Herx or relapse?

Hi everyone.

I had to stop all my medications several weeks ago due to severe "healing crisis", profound diarrhea/nausea from medication and elevated liver enzymes. Upon stopping, I felt amazing. And things have been really great for a few weeks until the past couple of days.

Five days after stopping all meds, I restarted 400mg doxycycline only. I was on only doxy for a few weeks I continued to feel good. about five days ago, I reintroduced a very small dose of Alinia. My plan was to increase the dose very slowly to avoid the diarrhea that happened last time. Before I stopped all meds, I was on 1000mg Alinia per day. Right now, I am taking 125mg. So... a very small amount relative to what I was taking.

The good news is that my stomach is doing great and I've had no nausea or diarrhea. And the bad news is that my annoying fever is back (it had been gone for several weeks), my left cheek went numb today for a few hours, and I've had deep back pain.

Is this a herx reaction to a small dose of Alinia? Or am I relapsing because I haven't been on strong medications for several weeks?

I was feeling so good that I went to the gym every single day last week, my husband and I went away for the weekend and had so much fun, and I have been laughing again all the time.

With the reemergence of these symptoms, I am super worried that I am slipping backwards. If I knew if this was a herx, I'd feel a lot better.

I am planning on increasing the Alinia to 250mg on Wednesday. And then increasing again to 375mg on Saturday.

For those of you who have the unfortunate experience of being "experienced" with all these infections and medications, do you think this is herx or relapse? Thanks so much for your input.

~Worried in Chicago

Ah yes the numb face. It's been a while since that symptom.

You started your treatment again, it started working like you would hope it would, and you had some herxing.

Doesn't seem to complicated.

There's this point in the healing journey where you don't really herx until you stir things up again. You stirred things up again.

The goal is to reach the point where you treat and nothing happens (or at least very little) that's when you can start deciding if you recovered enough/completely, to completely stop treatment.

You haven't made it to that point yet.

Heyy,

Ah, I understand how it feels to wonder: am I relapsing?! Especially when I've been feeling fab and can't believe it!

Well, you say you are going to up your dose of Alinia - then you are going to find out soon. Maybe Alinia is not right for you, or maybe you do well on a smaller dose of Alinia.

I don't think Herxing should go on for weeks and weeks. Chronic herxing - no thanks. Adverse drug reactions sound more likely. A herx indicates a die off in your body that has yet to be detoxed. But if you have killed something off - it should be detoxed in few days. Any longer (in my opinion) and there was no point in killing bacteria so quickly to begin with.

Because you know what grow on dead bacteria? More bacteria.

I think you should stress detoxing - sweat, exercise, sleep well, make sure you are getting key nutrients in your diet, keep your body temperature in a normal range - do things that make your body healthy the way normal people make their bodies healthy!

You should know after increasing your Alinia if it's right for you. Unfortunately it's all very complicated and you really have to trust your gut (literally and figuratively).