My insurance just denied giving me
Zithromax, so I'm wondering about
Ketek as an option. Are there other
people out there who have had experience
comparing Ketek vs. Zithromax with Mepron
for treatment of Babesiosis? And what
dosage Ketek did you take?

I'm on Ketek, Mepron, Plaquenil and Amoxicillin for lyme and babs -- Amoxi for strep.

I take 400 mgs. of ketek twice a day (since Dec.). I know some folks take the full 800 mgs. in one dose. Either way is supposed to be okay...

I got up to my full dose of mepron in May after starting it in March. My llmd likes to ramp up slowly on that one. I started feeling it pretty quickly and have had two major 3 week long flares since May. I now seem to be in and out of them every week or so. I cannot tell that I've improved I'm sad to say...

I will say this, I had previously been treated for chronic strep and it had cleared. I was re-tested about four weeks ago and my titer was back up. She thinks that may be holding back my babs recovery.

I am hopeful that has been why I haven't seen results. If there's no improvement in four weeks, she's changing the mepron to clindamycin.

It worked well on the lyme but didn't do much for my babesia.

I was disabled from Aug. 2000 through Sept. 2004 with symptoms of Lyme, babesia and bartonella. I was on plaquenil and zithromax for two years, along with lots of other junk, that did nothing at all for the babesia.

In Sept. 2004 I started ketek, and had a massive herx for two weeks. After this, my soup of symptoms finally (after four years) receded to the point that I could tell them apart, and they fit neatly into three categories. Then I started on artemisinin, and immediately herxed, which gave me ammunition to ask for mepron. The combination clobbered most of the babesia in a month, and then the cycles got smaller and smaller. The Lyme abx suddenly began to work as well.

I've been on the babesia combo for nine months, and expect to stay on it as maintenance until absolutely assured all bugs are gone. Mepron is hard on the liver, so you have to take good liver support supplements with it.

The big indicator that the babesia abx were working was that I could get out of bed. That was pretty cool. I also had to toss in abx for bartonella before the Lyme started getting better. After that, there was one month of severe Lyme herxing, and then I suddenly was able to jog again, after almost five years.

There have definitely been ups and downs. The Lyme seems to hide in the lower spine or liver or gallbladder, because when I tried to do twisty yoga stretches in that area, I had a massive relapse.

I'm gonna learn how to put some pictures up here like some of you guys do! I love it!