Bart or borrelia?

My main symptoms are fatigue, tingling/burning in my legs and to a lesser degree feet, feeling flu-like and cold or chilled, rashes and unexplained weight loss.

The only antibiotic that I herx hard with is Doxy. It exacerbates the neuropathy in my legs and makes me feel flush and chilled. Rifampin I felt nothing except I woke up with my throat on fire for the first 2 days.

Herbs I do herx with but they can be hitting anything. I have babesia duncani but my symptoms are pretty subdued.

Most people believe the neuropathy is more Bart but wouldn't the Rifampin than hit harder than the Doxy if that was the case?

Thank you Girlie. If that's the case then going for Lyme SOT makes sense for me. If Bart is causing my symptoms then I may be disappointed. Trying to figure things out.

The only risk then is babesia coming to the forefront after treatment but I guess that's the risk you take with any treatment.

Thanks Quin. I hope you're wrong in my case. Do you have pain? That seems to be a hallmark with Bart. I have no pain.

“ Bart is documented to develop resistance to single antibiotics pretty easily
Rifampicin is generally good for bart - but almost always only when used in combination.“

Lyme as well should be attacked with two or more abx... unless of course it is acute.

"Most people believe the neuropathy is more Bart but wouldn't the Rifampin than hit harder than the Doxy if that was the case?"

You could try Rifabutin...I know some people who had little reaction to Rifampin, but Rifabutin caused a herx.
But, take it with another antibiotic.

ToddPaul said...
Well I spoke with a few people today that feel it's borrelia for me. One of them got rid of borrelia with the Lyme SOT and her neuropathy is gone. Another it has improved. That would be great if it was. Bart SOT is very new and I don't see it as being as effective at least so far.

just be aware that although we are indoctrinated into the "one bug = one illness" paradigm to some degree, and that philosophy works pretty well for acute infections most of the time.
With Chronic infections such as Lyme, co-infections are the rule and not the exception and all chronic disease is multifactorial in nature..
(There are now many studies as well as all the writings and findings of the most trusted LLMDs to back this up)

The reason for this is that for any chronic infection to survive in a host the immune system must be compromised to make that possible ( otherwise the immune system would clear it up and it would not be chronic).
Once the immune system is compromised multiple infections can then get a foot in the door and add to the illness and symptom picture.

These infections can come from a number of sources including - co-infectionsn from the tick or arthropod that bit you, other arthropod bites before or since, latent infections such as viruses we all have inside us that were until now held in check by the functioning immune system - eg EBV, CMV, etc , community-acquired infections such as Chlamydia and mycoplasma pneumonia and probably many more besides.

We humans like black and white definitions and certainty, its only natural and understandable, but the reality we are learning is that chronic disease is simply not like that.

My advice would be to try to resist the nice clear cut comfortable thinking of "Lyme or XXXX" and instead keep an open mind for "Lyme AND XXXX".

Develop a suspect list based on a probability-based approach rather than a binary one and treat for all high probability infections,

Take careful note of responses and adjust and repeat

I would probably have saved a couple of lost years of my life if I could have realized this sooner.

Post Edited (Garzie) : 7/13/2020 3:29:14 AM (GMT-6)