rowingmom

Isn't it funny how we can get so enthused about forensic pathology?

Yes, I was wondering about the plump face and sunburn.

Geez, the Shout Box has disappeared. I was going to give you a Shout Out!

Of course through my lens of lyme/bart I would say bartonella. The rages are very bartonella-like and cyclic. Severe abdominal pain can be a symptom as well. It was one of DD's and resoved within 1 week of starting abx treatment. Perhaps bartonella induced PANS.

Wow! What a Doctor you have! http://drbradstreet.org/2014/01/03/autism-says-goodbye-to-2013-and-hello-to-2014-breakthroughs-and-progress/ This post is about the recovery of an autistic boy, but I think similar immune responses may be responsible for PANS symptomology.

Has your DS been diagnosed with strep, or was the homeopathic strep remedy the one closest to a constitutional remedy? Sorry if I worded this incorrectly. I don't really understand homeopathic terms. I have always associated DD's ticcing with bacterial die-off.

Sorry, I should have qualified that remark. Red made the remark in Trinity's post on the use of minocycline monotherapy to treat bartonella. "No single drug can kill bart. It has to be a combo. The 2 best drugs are baixin and rifabutin. Rifabutin has less side effects than rifampin. Azithromycin has shown to be ineffective with bart. Breitschwerdt has said they see early resistance to azith in animals and have move to biaxin as a result." While I don't think rifampin should be used alone because resistance develops quickly, I don't think Trinity's doctor needs to be questioned. Perhaps he/she is trying to reduce loads of other infections before adding other abx to the protocol. Trinity's daughter is very sensitive and has obvious trouble with many abx and supplements. The last time I saw this person on the forum was about 1 year ago. He had lots of information about abx protocols then as I recall, but told us nothing about his history, or whether he has children that he has recovered. Nothing.

Wow, wow! I've been seeing so many good reviews on hemp/cannabis oil lately (of course only on the more alternative health websites), and it's usefullness for autoimmune conditions, cancer and autism. So great to have your very own testamonial! Isn't amazing what you can find if you allow yourself to consider something other than the information that is continually forced on us by the mainstream? I hope the improvement continues!

You need to understand that biaxin (which I am taking with rifabutin) is a major C3A4 inhibitor. This means biaxin can affect the bioavailability (usually but nor always increase) of many drugs and herbs. Because many herbs are poorly understood you are taking unknown risks adding herbs to biaxin. You should also be aware that Sida Acuta which is a major part of Burhner's protocol has ephedra in it. When I took it it was last summer (before I started biaxin) and I was sitting outside in 85 degree whether with a robe on and shivering. These herbs are very powerful and with children one has to be more aware. The more I learn about western abx and herbals the more I believe they should not be mixed. Especially with powerful drugs like biaxin and rifabutin. I also believe that not all negative reactions are herxes. One simple may be having a negative response to the combo of drugs and or herbs. Herxing is very difficult to understand. When the body is overloaded with inflammatory agents the threshold for painful episodes it lowered. @ Red - You are quite right. Herbs can be powerful because they contain many antimicrobial constituents, unlike antibiotics. Some contain components that act as efflux pump inhibitors potentially making the effects of antibiotics more potent. You need to read Buhner's books and understand how each of these herbs work, their different constituents, why they are effective on certain types of bacteria, and their potential side effects. Buhner does a wonderful job of clearly stating all of this information. If you think that the presence of ephedra compounds in the sida species is unacknowledged by Buhner, that you are outing his protocols, you are very wrong. There is much discussion of this in the Herbal Antibiotics: Natural Alternatives for Treating Drug-Resistant Bacteria book; which I why I recommend reading all of the books before undertaking the protocol, with or without the help of a physician. And frankly, even with the input of any physician/LLMD/naturopath I still educate myself on all aspects of any protocol. There is too much room for error and I TRUST NO ONE. I have given these books to both our LLMD and naturopath, and I hope they read them. I have learned enough along the way to realize there are risks to everything - even physician-led antibiotic therapy, which is why we continue to run bimonthly CBC CMP tests and to chart symptoms daily. If you have cured yourself of bartonella with biaxin/rifabutin, good for you. I am glad that you can come to this forum and state that the abx protocols others are using are useless. I would personally leave the abx decisions up to the LLMDs. We are having better results with Buhner than we had with abx. I have not made a secret of the fact that DD completed 2 years of multiple combo antibiotics before starting herbs. I am simply reporting my findings. Buhner has worked for us, but may not work for you or others. The choice is entirely yours to make.

Glad you read the book. It's full of information and paradigms you will find no where else. It would be well worth your time to read the rest as well, if only to get a feeling of how other infections might act. The Herbal Antiviral and Herbal Antibacterial books are also great in their own right. I am looking forward to his upcoming book on Babesia. Buhner suggests in the book that MS symptoms may be associated with the nutrient deficiency caused by mycoplasma infection. Dr Terry Wahls successfully treats secondary progressive MS in both herself and her patients with an optimum nutrient paleo protocol. https://www.facebook.com/Dr.Terry.Wahls At this point a light went on. Treating with nutrition, herbal antibiotics and herbal immune modulators just made sense to me. We use large doses of olive oil daily on salads (with sea salt and other spices) and drink what's left at the bottom of the bowl. We are also using 500 mg olive leaf extract daily. Buhner suggests that soaking the herb/extract in the oil will increase the helpfulness of both. I tried that once but it was too bitter to handle, and we can handle a lot. Yes, you need to continually detox. Lemon water with stevia, psyllium fiber to keep things moving, (some use charcoal or other binders, we don't), Epsom salt baths every other day. Lots of water to drink. Milk thistle to help the liver (it is the main detox organ), liposomal glutathione (master antioxidant).

You can do this by yourself, but you should read the Lyme Coinfections, and the newer Herbal Antibiotics and Herbal Antiviral books before you attempt it. Julie McIntyre, Buhner's associate is available for consult, but again you will need the info from the books to understand what it is she suggests, and why she suggests it. Our LLMD knows nothing about herbs, but has OKed their use in our situation. We continue with semi-monthly CBC CMP testing. Whatever you do, do not attempt beginning with Buhner's suggested dosages. We have found them to be much too high (with the exception of Japanese knotweed), and that the herxing threshold is reached at about 1/3 suggested dosage. Even the dosages Julie suggested were too high for DD. We are using the entire bartonella protocol with the exception of l-arginine and with the addition of CSA (cryptolepis/sida/alchornea). As with abx/supplement protocols begin with one at a time and don't start another for a couple of weeks. Chart daily to pick up on herx reactions.

PM me with your e-mail address and I will send you a template of the one we use. I got my original from LLM and have used it daily for 1.5 years. I don't know where we would be without it.

If you have a doctor that thinks an observed bite is necessary to diagnose lyme, you need another doctor. Lyme can be passed through breast milk and can cross the placenta. Like syphilis, it can be sexually transmitted. "-although I'm sure it's very rare to have a lyme infection and not have physical pain or fatigue symptoms, I have heard (in a radio interview online with Dr. Stephen H. from CA, and read elsewhere) that it is possible for reasons unknown." If you have a capable immune system you can have lyme but no symptoms. As the bacteria are released into the blood stream from wherever they have sequested, the immune system will deal with them. The load is low and kept low. The body is in balance, immune system and good bacteria balancing the infection.

An article linking aluminum adjuvants in vaccinations to ASIA (Autoimmune Inflammatory Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants). http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/new-autoimmunity-syndrome-linked-aluminum-vaccines "Shaw reported on his research on mice injected with aluminum doses equivalent to those in vaccine injections. They showed progressive loss of muscle strength and endurance, and at the cellular level, "profound loss of motor neurons." He and other researchers also demonstrated "social interaction deficits" and elevated anxiety levels among the vaccinated mice, reflected by their obsessive stair climbing and reluctance to move between light and dark regions compared to controls, for example. Shaw's forthcoming research demonstrates the impact of aluminum on gene proteins and gene expression and how these relate to autism."

Thank you, thank you for this post. Tick / arthropod Borne Disease is more prevalent than we are led to believe. And for those you are encouraging to be tested for lyme, please, please, test for the coinfections as well. Don't assume because a lyme test comes back negative that the other infections can't be involved. Bartonella, anaplasma, ehrlichia, babesia, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. These all have arthropod vectors. Doctors assume that because these diseases have not been historically endemic in many areas of North America, that they are not present now. This is wrong.

The bacteria sequester in areas where it is hard for the immune system to track them - lyme often in tendons, joints, cartilage (areas of lower blood flow); bartonella in endothelial tissue and red blood cells; babesia in red blood cells. All of them can pass the BBB as well. All of these infections are transferred through biting arthropods. Depending on the timing of their cycles, they leave the infected tissues and enter the blood stream where they become available to their arthropod vectors and thus more readily transferred from animal to animal. At this point they are circulated more widly through the body and are probably more vulnerable to the immune system or antibiotics. Thus the cyclic fevers and symptoms.

I was going to suggest bacterial cycling as well. Lyme has a 4 week cycle, babesia every few days, bartonella every 5 days.

We find that for DD and myself 300 mg of magnesium citrate calms us down at night and makes us sleepy. However for my son it actually brought on a 24 hour migrane within 15 minutes. He didn't mention sleepiness. He only gets 1 migrane every year or so and was definately able to associate the larger dose of mag citrate with the headache. For my husband on the other hand, migranes are caused by calcium citrate supplementation. If you are seeing hyperness associated with citrate, you can try mag taurate (our LLMD likes this one) or mag malate (people with CFS like this as it seems to help with muscle pain) or mag glycinate.

In addition to any antibiotics you may be using in the future to treat Myco, according to Stephen Buhner, the symptoms of mycoplasma can be very much the result of nutritional deficiencies caused by the parasitic tendancies of those organisms. Make sure you are using optimum nutrition as an adjunct: https://www.facebook.com/Dr.Terry.Wahls http://perfecthealthdiet.com/

My daughter mentioned the premonitory sensation (tingling, itching) that causes her to have to tic. That sensation stays until the tic is performed. The tic can be delayed, but the sensation grows until it can no longer be ignored. After the tic is performed, the sensation stops for a while, but then comes back causing another tic to happen. I'm not sure stimming has a premonitory sensation involved. Interesting that you found antibiotics increase ticcing in your son. We found the same thing occurring throughout bartonella treatment. A change in antibiotic protocol or an increase of a current antibiotic would produce a die-off reaction from the mobilized endotoxins from the killed bacteria. Ticcing was one of DD's main indicators of toxin build up. Her body wasn't able to process and eliminate the endotoxins fast enough and the result would be an increase in both pain symptoms and ticcing. With increased detox protocols (low doses of methylated B's, epsom salt baths, magnesium, lemon juice, psyllium husk) the herx induced flare of ticcing would resolve within a week or so. There would also be an improvement in symptomology baseline. This ticcing was the most prominent during the use of antibiotics/herbs used to treat bartonella. I could induce ticcing and shin pain (long bone pain is a bartonella symptom) with homeopathic herbal bartonella supplements (A-Bart) as well as abx at higher dosages. The ticcing would resolve upon withdrawl of those supplements/abx (with some time allowed for detoxing). So before abx treatment began, I feel that ticcing was the result of bacterial endotoxin release caused by the natural function of DD's immune system. During treatment it was the result of abx-induced endotoxin release. Time allowed for proper detoxification always resulted in a resolution (but not always completely) of ticcing. As safeplate mentions above, pesticides in food can be another source of toxins in an already overloaded child.

We are seeing a naturopath who is versed in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) and who is familiar with the use of herbals, although he knows next to nothing about Buhner's Herbs. I have given him the books, and hope he catches up quickly. He does muscle testing for our various supplements, but I can't quite seem to wrap my head around that. Anyway, a couple of months ago DD was hit in the head with a dodge ball at close range. She immediately started showing signs of concussion and the teacher called home to inform me. I figured she would recover quickly, but she didn't, and over the next couple of days complained of pain on the opposite side from the hit, dizziness, headache, a feeling of eye swelling and fatigue. I finally took her to the naturopath who prescribed 7LM Hepar Sulph. This is the first time we have used homeopathic remedies for anything other than detox (and well, ByronWhite which just seems to produce herx reactions but no healing). We used the first pellets that evening and the next morning she actually said "Wow, what was that, my head feels better!" Her symptom profile decreased by about 1/2. We used the remedy for 7 days, and by the end she was pretty much better. Still a little dizziness, but the rest was better. The naturopath said that if his kids had concussion this was what he would give them. It worked for us, but I'm not sure why. Can't explain it, and I have trouble with things I can't explain.

Have you seen Stephanie2's postings on homeopathy? She finished posting when I was just starting.

My suggestion is that you are still having an issue with toxins of some type (bacterial, pesticides, metals) and a decreased ability to deal with them.

When you find you are at a dead end with mainstream medicine, continue to search elsewhere. Don't become disheartened by this doctor who doesn't have the open mind required to investigate further; his is not the last word on the subject. For us, Tourette's-like motor/vocal ticcing was caused by toxin overload, specifically caused by bartonella endotoxins and yeast. Addressing MTHFR deletions, detoxing and support of a healthy gut microbiome has been tremendously helpful.

We are using the full bartonella protocol, minus l-arginine, because I just can't convince myself that a viral infection is not involved. We are using the full dose of Japanese knotweed, but 1/2 dose of everything else - sida acuta, houttuynia, cordyceps (this is from his book Lyme Coinfections: bartonella and mycoplasma. Because we saw such an improvement in executive function with malarone during abx treatment I also started dosing CSA (a tincture containing cyrptolepis, sida and alchornea - cryptolepis is used for malarial/protozoan infections). With high doses of this we actually saw a babesia herx and since lowering the dosage have had even more improvement with executive function and concentration/behaviour. BARTONELLA Research is ongoing, this is the most up to date protocol: • Sida acuta tincture (from Woodland Essence or julie@gaianstudies.org) ¼ tsp 3x day for 30 days • Hawthorn tincture, same • Japanese knotweed, (tincture, same dose (from same sources as Sida acuta, above), or capsules from Green Dragon Botanicals 2 capsules 3x daily) • EGCG 400mg +- daily • Houttuynia (Yu Xing Cao – 1st Chinese Herbs, powder – use “LYME” code at checkout for 10% off) 1 tbl daily • L-arginine 5000 mg daily in divided doses • Milk Thistle seed, standardized, 1200 mg daily All for 30 days. PLEASE NOTE: If you have active herpes, chicken pox, or shingles DO NOT USE L-arginine. see also: bartonella Just today her teacher called to say that over the last 6 weeks, DD has been doing superbly in school. Confident, happy, asking good questions, getting all work done, an exemplary student. I was blown away, because that was when I slightly increased cryptolepis after being on lower dose for a couple of months. We are using supplements suggested by our LLMD as well including: vit c, vit d, liposomal glutathione, phosphatidyl choline, taurine, methylated B's, methyl B12, liposomal curcumin, ResearchedNutritionals TransferFactor, OrthoFlora YeastSupport, 50 billion probiotic cultures daily.