posted
While I'm WAY TOO experienced in treating Bb, I am completely new to co-infections. As such, I took my first pill of malarone about 3 hours ago and for the last couple hours, I'm having a ton of achy-pain, mostly chest and arms.
Is this is a typical side effect of the med or my body getting used to it or am I just a big flippin weirdo (ok, let's just assume yes to that last option and work with the others...).
I thought headache and belly stuff were the main side effects of this med...
thanks.
Posts: 689 | From western MA (we say buttER and pizzA) | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
aw, c'mon...a little help here?
Posts: 689 | From western MA (we say buttER and pizzA) | Registered: Nov 2004
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char
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 8315
posted
Hi Duramater,
I recently tried Malarone with Ketek and it through me for a loop. I had been cruising with tolerable herxes on the lyme tx after 15mos. Even MWF was too much.
My upper arms, especially underneath where my flab is were weak and weird. Fatigue like the stuffing had been knocked out of me.
My LLMD suspected that my body was reacting to Malarone which made sense because all these abx I tolerated where have a completely different makeup.
She felt I was toxic, and I am on 2ms break-first in more than a yr other than pulsing.
I think I was herxing and toxic.
I don't know exactly what to tell you. Probably call dr.
posted
OK. curious about this too. Piercing headache since yesterday (day 1) and now tonight (after a second dose), its up a notch in intensity -- sort of like a nitroglycerin headache (way bad) or a smaller version of my meningitis headaches. Drug side effect? Is it one of those things that gets better over time?
Thanks to any malarone vets.
Posts: 689 | From western MA (we say buttER and pizzA) | Registered: Nov 2004
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Beverly
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 1271
posted
Hi duramater,
My 2 cents worth.... I herxed from babesia meds, but mainly I improved a whole lot. The combo of Malarone, Zithromax and Plaquenil took my chronic severe stiff neck away, my spine pain ..gone, and symptoms are still clearing up today.
For me..I already had a headche almost every day anyway, so things just got better. Now, my mother on the other hand, didn't have a chronic headaches the way I did, and she is now having them almost daily. This is a new symptom, and I believe a herx for her.
My son has also improved after treating Babesia, his headaches and nausea are much better.
Hopefully you will improve and feel better soon, hang in there.
Posts: 6641 | From Michigan | Registered: Jun 2001
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david1097
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 3662
posted
I've had malarone & mepron (not togehter though!). I did not have the side effects that you are seeing.
A few hours is way to soon for it to be a side effect of a kill off of protozoa. Maybe it is the other stuff mixed with the malarone active ingredient X (it too late for me to remember name), that is giving you the side effects. Try to back off and see if things clear up. If it clears up quickly then it is not the check on the half life of the other "stuff" ??proginil?? that is mixed in with X. That would give a good hint.
On herxhiemers and babesia. I have not experienced this effect, just a slow improvment on the first round and a very repid improvment after restart because of relapse.
I did some research on why this drug works... It seems nobody knows and it was discovered by accident that it works. It is known that there are a lot of protozoa floating around in the blood, which is not attached to an RBC. It might be these that get hit, and if so then there is some chance of a pyrogenic antigen being created.. Just an observation/thought.
When I relapsed I think I had a fairly high level of parasitemia (at least the thin smears looked like it to me) but there was no obvious darkening of the urine beyond normal after starting the malarone. By that I assume then that the drug does not kill the parasite while attached to the RBC, theoretically king the RBC.
Still many people see to report some type of herxhiemer reaction to the drug, but it is not clear to me that what they are seeing is not the added/changed antibiotic that is typically co-adminsitered with it.
I have also found that until aremisia or artiminisin was added to the mepron/malarone, the drug did not work very well.
Also found that doxycycline seems to interfere with the malarone in some fashion. I was on IV doxy and and pretty sure that the babesia was back in full force dspite the malrone/artimesia. I stopped the doxy and switched to azythromycin and quickly improved.
While I have been having this stuff for a long time now, I have not seen the effects that you mention, sorry i cant be of more help.
Posts: 1184 | From north america | Registered: Feb 2003
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minoucat
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 5175
posted
DM -- babesia has been associated with endotoxins, mostly in the veterinary literature. So there is reason to believe babesia die-off does result in a herxheimer-like reaction.
In the write-up below about human babesiosis the discussion is of respiratory distress caused by endotoxin release. However, when I was treated for babesia with mepron/ketek, I experienced severe headaches and muscle pain, but no significant respiratory problems. These mostly resolved after about 4 months of treatment.
The last 2 months of mepron/ketek I did not experience any of these sx, leading me to believe it was die off and not the medication itself. When I had a mild babesia relapse and treated with Malarone I did not have these sx at all.
"Chronology of respiratory distress may be due to endotoxin sensitivity; endotoxin release results from the medication-induced intraerythrocytic death of the parasites."
E-medicine, infectious diseases, Babesiosis Last Updated: March 8, 2006
But -- can't be too careful. Always difficult to sort out reactions to meds vs. reaction to die off.
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