It's been said over and over on this board that you can't kick Lyme unless you treat coinfections.
I tested borderline on one PCR test for Babs and negative on a bunch of others.
I was treated last year for 6 months for Babs and I've been much better since.
I also have Bart, HME, mycoplasma and the inability to release toxins properly.
I took tons of tetracycline before Babs treatment and nothing changed. Babs treatment changed things a lot.
That's only my experience but I've seen many others with the same results.
Talk to your LLMD.
Take care,
Corgilla
-------------------- "I'll never forget good old Whatsisname." Posts: 694 | From PA | Registered: Jun 2003
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caat
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 2321
posted
yes, depending on WHAT co-infections you have. And that is hard to tell because the tests are so bad.
Some lyme species are capable of attacking B cells... That can comprimise immune systems.
It's possible (?) that the way the immune sytem is comprimised in chronic lyme can effect the outcome of antibody tests for infections- ?? but I'm just guessing on that one...
Most of us pour over other's posts and literature to compare symptoms to try to figure out which we might have. It's difficult because several systemic ilnesses look a lot alike. And when you have multiple infections the symptoms sort of change and adapt to each other.
A few generalities, other than the basic "flue like illness" symptoms;
Lyme by itself tends to produce a low level fever when it presents any fever at all- rarely anything over 100F. It tends to lower fevers of other illnesses most of the time. People commonly feel feverish at 96 or 98. It generally comes with a very low sed rate and about normal white blood cell count, and seems to be able to lower the sed rate and wbc of other infections. A coinfection may raise the fever or sed rate occasionally or not at all. Just depends.
STARI or Masters disease MIGHT produce a higher fever.
Lyme herx generally is the very worst sometime between day 2 1/2 to 5. A syphilis herx is almost immediate- same day, generally within hours.
Spirochetes (lyme, STARI, syphilis, leptospirosis) tend to produce the strongest herxes (taken into consideration apart from drug reactions). These are the "feel like I've been run over by a mac truck then beaten with 2x4's" kind of herxes- particularly with flagyl or with the first treatment drug at a high dose. With late spirocheteal infections a flagyl herx will involve bone pain as well as other stuff. Some people think the cyst (eggs) are hatched in or on the surface of bones or joints. BUT bart and brucelosis tend to effect the bones more.
What Burrascano is calling a "bart-like organism" may not be bart. What ever it is has never been identified. Most bart species aren't that susceptable to quinines.
A few people have noticed NO obvious herx with bart tx. (These people had been previously treated for lyme.) Either they didn't have bart OR bart does not produce a geniune herx. I'm leaning more towards bart doesn't produce a geniune herx. It seems more like a drug reaction. (However, bart tx will make someone who has lyme as well herx)
Babesia does not effect the bones AFAIK.
Severe chills (without a cold) think babesia. As far as I can tell it's the only thing babs does frequently that the other TBI's don't generally do.
Although all three effect the brain, many people think that more severe brain involvement (rank encephalitis) is more likely with babs or bart than with lyme. Probley lyme is just much slower to effect. Spirochetes usually (not always) take more years to have severe effects on the brain.
We have more or less co-infections than these. Personally I think anyone with chronic lyme should get a work up for tuberculosis, leptospirosis, syphilis, giardia (!! hard to test for !!) , general parasites, and others. Especially any common systemic bacterial, protozoal and fungal illnesses that produce a low sed rate and low wbc count.
If you don't have a high fever, a high white blood cell count or sed rate then there are only so many bacterial infections that can do that AND effect the heart, brain etc. Usually tests are cheap for the common ones.
Uhmmm... also, It's just a matter of statistics that some of us will have encephalitic viruses... No one ever tests for these viruses unless it's acute. Very very few doctors know anything at all about these viruses. I would bet that some can be chronic and can cause milder symptoms than is commonly assumed. In Russia they do a lot of testing for their version of them but here they hardly do any unless it's very very bad.
BUT... It's important to try and get rid of any other organisms before focusing on viruses. There's not much you can do for viruses other than treat the symptoms. And a diagnosis of a viral infection could be used as a good excuse for some doctors and insurance companies to not treat other infections.
Quite a few of us have epstein barr virus which I think is not usually all that bad by itself, but is opportunistic and takes advantage of a weakened system. Olive leaf helps the symptoms. It's MUCH cheaper buying it as bulk powder but is important to buy organic as the pesticides used on olive trees can be pretty strong nuero-toxins. I don't think "the kind" or variety of olive leaf is all that important. It works. Can sometimes help during a herx if one has something suceptable to it as viruses (and fungal infections) tend to rear their ugly heads during a herx.
Olive leaf is also rumored to help the symtoms of western nile virus. Western nile virus is closely related to at least a couple of the encephalitic viruses native to north america. So- it could possibly help with those as well.
[ 01. June 2006, 03:35 PM: Message edited by: caat ]
Posts: 1436 | From Humboldt county ca usa | Registered: Mar 2002
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Andie333
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 7370
posted
Rob, Hi!
It's really good to see your name on the board again!
Re your question, I think taking rifampin for Bartonella has made all the difference in my progress. I had some symptoms that just werent' going away, and now, after 4 months on the rifampin, they have almost all completely gone.
Hope this helps, and I hope yhou're doing okay!
Andie
Posts: 2549 | From never never land | Registered: May 2005
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