Lymph node bart question

This is an exact issue I'm grappling with right now. I've filled my script for levaquin but haven't started it yet, I'm pretty scared of it. And yet I know it could potentially really help me. I've exhausted a lot of the other options and have always tried to hold off on this class.

I wonder if people who have bart are more liable to have problems with this class of drugs, it's a guess I heard from one prominent MD who does use these drugs but he tries to use them once he's tried pretty much everything else. And yet it can really help some patients so it is a tough call. Maybe patients who are exploited by the bartonella organism and get really sick also have a predisposition for quinolone issues, or maybe it is a combo chain reaction involving organism, drug, immune system going haywire... although I'm quite certain floxxing occurs in people who don't have occult infections lurking in the background.

One of my main symptoms has been chronic persistent swollen glands behind/underneath my ears. As I've treated they have gotten better over time, but very slowly. And they always flare hard when I find effective treatment. I sort of see them as a pathogen gauge, they still flare and are a bit swollen but nothing like before. As I've treated they've gradually reduced in inflammation and pain. I'm not sure the exact mechanism going on, quite possibly they are dealing with toxins from the pathogens and trying to flush things out. The higher the pathogen load the more stuff they have to filter causing more inflammation, swelling, and pain for the patient?

It can be hard to parse herxing, allergic reaction, and with the quinolones the floxxing issue (which I think is its own potentially very serious separate issue). I will make sure to keep an eye on how I respond to the levaquin, if it involves typical herx symptoms like lymph nodes flaring, fatigue, and some initial neuropathy that wanes (which is a common herx for me) I think I'll be ok although I do know the quinolones can cause neuropathic side effects which makes it trickier to parse. The moment I notice other stuff, especially weird pain or muscle tightness tendon issues/soreness I will stop.

I see patient drug reaction as a pyramid. At the base are most people who generally will respond ok to the quinolones. Then going up you have the next layer of the pyramid, those who have an issue but once they stop they recover and relatively quickly. The scariest are those at the top of the pyramid, that group that has a bad response but suffer serious permanent side effects from the drugs. I'm going to be doing a lot of magnesium and vit c in the hopes that that can somehow help me hedge...

Pirouette said...


I'm not up to speed on the mechanisms that create the floxxing, which are the basis of the black box warning so maybe this is completely idiotic, or maybe right on the money (and this theory does not apply to people like me who are literally allergic to the flouroquines, as evidenced with the anaphylactic reaction):

I think that many many people have the bartonella microb in their bodies, since it's so common with domestic cats---just like I think most people carry Lyme since it's so easily communicable. I wonder if it's really a coincidence that the floxxing sx are almost identical to bart sx and bart herxing... Is it possible that all these people who experience the floxxing are experiencing bart herxing? And the long-term characteristics of the floxxing is an indication that the bart as flared and that the immune system isn't managing the bart infection load very well?

I don't know... it's all so confusing and I think people who are floxxed should try treating bart w/ a different abx to see if their floxxing sx improve...

Anyway, go forth and conquer bart!

-p

My thoughts exactly. I looked into floxxing and it just sounded like to me people are herxing. People take it and then they kill off toxic microbes like Bart and others that they didn't really know they had. And then they herx and blame it on the ABX.

Heck even people that KNOW they have lyme find themselves blaming the ABX sometimes for reactions when it's a herx.

Dacarte3 I do think that is an issue too and I wish we knew the exact scope. Given what I consider the prevalence of these infections I wouldn't be surprised if there is a strong subset of cases where docs and patients assume it is an allergic response but it is actually a herx response to an underlying undx'd infection(s). My intuition is it is a pretty common phenomenon and that it is going to take a generation for the medical community to figure it out (I do think they will, but first chronic bacterial infections will have to get on the map again and we need better diagnostics for that and we just need a lot of those terrible key opinion leaders who are blocking everything to pass away).

RedEyedArab, it's always been tricky for me to figure out. Buhner seems to say bartonella doesn't cause herxing and I think there is a split in thinking on that. I totally disagree with him, I'm right there with you I think it can cause major herxes. As best as I understand my case my assumptions and intuition lead me to think my bart drives some insane herx responses which are aggravated by my particular immune system genetics.

The amount of people I know who have autoimmune conditions and can't take abx because they have the same "bad" allergic reaction across most classes... from all the details they tell, flaring of their original symptoms, flu-like feeling, etc, I can't help but wonder how many of their cases they are inadvertently targeting an undx'd underlying chronic infection. I think it is a lot of them.

sebreg said...
Dacarte3 I do think that is an issue too and I wish we knew the exact scope. Given what I consider the prevalence of these infections I wouldn't be surprised if there is a strong subset of cases where docs and patients assume it is an allergic response but it is actually a herx response to an underlying undx'd infection(s). My intuition is it is a pretty common phenomenon and that it is going to take a generation for the medical community to figure it out (I do think they will, but first chronic bacterial infections will have to get on the map again and we need better diagnostics for that and we just need a lot of those terrible key opinion leaders who are blocking everything to pass away).

RedEyedArab, it's always been tricky for me to figure out. Buhner seems to say bartonella doesn't cause herxing and I think there is a split in thinking on that. I totally disagree with him, I'm right there with you I think it can cause major herxes. As best as I understand my case my assumptions and intuition lead me to think my bart drives some insane herx responses which are aggravated by my particular immune system genetics.

The amount of people I know who have autoimmune conditions and can't take abx because they have the same "bad" allergic reaction across most classes... from all the details they tell, flaring of their original symptoms, flu-like feeling, etc, I can't help but wonder how many of their cases they are inadvertently targeting an undx'd underlying chronic infection. I think it is a lot of them.

Yes. I've heard complaints about Doxy too. People taking it for acne but then have herxing (but of course they don't know they are herxing).

The problem is the symptoms for these infections are so large in number - virtually any type of reaction we could be attributing to a herx. (except the typical allergic reactions)


Tendon pain may be a typical bart symptom - but I haven't seen/heard of tendon rupture happening except when the fluoroquinolones are involved.

Here are a couple of threads on it:


www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=2414855

www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=2794596

And this is the background leading to the FDA being forced to add the black box warning. (lawsuits)

More recently CNS effects was added to the warning.


epmonthly.com/article/fda-puts-kibosh-fluoroquinolones/


Of course when we have side effects of antibiotics while treating - it is difficult to decipher if it's a herx...or if it's from the meds. But when one class of an antibiotic is causing the damage that has been reported - then it doesn't really matter if you want to call it a herx...or a floxing - it doesn't matter IMO - you need to stop taking it...and I go one step further and decide not to take it at all.

It's a personal choice everyone needs to make - the fluoroquinolones are reported to be more effective than Rifampin/Rifabutin - and some people are willing to take that risk.


Found an article on research of Fluoroquinolone damage:



/fqresearch.org/dna-damage-fluoroquinolones/