Erythromycin

Bartonella can easily become resistant to macrolides. Doxy/mino tend to be more effective.

The problem is that it's hard to kill the dormant bart. The strategy that I found effective is to disturb the bartonella with atovaquone/disulfiram/valproate and then kill it with minocycline once it comes out of hiding.

Quin said...
Bartonella can easily become resistant to macrolides. Doxy/mino tend to be more effective.

The problem is that it's hard to kill the dormant bart. The strategy that I found effective is to disturb the bartonella with atovaquone/disulfiram/valproate and then kill it with minocycline once it comes out of hiding.

Thanks, did u have any side effects if any with the atovaquone/disulfiram/valproate ?

Apparently the most effective for bart are the fluoroquinolones paired with another abx.
(Levaquin and Cipro)
But they have an fda black box warning due to risks of side effects,

Rifabutin paired with mino is a good combo for Bartonella.

MedicalNerd said...
Thanks, did u have any side effects if any with the atovaquone/disulfiram/valproate ?

Disulfiram I couldn't tolerate, as it caused extreme moodiness and a manic-depressive effect.

Valproate (depakote) is a drug used to treat epilepsy and some other neurologic conditions which was serendipitously found to have anti-bacterial and anti-parasitic effects. It does have some unpleasant side effects, although not as bad as disulfiram. I found the combination of valproate and minocycline highly effective against bartonella. It completely eliminated all my bartonella symptoms, for a while. Unfortunately the dormant cyst/biofilm/whatever bartonella is very difficult to eradicate and would eventually relapse after several months off the meds.

Atovaquone (mepron) is mainly used for babesia, but in combination with minocycline did seem to have some efficacy against bartonella. It's not as effective as valproate or dsf, but much more tolerable in terms of side effects.

There are case reports of lopinavir/ritonavir causing bartonella flares, so combining this with doxy/mino might be worth trying if you can't tolerate any of the above. Lopinavir and ritonavir are HIV protease inhibitors and it's unclear how these drugs might affect bartonella, so this is pretty speculative.

Rifampin and clarithromycin I mostly gave up on as I found these to be poorly effective and the bartonella seemed to become increasingly resistant to both. Rifampin also messed with my adrenal function. However, the combination of atovaquone and clarithromycin did seem to be effective against babesia.

Clindamycin I could not tolerate as it caused severe gastroesophageal reflux. I don't know if it did anything to bartonella as I stopped taking it.

Quin said...

MedicalNerd said...
Thanks, did u have any side effects if any with the atovaquone/disulfiram/valproate ?

Disulfiram I couldn't tolerate, as it caused extreme moodiness and a manic-depressive effect.

Valproate (depakote) is a drug used to treat epilepsy and some other neurologic conditions which was serendipitously found to have anti-bacterial and anti-parasitic effects. It does have some unpleasant side effects, although not as bad as disulfiram. I found the combination of valproate and minocycline highly effective against bartonella. It completely eliminated all my bartonella symptoms, for a while. Unfortunately the dormant cyst/biofilm/whatever bartonella is very difficult to eradicate and would eventually relapse after several months off the meds.

Atovaquone (mepron) is mainly used for babesia, but in combination with minocycline did seem to have some efficacy against bartonella. It's not as effective as valproate or dsf, but much more tolerable in terms of side effects.

There are case reports of lopinavir/ritonavir causing bartonella flares, so combining this with doxy/mino might be worth trying if you can't tolerate any of the above. Lopinavir and ritonavir are HIV protease inhibitors and it's unclear how these drugs might affect bartonella, so this is pretty speculative.

Rifampin and clarithromycin I mostly gave up on as I found these to be poorly effective and the bartonella seemed to become increasingly resistant to both. Rifampin also messed with my adrenal function. However, the combination of atovaquone and clarithromycin did seem to be effective against babesia.

Clindamycin I could not tolerate as it caused severe gastroesophageal reflux. I don't know if it did anything to bartonella as I stopped taking it.

Did u ever try taking bio film busters? I beleive NAC is a biofilm blister which I take amd it also suppose to increase glutathione levels. When i take the NAC its definitely busting open some films or cysts, because my neuropathy increases and i get burning sensations and herx, I think the NAC helps

I just find it really interesting that the meds used to treat bartonella also kill a lot of other pathogens. It would be extremely difficult for me to say their benefit comes from reducing bartonella when they are reducing levels of a lot of stuff.

Georgia Hunter said...
I just find it really interesting that the meds used to treat bartonella also kill a lot of other pathogens. It would be extremely difficult for me to say their benefit comes from reducing bartonella when they are reducing levels of a lot of stuff.

Oh I definitely agree on this one.like I was saying I'm on clindomycin which is strictly used to treat babesia, yet I'm thinking its actually effective against bart as well. I've just posted some info in another post I made about bartonella and which antibiotics are effective in killing it off , including miconazole, which is used to treat yeast infections, like who would have known.