Lamotrigine for borrelia

Hi guys, I have seen that some people have used here valproic acid/valproate/depakote for hitting borrelia, but I have never seen anyone trying lamotrigine. The mechanism of action is very similar for both of them, they inhibit sodium and calcium channels (among others). One of the advantages of lamotrigine over valproate is less side effects, so I thought, why not give it a go?

Well, after trying it, I can confirm it hits borrelia too. The three times I have tried it, it has given me a good herx. I am also taking valproate to hit borrelia, and it seems that valproate inhibits the metabolism of lamotrigine, so the conclusion I have reached is that combining valproate and lamotrigine is like doubling the power of valproate but with less side effects. My dose until today has been 500mg valproate per day + 100mg lamotrigine every other day. Just be careful because the herx is strong, use a lower dose to start in case you want to give it a go.

Hope you find this helpful.

Hi Trkane, no, there is no literature on this. Same happens with other medication that works against these infections, they haven't been tested.

I've tried it and I can tell you for sure that it is herx, it is not a side effect of the drug.

I've read that there can be some withdrawal syndrome when stopping lamotrigine, but it is unfrequent or even rare from what I've read in terms of frequency distribution. Still, I'll bear that in mind.

Thank you for the information.

Neuropathy has been good for almost a month. Two days ago I pushed too far with antimicrobials and I've had a setback, now neuropathy is higher and I've had to reduce the amount of abx to compensate. I don't know how long it will take to stabilize again, but what I have checked is that I have to go slowly ramping up medication. My crash has happened taking 500mg valproate/day + 40mg loratadine/day + 1g triclabendazole/day + 100mg lamotrigine every other day, all for borrelia, which is what I believe triggers my neuropathy.

What about you dcd, have you decided to try something else apart from IVIG for your neuropathy?

Did your doctor give you these drugs and protocols?

I am not criticizing - just wondering if he gave you these and you discovered you herx'd on them.

I didn't try lamotrigine, but I definitely herxed from valproate.

The mechanism of action is unclear, but it's probably something other than sodium or calcium channels.

One thing I noticed with valproate is that it was very slow acting. I noticed very little effect for the first week or so, but the herx became increasingly bad after two or three weeks. It also tended to make bartonella flare up, but not kill the bartonella, so then I would need to take something else to kill the bartonella (usually I took minocycline).

I didn't have any autoimmune problems with valproate though. Nucleotide analogues (and particularly valacyclovir) were much more of a problem for autoimmune stuff. My biggest problem with valproate was it increasing my insulin levels. Initially I had high blood sugar so increased insulin was desirable, but after a while my blood sugar became normal and too much insulin was causing a lot of weight gain.

You are taking 40mg loratadine? I had problems with immunosuppression at just 10 mg, so I didn't want to take more than that.

One thing I noticed when killing borrelia with sodium valproate was a distinctive odor that I didn't get from anything else. Dead borrelia tends to smell bad regardless, but with valproate there was a particularly strong odor of diacetyl and malate. This would be difficult to explain solely as a consequence of disruption of ions or the cell membrane. I suspect valproate is doing something different, probably interfering with glycolysis.

Lamotrigine has an anti-folate effect, and we know that borrelia is susceptible to anti-folates, so I suspect that the mechanism of action may be unrelated to sodium or calcium.

Most of the autoimmune issues that I got were unrelated to molecular mimicry, but due to the location of the pathogen in proximity to something else. If borrelia was in the endothelium, then I would get blood clots and autoantibodies to ADAMTS13. If borrelia was in the dermis, then I would get skin rashes.

I did herx from loratadine, especially in combination with other things. The problem that I had was detoxing and clearing out the dead bacteria. I found that the antihistamine effect prevented my immune system from clearing out the dead bacteria, and then the detoxing would get worse when the loratadine wore off.

The hypercoagulation is largely autoimmune and seems to be due to a specific mechanism involving the bacteria getting into the endothelium (or possibly the liver) and causing an inflammatory response. This leads to antibodies to the clot-dissolving enzyme (ADAMTS13) which is produced by the endothelial cells and the hepatic stellate cells. I found that taking a low dose of certain antibiotics was enough to keep the borrelia immobile and prevent this from happening.

However I did also get some clotting due to hypercalcemia. Borrelia biofilm contains a lot of calcium, and breaking this up releases the calcium. This is bad because (among other things) calcium mediates blood clotting via von Willebrand factor.

I would have thought bartonella could cause blood clotting, but it didn't seem to. Bartonella destroyed the red blood cells and my bilirubin would get real high due to the hemolysis, but this didn't seem to affect clotting.

The detoxing was pretty similar regardless of what I used to kill borrelia. Some of the stuff would end up in the bile and cause painful diarrhea. Often I would pee out cloudy urine which I assume was calcium. It also smelled, but the smell of borrelia wasn't entirely consistent. Sometimes it would smell like garlic. I suspect that borrelia absorbs certain chemicals and these get released during the herx. The garlic smell (allicin) was one of the things it seemed to hold onto. There was also a smell which was a bit like soy sauce. I'm not sure if this was a byproduct of its fermentation or something that the bacteria were absorbing and releasing. However I noticed a particularly strong vinegar-like smell when taking valproate, so I suspect that this drug is blocking borrelia metabolism in a specific way.