posted
Since Co-infections are a bacterial infection, can they have the same effect of a die off herx reaction? Trying to figure out which infection I'm still fighting Lyme or Ehrlichiosis. Symtpoms are very simular to each other, so it's hard to tell which one I still have or both?
Bit 4/2009 treatment 8/2009-Present Doxy 300ms-(8weeks) azithro 500 mg & Mepron-(9 months) Currently taking Doxy 300mgs
Posts: 501 | From Hudson Ticky Valley, NY | Registered: Aug 2009
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Bart just left another lovely scratch mark on my back. I can't get rid of it, because the antibiotics are way too hard on me and when I go to the hospital in a freak out, there is no compassion and no help. Well, I guess they do tranquilize me. I've been evaluated by psych centers during these episodes, and they never want me since hospitals tranquilize me like a horse, yet I am not even close to a sleeping state. Oh, and then they run drug tests to check cocaine. And when it comes back negative, they continue to ask if I do cocaine. Oh, but of course it couldn't be from the antibiotic. After all, it's not on the adverse side effects list! What the hell? Am I surrounded my 99.9% idiots?
My family is very supportive, unless I take drugs for bartonella. And suddenly, the way I feel, act, and my paralyzing "anxiety attacks" becomes MY fault. According to my family I have control. Oh really?
I can't decide whether it's better to live with the infection or try to treat it again. The problem is I can't live with the infection.
This thread made me realize that I really need to figure out what to do. I don't understand how people here handle the treatment. It baffles my mind how people with this infection can make it through the treatment.
Sorry for my rant. It felt good.
Posts: 967 | From A deserted island without internet access | Registered: Sep 2009
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Tracy9
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 7521
posted
I know there is dispute over whether it's a herx or not, since herxes can be related to spirochetes, but whatever it is there is a herx like response to the bacterial die off with co infections.
I agree with Steelbone...nothing this side of hell compares to a Bart "herx."
13 years Lyme & Co.; Small Fiber Neuropathy; Myasthenia Gravis, Adrenal Insufficiency. On chemo for 2 1/2 years as experimental treatment for MG. Posts: 4480 | From Northeastern Connecticut | Registered: Jun 2005
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groovy2
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6304
posted
Basically --
Anytime you have a --> Large Enough <--- Bactria - Mold - Virus die off
You are Not going to feel good -
Simple as that --Jay--
Posts: 2999 | From Austin tx USA | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
I agree with tutu a babs herx has by far been the worst do clindamyacin and quinine for a full round and you will see its brutal ! Posts: 294 | From sw chicago suburbs | Registered: Apr 2007
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bcb1200
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 25745
posted
Great. I haven't started treating coinfectins yet. Something to look forward to
-------------------- Bite date ? 2/10 symptoms began 5/10 dx'd, after 3 months numerous test and doctors
IgM Igenex +/CDC + + 23/25, 30, 31, 34, 41, 83/93
Currently on:
Currently at around 95% +/- most days. Posts: 3134 | From Massachusetts | Registered: May 2010
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posted
Hi Kday, From the looks of these posts each person has different experiences with these infections and how the effect them. For example treating babesia for me is a piece of cake. I get air hunger I take my babs meds and it goes away within a couple of days without much dramas apart from some night sweats and crazy dreams.
What I can relate to is the nightmare experiences treating Bartonella. Levaquin best drug ever but early on I was a nightmare to be around. May have been alot of lyme die off too at the same time in the early days
I personally wish I had gone on cymbalta in the beginning and I may not have had to suffer so much in the ways you describe.
I think in a way you answered your own quesion in your post. If you cant live with the infections then you must treat them out. I would try cymbalta for support. Theres no need to go crazy in the process. Hang in there.
-------------------- Pos BB and Bart(Q & H IGG pos) Began treat 1 year after start of illness. Diagnosed Feb 2007. Posts: 648 | From Ireland | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Originally posted by NMN: Hi Kday, From the looks of these posts each person has different experiences with these infections and how the effect them. For example treating babesia for me is a piece of cake. I get air hunger I take my babs meds and it goes away within a couple of days without much dramas apart from some night sweats and crazy dreams.
What I can relate to is the nightmare experiences treating Bartonella. Levaquin best drug ever but early on I was a nightmare to be around. May have been alot of lyme die off too at the same time in the early days
I personally wish I had gone on cymbalta in the beginning and I may not have had to suffer so much in the ways you describe.
I think in a way you answered your own quesion in your post. If you cant live with the infections then you must treat them out. I would try cymbalta for support. Theres no need to go crazy in the process. Hang in there.
I appreaciate the suggestion, but I am very intolerant to SSRIs. I tried many. I also tried anti-psychotics, and that was the worst trip I have ever had in my life. I was sure my life was ending. This wasn't my first bad experience, but probably the worst. I had EMDR therapy for PTSD because of this. This gave me really screwed up dreams involving dead bodies and I was stuck in a freak out for a few days, but then I finally felt relief. Talk therapy did absolutely nothing, and if you have PTSD look into EMDR.
Things that mess with serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine are bad for me.
Now, the addictive tranquilizers (benzos) was the only thing that seemed to work besides pain killers. Anything to calm the CNS down, I took. You know something is wrong when an ER doc gives you 15 mg of Ativan in one day and you are still wide awake getting random bursts of fear. I'm doing ok now. It was just a really rough patch in my life where everything that could go wrong went wrong. I was in the ER many times and a couple times discharged with an ADR from psych drugs. I guess my clinical appearance was like someone who was on cocaine, so I got drug tested and questioned about cocaine more than enough times. Of course, I never touched cocaine in my life. However, I would screen negative for the controlled substances I was prescribed. What?
I also had a very bad experience on fluoroquinolones that lasted many months, and it's not a class of drugs I would touch again in my life. We are all different. Sometimes I would wonder why all this bad luck followed me. If there was a prize for bad luck, I would have won it.
I had major depression in the past. I took Cymbalta for it. Now all that stuff is poison to me. My brain/body/metabolism or whatever it is has completely changed. Never been depressed since being sick. Not even close. However, I had the tendency before getting sick. Now it's the opposite, and it never goes the other way.
I'm getting things under control though. I found that many neuropsychiatric symptoms were from a B12 deficiency and methylation issues. My progress towards correcting my methylation block has been more help than any drug I have ever been prescribed. I take the high dose daily methyl B12 shots, and they work wonders.
Thanks for the suggestions, but I think fixing my B12/methylation has made me a whole lot stronger. Like I said, Bart left another mark on my back the other day, but I think all he was trying to tell me that it was his time to go.
I'm doing primarily Lyme treatment right now on Rocephin, and will wait a bit until I am comfortable before starting something like Rifampin or Bactrim DS/Zith or something else. Rifampin was powerful and sent me to a place I have never been before. All I noticed from Cipro is the side effects.
Posts: 967 | From A deserted island without internet access | Registered: Sep 2009
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blinkie
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posted
Groovy is right. When I took antimalarials, I had the worst herx I've had in nearly three years of treatment. And, I never herx anymore on anything else.
Large load of die off meant feeling like being hit by a truck.
Posts: 1104 | From N.California | Registered: Jan 2008
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nefferdun
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posted
The bart herx was much different from the lyme herxes. With lyme there was dizziness, fatigue, pain, fogginess etc.
But with bart, although there were splitting headaches and more shin pain, my primary symptoms were emotional. I was on a pendulum swinging from rage to depression and back again. I also felt such utter despair that life seemed pointless. I had to pretend to care, pretend everything.
I am getting better. Months ago I was having problems sleeping (I forgot to mention the insomnia from treatment!!) and it occurred to me that if this is going to kill me I would rather it be from abx destroying my liver than the disease itself.
-------------------- old joke: idiopathic means the patient is pathological and the the doctor is an idiot Posts: 4676 | From western Montana | Registered: Apr 2009
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Tracy9
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posted
Ah, everybody's different. I never herxed badly from antimalarials. I am taking 6 malarone a day with zith and only felt better from it. My herxes are just small ones, like the Lyme herxes, only even more minor.
But Bart herxes are hell like I have never known. And I've had some pretty bad Lyme herxes over the years.
13 years Lyme & Co.; Small Fiber Neuropathy; Myasthenia Gravis, Adrenal Insufficiency. On chemo for 2 1/2 years as experimental treatment for MG. Posts: 4480 | From Northeastern Connecticut | Registered: Jun 2005
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blinkie
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posted
also, my herxes are always the same. Not really symptom specific, just major fatigue, no stamina, lethargy and sometimes headaches and insomnia.
Posts: 1104 | From N.California | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
My bart herxes are the worst. When I did the most recent homeopathic herx, I was only mildly suicidal, and only twice in the one month treatment.
That was excellent for me.
kday. . I'm in the same boat. My family is supportive until I bart herx and then my husband wants a divorce.
Posts: 564 | From Tick Hell | Registered: Oct 2008
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Jane2904
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Member # 15917
posted
Our daughter seems to have increased anxiety, weird head feeling, when treating for bart.
Tindamax seems to cause dizziness, increased anxiety too. Urh!!!
Not sure if this will ever go away.
Wishing for better health for all!!
Posts: 1357 | From Massachusetts | Registered: Jun 2008
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CD57
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Member # 11749
posted
I always wondered this too -- I felt BETTER from Levaquin, not worse, except for allover pain.
With Rifampin, I went to hell....
But bart is not supposed to release a neurotoxin right? So the only thing I can come up with is that some of these drugs hit Lyme and other stuff too....that is also what we feel.
Posts: 3528 | From US | Registered: Apr 2007
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