posted
Ok. I've heard about the cyclical 4 week herxing cause of die off.
I've also heard that they can only be killed when they are growing/replicating?
But I've also heard about people herxing from die off whenever they up their meds or switch to another abx.
So, which is it? When can the bacteria actually be killed? Cause it seems some of the above circumstances contradict each other.
Thanks. There is so much to learn.
Posts: 34 | From VA | Registered: Oct 2013
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TF
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 14183
posted
If you read the Burrascano Guidelines, it appears to be that all of the above are true!
So, it seems that medical science is not absolutely certain about these things.
Perhaps all of the lyme germs in your body do not enter their growth phases at the same time. Perhaps they are on different schedules, or at least some of them are on different growth schedules, so perhaps some are able to be killed at any given time. I don't think we know.
But, experience has shown that people with lyme flare every 4 weeks approximately, and people with babs flare every 4-6 days or every 7 days or every 14 days.
Put the 2 together and you can be having flares from one disease or another almost any time.
However, from years of experience, the 4 week lyme flare has been documented over and over again, especially if on IV meds (the strongest treatment for the sickest of patients).
See the uncertainty in Burrascano's words as he describes these things, from page 17:
"It has been observed that symptoms will flare in cycles every four weeks. It is thought that this reflects the organism’s cell cycle, with the growth phase occurring once per month (intermittent growth is common in Borrelia species).. . .
With treatment, these monthly symptom flares are exaggerated and presumably represent recurrent Herxheimer-like reactions as Bb enters its vulnerable growth phase and then are lysed. For unknown reasons, the worst occurs at the fourth week of treatment."
See how he uses phrases like "it is thought," "presumably represent," and "For unknown reasons" in the above quote.
Maybe if the Government would seriously study this disease, we would eventually have answers to these important questions.
In my experience, people DO often herx when they raise the dosage of their meds (maybe because now they are on a dosage that is capable of killing more germs as compared to the previous dosage) or when they switch to a different med (which, of course, has a different killing profile--meaning that it can kill some of the germs that the last drug could not).
It appears that some germs are more hardy than others. So, for example, when you get strep throat or any other infection and the doc gives you a 10 day course or 7-day course of antibiotics, they always want you to finish the pills even if you feel better before finishing.
The 7-day course of meds may cover 1,000 growth cycles of the strep germ (just making up a number). 3 days of meds may be sufficient to kill most of the strep germs in your body but still some may survive. So, you may feel good after 3 days treatment. Still, the doc knows that some germs may be in "protective niches" or hiding in other ways within the body. So, you must continue taking the med through many more reproductive cycles before it is safe to stop treatment.
Some places in the body (like the eye) have very little bloodflow, so it takes longer for antibiotics to kill germs there. (The meds are in the blood and so the less blood to a body part, the less meds to kill germs.)
In other words, we don't know enough about how germs can evade, hide, and protect themselves from antibiotics to really understand all of the reasons that germs can avoid being killed or can't avoid being killed by meds.
Posts: 9931 | From Maryland | Registered: Dec 2007
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nefferdun
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 20157
posted
Great answer by TF. I was very confused when I was treating Bb too. All I know is my symptoms greatly worsened during the full moon. When I stopped flaring at that time, another infection took over.
Although the Bb flare was so noticeable I dreaded the full moon, I never noticed a flare with babesia or bart.
-------------------- old joke: idiopathic means the patient is pathological and the the doctor is an idiot Posts: 4676 | From western Montana | Registered: Apr 2009
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posted
Yes. Great Answer TF. Thank you and exactly what I was looking for. This is all what I kind of assumed but just didn't know if I was assuming correctly.
Posts: 34 | From VA | Registered: Oct 2013
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