Started Bart treatment a month ago with a ramp up of minocycline, then the addition of rifampin; pulsing two days on, one day off.
Once fully on plan, everything seemed normal with a bit of amplification to a couple of symptoms, which I attributed as a herx.
A little over a week in, there was significant muscle soreness. Then I started feeling really, really lousy and tired. A cough, fever, and temperature came about and last Friday I realized that I am unable to draw a normal breath, without ending up in coughs so my body has been keeping the breaths shallow. These all seemed like strange herx effects to me since muscle soreness was the only one of these symptoms I'd encountered with my experience.
It finally dawned on me that the muscle soreness was actually body aches from fever. Everything sort of clicked last Friday that this might instead be the coronavirus, or at least a summer flu. By Saturday my temp had shot up to 103.5°. Sunday afternoon was the soonest I could get tested, which I did do. The results could take another week from now or longer. I also stopped the abx to reduce any herx I might be feeling.
36 hours after stopping the abx, my temp dropped to 100°, the body aches & fever diminished and I was ultimately feeling better (except for the breath/cough problem). Not wanting to lose any momentum or start from scratch again, I restarted the abx a few days later. And BAM! My temp shot back up again, the body aches & fever came raging back.
So logically this makes NO sense to me. A herx is usually an increase in existing or prior symptoms, right? Everything I am experiencing is hardly what I experienced during my time with Bart - with the exception of a severe flu right after being bitten.
And it's strange that ALL of the symptoms I am experiencing just happen to also be COVID-19 symptoms.
But what doesn't make sense is why those symptoms got worse as soon as the abx was started again. If it's coronavirus, abx should have no effect on the symptoms, right?
Don't want to contact the doctor until the test results come back in so I can state that it is or isn't coronavirus and a course of action can be determined. But the wait is torturous!
Would really appreciate others thoughts/experiences?
Thanks
Posted by Bartenderbonnie (Member # 49177) on :
Fever Shortness of breath Sore throat Loss of taste Loss of smell Chest tightness Diarrhea Right central nervous system symptoms COVID toes (red)
Prevention;
Wear a mask Social distancing Hand washing Gargling with Listerine Room air ionizers Avoid public restrooms and infected stools Zinc Vitamin C Glutethoine precursors Pulsed ivermectin Stay at home (isolation)
Posted by Gibby (Member # 52162) on :
Sorry, first time posting...meant to say I am in same situation! I’m just starting treatments so didn’t know a herx. But my high fever and brutal headaches make me think something else. Waiting for COVID test but doctor and friend thinks herx. Did u get your test results? Hoping you get relief.
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
Welcome to Lymenet, Gibby!!
Posted by xoxoxox (Member # 18778) on :
Hi Gibby Missed your earlier reply on this thread.
It took two weeks for my COVID-19 test results to come in (I highly recommend going somewhere besides CVS for testing). Thankfully, the results were negative. It was definitely a response to the abx. Interestingly enough, there are a couple of Bartonella Facebook groups that I joined and someone recently posted having the exact same reaction to Rifampin & minocycline that I experienced. My LLMD said this response is nothing his patients have encountered before, but after this lady's post, it seems that it is not that rare.
Did you receive your COVID test results back? Are you feeling any better?
![[hi]](graemlins/hi.gif)