posted
One of hubby's former LLMD's once said that when antibiotics are prescribed for tickborne patients you don't always know what infections the antibiotics are treating.
Most people would assume that if someone gets better on rifampin and cipro or one of the other fluroquinolones then they must be treating bartonella.
But maybe they were also treating babesia at the same time. Here is a recent journal article that seems to indicate that.
The plastid-like organelle of apicomplexan parasites as drug target
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I find this very interesting as it applies to hubby. During his recent antibiotic challenge the one med he added that was not included in his previous antibiotic cocktail was rifampin. He has taken that med at high doses in the past but never during aggressive babesia treatment.
He did try it last summer 2 times but stopped within a week as he was feeling worse and we thought it was lowering the dose of atovaquone in his malarone. But maybe it was working on the babesia and he was just herxing?
I do know that the recent addition of levaquin to his babesia meds improved his RBC and WBC -- and supposedly his bartonella infection rate is very low (plus those symptoms seem to be gone).
There is one other journal article that says rifampin kills babesia in cats and another article found the combo of doxy, flagyl and levaquin fairly effective at treating babesia in dogs.
The problems with accepting these studies as valid revolve around 3 primary issues --
most people have no idea which strain of babesia they have,
there are few studies on different med combos for various strains,
and what works on an animal or in a test tube may or may not work on a human.
But I do think there may be some synergistic combos of meds and herbs that have not yet been discovered that may be more effective than the current standard babesia treatments.
Hubby has stopped his rifampin for now until we get his fevers under control -- a higher dose of malarone along with several other herbs and meds seems to be trying to help. But at our next appointment we will again discuss adding rifampin back to his mix of meds.
We have had some AMA docs in the past who like to complain about polypharmacy, but in my opinion they obviously do not understand tickborne infections if that is their major concern. The right mix of herbs and meds can make each work better and we need all the tools we can find in my opinion.
If I understand the journal articles then rifampin and cipro kill babesia by an entirely different mechanism of action than say mepron and zithromax. I think that is very important and has some real potential for improving treatment.
Bea Seibert
Posts: 7306 | From Martinsville,VA,USA | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
What is his ferritin level, there has been some very interesting info reduction of babesia with inositol hexophophosphate, IP-6, w I am taking for hinh ferritin. Wonder if it will help hubby.
Posts: 532 | From Texas | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Pretty sure hubby's ferritin is either normal or low. I asked his doc to test iron status and the only thing they checked was transferrin -- it was only 30 with a normal range of 24 -- 336.
Will be discussing adding iron supplements at next appointment as hubby has been having extreme fatigue recently.
Bea Seibert
Posts: 7306 | From Martinsville,VA,USA | Registered: Oct 2004
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