I am seeing a new dr. and he tells me a Herx doesn't happen right away. Specifically, I had taken Flagyl and gotten sick right away and thought it was a herx. He says not possible. Your thoughts? Thnx.
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
Could be a few hours, a few days, a few weeks. Everyone is different.
Don't forget to take into account the side effects of the drugs. Flagyl is a really rough one.
Posted by TF (Member # 14183) on :
Yes, flagyl makes lots of people sick and these people do not have lyme disease. A friend of mine (doesn't have lyme) had to stop it on about day 3 and refuses to ever take it again.
It is a tough drug to take for many.
My lyme doc believes it is because flagyl kills so many things including various parasites which people don't even know they have.
I was given it for c. diff about 2 years ago and it made me sick. (I hadn't had lyme disease for years by then.) The gastro's office said that was normal and to hang in there. It was very tough.
So, you could call this a side effect of flagyl, I guess.
For me, both times I took flagyl, I got sick at about day 2-3. The first time I took flagyl was for lyme, and I got my first herx on it plus amoxicillin.
See page 15 of Burrascano where he talks about the side effects of flagyl and states that tinidazole has fewer side effects. That is a way of saying that flagyl has the possibility of significant side effects.
Regarding the timing of a herx, see this quote:
"Several days after the onset of appropriate antibiotic therapy, symptoms often flare due to lysis of the spirochetes with release of increased amount of antigenic material and possibly bacterial toxins. This is referred to as a Jarisch Herxheimer-like reaction. Because it takes 48 to 72 hours of therapy to initiate bacterial killing, the Herxheimer reaction is therefore delayed. This is unlike syphilis, in which these reactions can occur within hours." (page 17)
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