I am a little wary as I have always tested negative for Babs even on the Bowen test. Borrellia tests have all been neg except for a low positive Bowen.

I am presently only on low dose pulsed Minocin (for last 7 weeks) but have night sweats (since 2000) on and off every week or so and a rash that comes and goes in my chest area. Also some chills when lying down at times, confusion, dizziness, weakness in the gluts, weakness in legs, arthritis in hips (in my 30's!) and post exertional fatigue and confusion.

I have heard that Rickettsia can also cause these symptoms and wonder whether the babs treatment is a good move or not.

It seems so many here do it over and over again.

I would love to hear from those who have had effective treatment and what and how long it took.

How do I know I have it?

Will the drugs tell me?

He said most patients don't herx terribly but start feeling better. This is not what I heard!

Oh, I also havve chronic Mycoplasma Pneumonia (which is why I take the Minocin).

Thanks!

There are many strains of babesia that there is no test for. So it is very possible you have it and don't test positive. I know some people try artemisinin first, an anti-parasitic herb. If they herx on that, they take it as a sign they have Mepron.

The bggest thing tht I have seen when the babesia got knocked down was elimination of the out of breath, total dragging feeling on physical exertion. I had the problem long before I had lyme but it was only after a bout of fatigue. Asside from that I had the odd episode of "dizzyness-confusion" again typically as a result of fatigue.

I replased after taking mepron + zith for 6 months then stopping. The breathklessness was the first thing to come back, nigt sweats also came back. But the sweats can also come from other things to. When I restarted with babesia drugs again, within about 7 days the things started to clear up.

Babesia is tough to get rid of but mepron + zith seems to be the best treatment so far.

You might ask for malarone instead of mepron. It has the same stuff inside and it might be a bit cheaper. The big advantage is that it is a pill. Much easier to deal with than the yellow paint-- mepron.

A word on tests. There are many species of babesia, only a few are characterized so the tests are not very good. The only proof is by seeing the parasite on blood smears. the problem with this is that the volume of blood in this case is so small that unless you have a very high load, you won't likley see them.

On Bowen, my personal feeling is that I do not trust the tests. There is only limited information written about the reagents that they use... not enough to convince me that the the tests are accurate. That being said, in a last ditch effort, where everything else is negative, their tests could possible provide some direction to look in terms of diseases since it appears that sick peolple get positives whereas not- sick people do not . I am geussing it means somthing but not sure what.

Hope that helps

BIAXIN(zith family of antibiotics) and MEPRON is working for me. I'm working 4 days this week!!!

I did herx for 4 days at 3 1/2 weeks. It wasn't to bad.

Watch out for the really vivid weird dreams and depression. I had depression during the herx. I also have screwed up dreams almost every nite.

It's worth doing to feel better!

The herxing can be bad, but it's better than living the rest of your life in bed.