Lamivudine

As with valacyclovir, it took a day or two for the die off from lamivudine to really become noticeable, but now I ache all over. So far I don't notice the burnt smell that occurs when neutrophils engluf live bacteria and produce superoxide. Also no sign of bruises or blood clots. The bacteria seem to be dead and mostly staying in the muscle tissue and not migrating around and causing those sorts of problems.

Unfortunately the mouth sores came back when I stopped the valacyclovir so I might try restarting that if I can keep the herx under control.

How do millions of people take lamivudine for hepatitis B, and no one had Lyme disease and noticed this crazy bad herx?

The mouth sores went away, so the valacyclovir seems to have worked. No symptoms of TTP.

I'm still herxing, but I'm not getting headaches from it like I did before, so I think I got the spirochetes out of my brain.

I took 10 mg loratadine along with lamivudine/valacyclovir/azithromycin, and I'm herxing.

It seems that blocking the SOD increases DNA damage and makes borrelia more vulnerable to the nucleoside analogues.

I'm also getting what seems like a minor ear infection. Doesn't hurt, but a lot of wax and crud in my ear.

I thought it was maybe just herx, but this is listed as a side effect of lamivudine. Weird.

Originally I got valacyclovir for mouth sores, but once I realized that it kills borrelia I bought some more from InhousePharmacy and ADC.

https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=4304866
https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=4313527
https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=4327214

Truvada contains emtricitabine and tenofovir. Emtricitabine has the same chemical structure as lamivudine except one hydrogen atom replaced with fluorine, and has largely the same effect. I haven't tried it, but I assume it would work the same as lamivudine. So if you can get Truvada cheaply, you might as well use that.

In vitro research found that borrelia burgdorferi is vulnerable to ganciclovir

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc4790293/

However, ganciclovir or valganciclovir has a much higher reported rate of side effects than valacyclovir, so usually this is not used unless the alternatives are not working.

Another forum member reported no effect from valacyclovir at a low dose, but suddenly got a herx when she upped the dose.

https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=4339109

Maybe some strains of borrelia are better at DNA repair than others. I got a very severe herx at a very low dose, so I would recommend starting at a low dose just in case.

Also be aware that these drugs can cause blood clotting

https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=4342467
https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=4345365

The specific mechanism seems to be that borrelia gets into the endothelium and dies there, triggering an inflammatory response that leads to the autoimmune disorder and blood clots.

If I keep the borrelia suppressed with other antibiotics, then I can take valacyclovir and I don't have this problem.

This isn't specific to valacyclovir, there is at least one reported case with Truvada:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30840965/

I didn't have any kidney problems (other than TTP) but I was taking a low dose of valacyclovir, initially just 500 mg per week. Recently I've been taking 500 mg every two to three days, in addition to 100 mg lamivudine. The herx is less now that I've cleared some of the bacteria, so I've been able to up the dose.

Regarding the blood clots and TTP, the warning sign of this was a low platelet count and increased mean platelet volume (MPV). Keeping the borrelia suppressed with azithromycin and minocycline resolved this problem, although it took a few months for the autoantibodies to go away.

Thanks for the information, it's been very useful.