The only killing herb is a small dose of neem capsules until I get my supplement orders when I plan to add back coptis and probably some other things.
Hubby has never had a WBC this low in the entire 10 years he has been sick so it was totally unexpected. And even with the low WBC he is still running low grade fevers around 99.5
Have a call in to his LLMD, but most likely we will keep meds the same for next week and repeat the bloodwork then. And then the following week he is scheduled to be off antibiotics (except for the levaquin for serratia). Will be interesting to see what happens with the WBC in the next couple of weeks.
Yesterday was the lariam day and hubby is really feeling the effects of that today -- increased nausea and some dry heaves and increased dizziness. He also had entire body tremors for several hours which woke him up last night. Some mild sweats as well.
The meds did cause a dieoff again -- decrease in RBC, hemoglobin and hematocrit from last week and an increase in bilirubin which probably explains the nausea. Hubby is beginning to wonder if he will ever be done with babesia treatment.
posted
I have had low wbc since I have had lyme. Not sure what infection it is from or may be from the abx. The lowest mine has gone is 2.4. I have been treating babs off on on for a long time now but always thought it was the lyme lowering my wbc. That is ineresting your husbands count is low from babesia.
Posts: 323 | From Michigan | Registered: Sep 2006
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manybites
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 33750
posted
I have had low WBC when I got sick and when I relapsed after the car accident .The second time I had the RBC low in hospital and after that .
I know I have had lyme and babesia together with Ricketsia .But as I recall it can be lower if you have ehrlichia as well.
Your husband had RMSF .But he is in Minocycline , while in my case on both times that I have had Low WBC I have had a FULL blown babesia ACTIVE in blood and was not in minocycline but other medications.
I have nousea and had them before and after the hospitalization .I am still fighting babs .
Posts: 1379 | From disable | Registered: Aug 2011
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it's certainly possible that the higher artemisinin dose has something to do with it.
i was told by straight laced IDSA type docs that both ehrlichia AND babesia can cause lowered white blood cell counts.
perhaps a transient response to more effective artimisinin dosing?
are you pulsing the artimisinin?
i am with active babesia -- taking 1200mg three days on and three days off. it seems to be chipping away at it, a bit too soon to be sure yet, however the same dosing schedule (with only 100mg 3x a day three on and three off) years ago resolved my babesia then, which was chronic for two years at the time and treated with months of mepron before i used artemisinin to cure.
i can let you know how it goes this time, and i wish the best possible outcome for your hubby.
mo
-- i'm not on minocycline, was clinically diagnosed with ehrlichia, but perhaps it was babesia.. when i hit the ER i had uviitis and WBC of 2.8. again, could have been babs because IGM was positive.
Posts: 8337 | From the other shore | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
My wbc count was always on the low side of normal while I was on babs meds, but at least it was still considered normal.
Poor Steve is caught between a rock and a hard place. His body needs a rest from all the meds asap, but stopping them would probably be even worse for him in the long run.
Lyme, babs, and bart all have the potential to lower wbc's and rbc's.
-------------------- You're only a failure when you stop trying. Posts: 945 | From U.S | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
New info -- Just got some bloodwork back that was done on 8/25 prior to hubby's 8/31 hospitalization.
The good news is that his CD57 has increased to 117 from 70 in August, 2010. Looks like the IV Rocephin and IV Zithromax helped even if his SPECT scan was worse.
The surprising news -- he has a positive IgG titer of 1:128 to HGE (ehrlichia) from LabCorp. Normal range is less than 1:64
Have lost track of how many times he has been tested for ehrlichia over the years but it was always negative including last August. The only test that pointed to this infection in the past was the old Immunoscienes lyme panel done in 2005 I think.
I think it is becoming pretty obvious that hubby was either reinfected sometime this spring or his immune system is finally making antibodies and/or the sequestered infections are finally coming out of the woodwork.
Personally I think this result may be part of the reason why hubby had such an adverse reaction to the IV Doxycycline. He has been on mino at various doses off and on for a couple of years now and also did high dose Rifampin for many months.
My personal opinion is that switching to oral doxy and then later to IV would be a good idea -- but finding an LLMD to agree may be another issue.
I think I will increase hubby's lumbrokinase back to 8 daily -- had decreased it to 6 after his hospitalization. But with everything that is going on I think preventing hypercoagulation and/or treating biofilms is even more important than ever.
Maybe I need to have hubby do another Western Blot -- maybe he would show at least one band if his immune system is starting to work better.
Bea Seibert
Posts: 7306 | From Martinsville,VA,USA | Registered: Oct 2004
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I have either figured out a med combo that is working fairly well on hubby's infections -- or everything is just totally out of control. I really am not sure. His LLMD was sick last week and our appointment is rescheduled for Friday. Hubby will do his weekly bloodwork on Thursday. Am really curious as to what it will show.
I will post more details after his appointment on Friday.
But what is either helping or stirring things up is the change from doxy to mino. Despite sunscreen and taking other precautions hubby did get a sunburn on his hands. So he went ahead and switched meds -- had previously discussed this with his doc.
Anyway -- he started at 100 mg mino 1 time per day. Then 150 mg total 3 days later and will increase to 100 mg 2 times per day tomorrow. He stayed at each dose for 3 days.
But what is happening with the mino has never happened this dramatically with any of his meds before. His daily fevers had started to decrease to around 99.0 on the doxy.
But since starting the mino he runs a fever starting a couple of hours after each dose -- has gone as high as 100.5 It may only be elevated for 30 minutes or so and then may even drop below normal briefly. It is almost like some sort of cytokine response. He sometimes has sweating with these episodes.
The only other thing that he has added recently that seems to be working in tandem with the mino is EGCG from green tea. I have been increasing the dose of that for a couple of weeks and don't have him to quite the therapeutic dose yet.
Don't think I ever got around to posting the journal article reference regarding EGCG and malaria and babs. It is supposed to have anti-adhesion properties which prevent the parasites from being sequestered. Will try to post that info on Friday as well.
Hubby is still not sure what is going on with his ehrlichia/anaplasma. The antibodies to both strains he has keep going up and down ever since he first tested positive last fall.
And to muddy the waters even more hubby got his 2nd tickbite of the year today. I think they were both dog ticks.
Bea Seibert
P.S. Hubby has been on mino before and never had this type of reaction to it. Actually last fall switching the mino to doxy is what seemed to stop his daily fevers which had lasted 5 months last summer.
Hubby is pretty much back on the same med combo he was on when he stopped meds in the spring. The only thing different is the lariam is not back to the prior dose yet (will bump that up again on Thursday) and the herbs are a little different. Otherwise it is just mino instead of doxy.
So his current combo is -- minocycline, flagyl, levaquin, malarone, lariam and ivermectin. He is also on sida acuta, alchornea (new Buhner herb) and the ECGC.
The more meds I add the less babesia symptoms hubby is having -- except for the fevers which his LLMD thinks are from babesia but hubby and I just aren't really sure.
Going to stop for now as this has gotten very long.
Posts: 7306 | From Martinsville,VA,USA | Registered: Oct 2004
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canefan17
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 22149
posted
Buhner is big on ECGC now as a Bart therapy.
Could mino be hitting Bart in brain causing the low grade fevers and sweats?
Thanks for info Seibert
Does hubby use Boluoke or blood thinner to get those meds deeper in body?
Posts: 5394 | From Houston, Tx | Registered: Aug 2009
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posted
Yes hubby uses lumbrokinase -- Nutricology or Allergy Research brand. Also low dose of wobenzyme. And red root for lymph drainage with a couple of drops of poke root also.
Also uses arginine which he says helps more with bloodflow to the brain than anything he has ever tried.
I do think the levaquin is helping some -- maybe with bart -- who knows. Hubby tried lowering the dose to 500 mg daily and went back up to 750 mg as he felt that dose was helping more.
Since going back on meds his overall body aches and especially tendon pain has gone away -- he thinks something we are doing has chased the bugs out of his tendons for now. Hubby said this when I added in hawthorne tincture -- had not taken that in a couple of years (actually used capsules in the past for several months when he had PVC's and PAC's while on zithromax).
Like I said it seems like the combo of things is what is trying to do something. It is not any one thing. But everything seems to be trying to work together.
Trying to cover as many different angles as possible with meds and herbs and supplements since tests have been pretty useless to point us in a treatment direction.
Bea Seibert
Posts: 7306 | From Martinsville,VA,USA | Registered: Oct 2004
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canefan17
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 22149
posted
Hawthorn tincture can act as a blood thinner too. I found that out when I added it to sida acuta and cryptolepsis :eek! ha
Good stuff though
Posts: 5394 | From Houston, Tx | Registered: Aug 2009
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