posted
For those who test negative for babesia, how do we know it isn't malaria??? I'm serious.
With all the flights going in and out of this country to and from tropical regions, that could explain why we test negative for babesia. The same meds used to treat babesia kill malaria, too.
What if there is a malaria coverup, too? Just because I'm not from an endemic area - well, all of us here don't exactly live in Lyme, CT either.
I found this on malaria - what it does...
When a mosquito bites an infected person, it ingests the microscopic malaria parasites found in the person's blood.
The malaria parasite must grow in the mosquito for a week or more before infection can be passed to another person.
If the mosquito then bites another person, the parasites go from the mosquito's mouth into the person's blood.
From there, the parasites travel to the liver and get inside the liver cells to grow and multiply.
During the time that the parasites are in the liver, the person does not feel sick.
The parasites eventually leave the liver and enter red blood cells, which may take as little as 8 days or as long as several months.
Once inside the red blood cells, the parasites grow and multiply. The red blood cells burst, freeing the parasites to attack other red blood cells.
Toxins from the parasite are also released into the blood, making the person feel sick.
CaliforniaLyme
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
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posted
I've had both and they were dramatically different in presentation BUT I agree with you that there is probably a lot of undiagnosd malaria out there- it can present as almost anything just like Lyme although in general it is very febrile-
-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
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tdtid
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Not being medically minded, I can't make comment on this, but are the tests for malaria as unliable as the ones for lyme and co's?
I got sick about one month after returning from a trip to China and Japan. Due to this, most all testing was in regards to what I may have picked up in one of these countries, mostly China.
I know before we left, we were given Thphoid Fever vaccines and one of the Hep's. Can't remember the letter. But due to our locations in these countries, the doctor didn't feel we needed malaria meds.
CaliforniaLyme says the two diseases present themselves differently and I did go out and get a symptom list for malaria. The start of the illness may sound the same, but it doesn't sound like they would progress the same.
I did test positive to Lyme but not the co's, although my LLMD is treating me for bart and currently for babesia due to symptoms. I've been on the treatment for two plus months now and it's kicking my butt.
Even with either illness, since we are on malaria meds for babs, wouldn't it help us as well even if we did get malaria? Interesting topic, but symptom wise, I think in my case, it looks more babs like.
Will be intersting to see what others say.
Cathy
-------------------- "To Dream The Impossible Dream" Man of La Mancha Posts: 2638 | From New Hampshire | Registered: Oct 2006
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charlie
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posted
I've known people who couldn't get rid of malaria like many of us can't ditch babs. The chills and sweats seem to be the main similaritities in presentation.
A friend's father had them the rest of his life after WWII...he probably ate the equivalent of a whole cinchona tree and still the symptoms persisted....
Charlie
Posts: 2804 | From Texas | Registered: Oct 2000
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tdtid
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posted
Charlie,
Is the treatment protocol the same for both illnesses?
Cathy
-------------------- "To Dream The Impossible Dream" Man of La Mancha Posts: 2638 | From New Hampshire | Registered: Oct 2006
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charlie
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posted
In those days...the 1960s, it was quinine...hence my cinchona tree comment.
now the treatment for both is often clindamycin and quinine or a bunch of quinine synthetics or artemesinin and even sometimes one of the tetracyclines to clear the bugs from the liver.
Pretty much overlapping treatment though from everything I read, except I've never heard of using mepron for malaria but maybe it happens.(correction: mepron is in malarone...an anti malarial)
Charlie
[ 01. July 2007, 01:20 PM: Message edited by: charlie ]
Posts: 2804 | From Texas | Registered: Oct 2000
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tailz
Unregistered
posted
I'm worried. I've never been out of this country, but I'll tell you this, I remember looking through a medical book while all this was going on and thinking for a sec that I had malaria, but then I talked myself out of it because I live in the US and never left the country. But I don't know now.
I still test negative for babs, but I know I got something on top of my Lyme from a mosquito in maybe 2001. I even remember the mosquito. I slapped it, and it's feeding tube broke off in my leg.
As I kid, I grew up in Allentown, PA and would frequently get 4 inch welts around my mosquito bites. Almost every summer I would get at least one or two. This continues 42 years later - I still occasionally get 4 inch welted mosquito bites.
I'm even more worried for other reasons. I know back in the mid 90's I had my first surgery for endometriosis. At the time of my laparoscopy, the GYN who did my surgery said my liver looked 'granular'. I was maybe in my early 30's.
I had all sorts of liver tests and scans done - nothing showed up. They never gave me an answer as to why my liver looked granular.
After my next GYN surgery - I had my uterus and left ovary removed - I became severely anemic. They were confused as I had not lost much blood at all, but my hemoglobin was like zero. I was put on prescription iron, and they even had to double my dose. It's not sounding good, is it?
Later I developed brown discolorations on my face - mostly my nose. They were checking me for lupus. My multiple chemical sensitivities grew even worse.
When I started infusing with Rocephin for Lyme, my liver enzymes went through the ceiling after less than a week of infusions. My infusions were put on hold. Any antibiotics I take now need to be pulsed because my liver screams after only one to four days.
I also was experiencing SEVERE shaking chills alternating with sweats (day and night). This still happens to this day.
I may very well not have babesia, but I could be walking around with full-blown malaria instead. Do you think my LLMD would test me for malaria? I'm scared that he'll send me to an Infectious Disease doc, and I'm done with those after what mine did to me.
What is the difference in presentation between malaria and babesia? If needed, I will lie and tell docs I traveled to an endemic area so that they will test me for malaria.
I was skeletal a year ago around this time (88lbs). I also nearly blew the toilet away when I took an iron supplement last year. I still cannot tolerate any high iron foods. Is this why?
I told a doctor about the iron supplement incident, and that normally iron supplementation causes constipation - not diarrhea. He looked baffled. I know this means something though.
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tailz
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I'm even worrying now that this is why I cannot tolerate ANY high iron foods. I'll bet when my malaria and/or babs see iron, all my red blood cells burst open, and they start infecting new red blood cells.
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heiwalove
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posted
you could still have babs even though you test negative. the tests are unreliable, as i'm sure you know, and they don't test for all possible strains of babs. this seems the more likely explanation, in my opinion.
posted
I thought so until I read another post on here about a possible cure for malaria that wouldn't work so well for babs.
Apparently, there is some mighty iron protein that needs to be busted or separated in malaria, but not so much so in babs. I'm actually leaning more towards malaria now. I'm not kidding.
If malaria is holding onto my iron, no wonder I can't ingest any more iron - I'm toxic already. Being on prescription iron after my surgery probably bumped my bugs up even higher. This iron toxicity would also explain my sensitivty to electromagnetic fields.
CaliforniaLyme
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
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posted
SO MUCH BABS is blood negative!!!!!!!!!!!!! I woudln't really worry about it.
I agree there may be a FEW cases out there of undiagnsoed malaria BUT in general you KNOW if you have malaria.
The third time I got malaria I went from normal to deaths door in about an hour. One minute I was standing on a train in Delhi, the next minute I was on the floor, collapsed, then on my way to the hotel, then a private doc was going in and out of my flickering consciousness.
Malaria was VERY different from babs for me. Malaria was fevers, fevers, fevers and fevers and so high I hallucinated & drifted in & out of consciousness and being unable to get out of bed sick. I have actually had it several times. I lived in India as a kid and have gotten it every time I went back to india to visit EXCEPT after I was on mepron for 2 years for Bas- then when I went back i didn't get it again!!!
Babesiosis was, for me, chills, chills, chills, chills and CHILLS, fatigue, pains here & there, scary chest palps, sickness to the point where I didn't WANT to get out of bed but I was definitely ambulatory!!!
Very different-
Did I mention with malaria the high fevers? I had malaria when I was 2, when I was 14, when I was 19!!! 3 times. When I was 14 I didn't eat for days was in a fever for days, same thing when I was 2, same when I was 19...
ANYWAY, malaria SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
From what I've read, there are different forms of malaria.
Posts: 925 | From California | Registered: Sep 2004
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tailz
Unregistered
posted
I'm tempted to post a few pictures of what I looked like a year ago - before I stopped all high-iron foods. Let's just say I am not ready to eliminate malaria without a test for it first.
I had SHAKING chills and DRENCHING sweats. I still do, though not as severe since I stopped all high iron foods - though they are getting much worse again recently. The body sweats to cool itself - how do I know I'm not running some fevers in there? Also, some of the psych meds I was on could have suppressed the normal fevers, too.
But I literally looked like one of those starving kids in some third world country - no exaggeration. Bones were sticking out of my arms, legs, ribs, shoulders. My gums dissolved on me. My face was all sucked in. I was eating 4, 5, 6 meals a day - just to remain at 88 lbs.
I was reading that malaria can hang out for awhile before you get ill to the point where you notice it.
I know several years ago, when I was still working and I'd have a weekend off, I'd want to spend time with my daughter. But what would happen is I would get so tired that I would lay down and wake up like 6 hours later.
I even tried napping right on the floor, thinking that would be uncomfortable enough that I would sleep less - nope - I still woke up 6 hours later - just with carpet fibers in my hair.
I tried setting my alarm clock, thinking that would help. No - my daughter would hear the alarm after it went off 30 times, come in, turn it off - I didn't notice. I felt horrible that I just couldn't seem to keep my eyes open. I thought I was just working too many hours.
There was a period in there where I would sleep from Friday night through Monday morning - just waking up long enough to microwave a meal and smoke a couple of cigarettes - run my dog out. My dog was sick, too.
I just don't think we should all be discounting the possibility of malaria. Lyme was found hundreds of years ago in people - it just wasn't all too prevalent until now.
Malaria, however, was very common in the US even more recently than Lyme was - how do we know that malaria isn't back again?
No - I think I have malaria. Want to know why? I've compared myself to even other Lymies, and I look much worse than any I've seen yet. Even the one woman infusing next to me last year said when she first saw me she thought - oh boy - she said I looked green.
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Dave6002
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Have you tried Artemisinin, which is very effective for malaria, and can cure malaria within a half month.
Posts: 1078 | From Fairland | Registered: Apr 2006
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heiwalove
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posted
tailz, when i was really really sick with lyme and coinfections (mostly bedbound), i looked like DEATH. 90 pounds, hair falling out in clumps, black circles under my eyes, pale as a ghost. yes, lyme CAN make you look really sick. it doesn't have to, but it can.
posted
I have tried wormwood (which has art in it), but not the the TOA-free kind - simply because I spent probably $1000 on herbs alone when I was knocking at death's door.
And with all I spent, I had developed allergies to many of the herbs and spices - mostly because I pretty much whammed myself with them all at once thinking I had systemic candida.
I have HORRIFIC pain when I eat garlic now - and even cinammon.
But I'm a little disappointed here, I have to admit. I kind of thought my malaria theory wouldn't meet this degree of resistance from fellow Lyme sufferers who I would have thought would have been open to the possibility that malaria could be more prevalent than once thought.
Afterall, probably the ONLY people routinely tested for malaria when they are sick are people who traveled out of the country - because not even an ID doc tested me for malaria. With the amount of prescriptions available today for symptomatic relief of symptoms (both prescription and non-prescription), how do we really know we aren't masking a major public health threat here?
Just be careful, people - my faith in science to make me aware of a potential threat is pretty much a (safe) zero at this point, where it will remain forever.
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cantgiveupyet
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posted
tailz, you just described how i looked at my worst....89lbs, so frail and so sick. i would eat and eat and eat and loose weight....i was so scared.
then miraculously something happend when i went on amoxy and later valtrex......one of them gave my body a kickstart. I gained the weight back, got my period back too. Im now 107 on a good day.
the LLMD i went to (and there were many) could not figure me out, and still cant.
I do know i was very very sick and looked sick.
its tough trying to sort this out on our own.
-------------------- "Say it straight simple and with a smile."
"Thus the task is, not so much to see what no one has seen yet, But to think what nobody has thought yet, About what everybody sees."
-Schopenhauer
pos babs, bart, igenex WB igm/igg Posts: 3156 | From Lyme limbo | Registered: Oct 2005
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Dave6002
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posted
quote:I have tried wormwood (which has art in it),
According to Stephen Buhner in his Healing Lyme book, you need to take 450 grams of the herb, Artemisia annua, daily to effectively cure malaria. That amount of the herb may contains 500 mg of Artemisinin.
From what I read, Malaria is much easier to cure than Babesia.
Posts: 1078 | From Fairland | Registered: Apr 2006
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charlie
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posted
quote:I have tried wormwood (which has art in it), but not the the TOA-free kind - simply because I spent probably $1000 on herbs alone when I was knocking at death's door.
wormwood doesn't contain the anti-malarial form of artemesia and cat's claw isn't even close to the same (the TOA free stuff being mentioned). TOA free cats claw some think is related to cipro...I personally don't think it does anything at all, having used it.
The wormwood (artemesia) family also includes the common herb rosemary which is good for cooking lamb with and maybe has some medicinal properties but not anti-malarial. You have to get the right stuff....artemesia annua or artemesinin to tell if it will work for you or not.
Charlie
Posts: 2804 | From Texas | Registered: Oct 2000
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tailz
Unregistered
posted
I'm getting mixed up here with my herbs - it's the Cat's Claw that has the TOA-free version. The wormwood I bought (with the art in it) has other things in it, too, like mullein which kills strep and staph - even resistant strains - I did have staph in my bloodstream. I wonder if that's back? But whatever wormwood I have did help some initially, but I realize I would need a larger dose to kick this. I actually passed rice-like thingers with the wormwood - no joke. My neighbor tried it, and she passed rice-like critters, too.
But I really can't afford to spend $30 here and $30 there on any more herbs like this. Once I become allergic, the rest of the bottle is useless to me. I've actually thought of just avoiding iron-rich foods completely until I'm so pale that not even the parasites want any part of me.
cantgiveupyet - Isn't valtrex antiviral? I know I have EBV. I also know I react wickedly to coconut oil and garlic - both antivirals.
This will sound crazy - but tonic water kills something in my mouth, though it doesn't seem to last long. Also, peanut butter helps some symptoms but makes others worse. Is it the zinc in it? I think viruses like zinc.
How many months would I need to go on a hunger strike before all my red blood cells died??? I'm tempted.
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butchieboo
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posted
Hey,
Don't worry about malaria...cuz if you have it and you get a temperature of oh, 105 or so...you'll kill off your spirochetes....
I searched your name tailz....you must be some kinda poster girl for diseases and such....
Holy Mackeraal....did you really have all this and that stuff happen to you?
It's amazing you are still alive!
I do find it a little hard to believe you actually saw the feeding tube of the mosquito that bit you break off in half...
was it exactly half....or maybe just one quarter was left in your skin...cuz only one quarter would mean you only got like...one eighth of the malarial parasite....LOL
posted
I don't know what you read, but if you read it, it is true! lol
Okay - I lied. I didn't actually see the tube break off (my hand was in the way), but I did see its tube in my leg before I slapped him.
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tailz
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posted
Excuse me - before I slapped HER;)
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Cass A
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posted
If you search for Babesia, you'll find data about the use of about 1500 mg Artemisinin in 3-day dose cycles recommended by Dr. K, plus another serious and relatively new drug (name I don't recall) used for maleria and, by one person, quite successfully for Babesia also. For maleria, the treatment time is quite short--a few days.
buhner now recommends cryptolepsis for Babesia, which is also used for maleria in Africa.
Sorry I can't recall the name of the drug--lymebrain here.
Best,
Cass A
Posts: 1245 | From Thousand Oaks, CA | Registered: Feb 2007
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butchieboo
Unregistered
posted
This new drug would'nt be ALINIA would it?
Although it was designed to cure some kind of pneumonia like bronchial cocci....or something like that....
It's being used as an anti-parasitic....which some, not so literate lyme doctors, are using as a cure all for TBI's....it's supposed to take care of the viral,cystic,spirochetal forms of lyme... I think they may add, Ketek to the mix or zithro.
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