feb 2005
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This lyme doctor doesn't use a lot of antibiotics. Instead he appears to address the other problems going on in our bodies that helped the lyme bacteria get the upper hand. At the same time, he appears to be addressing the bacteria itself, with primarily natural approaches. http://flash.lymenet.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/032044.html
I didn't want to take antibiotics either. All my previous experiences with them involved terrible stomach pain, digestive problems, rashes....
Amazingly I had none of these problems taking them for Lyme. I've been on antibiotics for 8 months now and I'm doing fine. My Lyme is improving greatly and I'm getting my life back.
I started the anti yeast diet (www.wholeappraoch.com , is one source of info) early on and also take Primal Defense (probiotics) twice a day. I order it from iherb.com. My stomach and digestion are just fine.
I learned about diet/herbs/podipatches... here on Lymenet.
After my first month of treatment I went off abx (antibiotics) and relapsed completely within a few days. I haven't missed a single dose since then. It is frightening to think how sick I would be without abx. I've used only natural/alternative treatments for everything else in my life but in my opinion that is not an option for me with Lyme.
I started with Doxycycline and always took it with a meal and lots of water. After 4 months of Doxy I switched to tetracycline which I take 20 minutes before breakfast and dinner.
I have found the tetracycline much more effective and easier on my stomach. I have had virtually no side effects from it other than sun sensitivity, hence my name "hats n scarfs"! I was even more sunsensitive on Doxycycline.
Read all you can here on Lymenet. Be patient, we often get worse along the path to getting better. It is a big journey but you'll find lots of us along the path helping each other along.
posted
For babesia, ome of the best medications is artimesia anua (1g twice a day for4 or 5 weeks on, then off for a week or a little less.--look up babesia and herbal treatmeny, or babesia and artimisia. I also took the concentrate of artimesia anua, called, artimisinin, once I was used to it.(200 mg)- 100 mg for each 500mg raw artimesia). I alternated, or took half and half; I had the feeling the raw artimesia might have something that got lost in the extract. Here is a source: http://www.myvitanet.com/ar100mg60cap.html (don't worry- I don't work for these jokers...)
For Lyme, samento, extract of cat's claw, is good. And grapefruitseed extract plus olive leaf extract.
And CONSTANTLY eat raw garlic. (or garlic capsules). This is essential, for both babesia and lyme.
Colloidal silver is helpfiul, too (but may only be good for symptom relief; not really a cure..), given my experience)
But for lyme I needed to take the antibiotics too. Lots of 'em. Lyme is really nasty- you have to hit it with everything you can- go completely into "health crisis mode"!
The "pharm" med for babesia is atovaquone (possibly with the antibiotic azithromycin), known by 'brand names' 'mepron' or 'malarone'. Artimesia is very poweful against babesial you may not need pharm stuff for that. (I took both in that case too, though.) DaveS
Posts: 4567 | From ithaca, NY, usa | Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
Thanks Dave for writing - is Artemesia the same as wormwood? I tried it for parasites and had a severe problem. I was fine until I took GABA at night which is the only thing that I have found that helps me sleep. Then I had bad chest pains, half my body went weak, I felt like I was having mild hallucinations and problems breathing. Eeek. I feel pretty sure it was mixing the GABA, cause though I took the wormwood early in the day, the minute I took my regular GABA at night I got this problem. It seems like Artemesia might be the only natural thing for babesia though? That would mean I would need to choose between sleep and killing the bug or doing the drugs. Any thoughts?
Cleary, the site is not about giving a "cure" for anything. It is clearly posted that it was created to share the natural ways I deal with the problems associated with CFS/FM (what I thought I had) over the last 25 years, to share the plan of attack I had decided upon last summer for myself for CFS/FM (it took a ton of research and many folks are searching just like me so I wanted to share the results of my work), to share my progress, and to share links to lots of other sites that have articles, doctors protocols, forums and products that worked for me, in order to help folks begin their own research.
Lyme disease is breifly mentioned on the site because even before I came out positive on the Bowen test, I realized that many folks with CFS/FM, lupus, etc., actually have lyme. Although I wasn't coming up positive myself with the conventional tests, I wanted to share that with folks and give some resources for checking it out. Also, I found the alternative lyme community to be full of good info on stuff like immune building and killing pathogens. I particularly got a lot of info from lyme-Rife on yahoo, that I applied to CFS/FM. So I share these resources.
I spend a lot of time on curezone.com asking and answering questions related to immune building, detoxing, naturally dealing with infections, ozone (which has been really helpful for me), etc. I suspect it's all the natural stuff I'm doing that is the reason why the results on my Bowen test showed my bacterial load in the lower end of the scale.
Now that I know what I have, down the road I will be sharing all about it on our site. I'm excited that I will be able to spread the word to hundreds of thousands on curezone (folks are on there from all over the world), and some other boards about the bowen/Igenex tests, and all the resources I'm finding like this board and all the links the people have shared with me here.
So yes, the people on this board are generous, and it encourages me. In fact, having spent a ton of time on other boards, I'm amazed at how many people are answering and taking the time to share so much good info and encouragement. In turn I hope to be able to encourage others down the road.
posted
[QUOTE]Originally posted by dontlikeliver: [B]Brentb,
why do you say that Penicillin G is not effective.
This is the University of Northern Iowa protocal so I would have to ask them. I generally leave it to the "experts" on recomending abx. I personally like doxy then switch to mono and flagyl. that is of course if the silver and doxy don't do the job, which imo should be enough.
Posts: 731 | From Humble,TX | Registered: Feb 2005
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