posted
I would have to agree with Sammi. Responses to drugs may vary and may not confirm infection.
I think Coartem is mainly an antimalarial drug and does not target other infections.
I think when you take medication for one infection, it can often stir up the symptoms for another, so it can sometimes be hard to know what the medication is doing when you take it.
For me, when I take babesia meds, its brings up the symptoms of babesia - night sweats, chest pains, air hunger.
When I go off babesia meds, I feel few symptoms.
Posts: 187 | From Connecticut | Registered: Jun 2013
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posted
No idea if taking any medication can prove the infection unless a very obvious and unique reaction occurs.
I thought I had lyme disease when I was skeptical because after a month of taking the medications I started to develop unusual neuropathies that felt like water and burning sensations all over. My Lyme Doctor said that was it fighting the infection.
I later decided I wasn't so sure and after 6 months I stopped and I've had the nueropathies come back twice since then each time lasting about a year or more. I don't want to mess around with this until I know there is a sure test to prove it and a sure cure.
Posts: 136 | From arlington, VA | Registered: Jun 2010
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posted
Some medications do target multiple pathogens.
Coartem is primarily a malaria med so it should have little effect on lyme.
Any malaria med may also bring on symptoms of bart in my opinion because that infection also hides out in the red blood cells and when the blood cells burst when babs either multiplies or is killed then bart is also released into the bloodstream and comes out of hiding.
For this reason it is better to take combos that treat both infections if a patient feels they have both bart and babs.
Many LLMD's do give trial doses of babs meds to clinically diagnose babesia. If you do not have babesia then meds or herbs such as artemisinin or coartem would be unlikely to cause a herx type reaction.
The absence of a herx reaction does not prove that one is not infected but a herx does pretty much prove an ongoing infection if the med is specific for babs.
If you only had bart and not babesia also then the coartem would be unlikely to cause a reaction in my opinion.
This is not medical advice, just my opinion based on hubby's experience.
Bea Seibert
Posts: 7306 | From Martinsville,VA,USA | Registered: Oct 2004
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