Confused how to treat bartonella :(

Garzie said...
i have used Cryptolepis and alchornea and sida at the doses below for aroudn1 year along with methylene blue - before then finding bartonella in my blood - see my microscopy thread

all of these things definitely helped - as i moved forward in my health during this time -
but i had such strong herx like reactions from each of them that i could only build up slowly

bartonella is just a very hard and slow infection to eradicate

bartonella / coinfection herbs: (doses are number to the right in ml - taken 4x per day)
• Mahonia root bark 1:5 70% tincture 2.1 (a berberine containing herb)
• Houttuynia leaf 1:5 50% tincture 3.2
• Sida acuta leaf 1:5 60% tincture 1.0
• Teasel root 1:3 45% tincture 0.8
• Alchornea leaf 1:5 50% tincture 1.0
• Cryptolepis root 1:5 60% tincture 1.0

RainyCloud said...


Hey Garzie,

Just wanted to give you a quick warning because I know you have gut issues. Berberine gave me terrible constipation (which is extremely rare for me), turns out that it's known to do that and other gut issues:

"The main side effects are related to digestion, and there are some reports of cramping, diarrhoea, flatulence, constipation and stomach pain (10)."

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/berberine-powerful-supplement

It resolved when I stopped taking berberine.

Garzie said...

yep - that's the dose i have been on for a long time now - i aimed for around the maximum doses buhner advises in his books for all of them for long term use - or a little bit more as i am 20% heavier than the average person he write his doses for ( a 150lb adult)

yes i herxed from houttuynia - it didn't seem as potent ml vs ml compared to say sida or Cryptolepis - hence the higher doses - but is known for its benefits in bartonella - and the herx reactions lasted some of the longest vs the others so i do feel its doing something useful in Bart

other than the herx effects when ramping up - i do not feel i have had any adverse effects from the herbs - so have kept going

Garzie said...
the length of my herx like reactions seemed to depend on how much of a step in dose i made

if a v small step its would be mild and 3-4 days
if i made a large step - it could be 1-2 weeks

a week is a very short period of time when treating bartonella etc

herx should settle down in a another week or so - but noticeable benefits can be slow to materialise

this was much the same for me with antibiotics - where i felt worse for 4-6 weeks before gradually starting to feel a little better

Garzie said...
for what its worth

i suspect bartonella treatment is like this because - in bartonella infections - most of the bartonella bacteria are residing inside cells most of the time and also only growing slowly - so these two factors protect them from antibiotics to a great extent ( slow growing bacteria or persister cells are in a low metabolic state, and are using different metabolic pathways, and as a result take in less substances from the outside world - and as such are less susceptible to antibiotics - - and the concentrations of antibiotics reached inside cells is typically much lower than those reached outside cells - so as well as the bacteria being more tolerant of antibiotics - the concentrations of antibiotics where they are living is lower than idea as well - leading to a double whammy effect) meaning that we can only slowly chip away at the total infectious load over time.

for example when cells die naturally - something bartonella tries to prevent by manipulating the chemical signals inside the cell - and when bartonella are in the blood stream

for this reason i think a multi-pronged approach is advisable for bartonella
different drugs / herbs / agents coming at it via several different mechanisms at once
we don't have all the science to prove this absolutely - but on the face of it it make sense in principle to use a combinations of abx, herbs and perhaps other things - such as essential oils and methylene blue
these very different compounds have a good chance of acting via separate and complementary mechanisms

i personally feel that fibrin dissolving agents are a key factor in effective treatment - as this breaks down another of bartonella's protection strategies - hiding in clumps of fibrin - where they are inaccessible to the bodies immune cells - and also helps the host deal with one of the consequences of infection that olds their overall health back - poor tissue perfusion due to fibrin build up in the microcirculation

Garzie said...
i am using mainly bromelain - i have worked up to 2x 3000gdu a day at present

i have used lumbrokinase also but found it too strong for me at this stage - it caused too much of a herx to tolerate it for more than a few days

some like serrapeptase, papain. natokinase etc etc

if you search some of my posts - or go to the thread with my microscopy experiments ( link in my signature) you can see the addition of bromelain dramatically reduced biofilm and fibrin deposits in my blood - so i have some real world evidence to support its use in my case

there are also many papers demonstrating that it appears to amplify the antimicrobial effects of antibiotics - so that's another thing in bromelain's favour