Lyme Disease and Antibiotic

[supernovae]

So two weeks ago I went camping and the day after I did some gardening the whole afternoon. I got bitten by a tick which I discover to have still on my body the next Monday, so potentially 3 days after it jumped on my body. After developing a skin rash compatible with Lyme disease, my GP put me on a 2 weeks course of antibiotics that I started yesterday. The treatment consists on phenoxymethylpenicillin 1g, 4 tablets a day.

I already got the same antibiotic months ago (when I already had T), but in a lower dose (650 mg, 4 times a day) and for a lower period (4 days) and it did not affect my tinnitus at all.

Last night, 1 hour after going to sleep, I woke up because of a tinnitus spike. Needless to say, I got pretty scared and paranoid about it and I did not sleep much for the rest of the night. The spike was still there this morning and also now when I am writing and I have also little feeling of inflammation in one of the ear.

I spoke to the doctor again this morning asking if it was necessary to be on such dosage and if it was possible to change to another antibiotic. He said that this is the standard protocol for treating Lyme and the only other alternative to the penicillin is the doxycycline which is not recommended due to its side effects.

I read here and on internet that penicillin should be quite safe to take in term of ototoxicity and the fact that it did not affect tinnitus few months made me feel a bit more relaxed at first but now I am scared of continuing with the antibiotic

I have had many spikes since the onset of the tinnitus and the current one is not the worst I got, but I had worked so hard on myself the last months that finally I was starting to see little improvements and I don't want to throw everything away. On the other side getting stuck with Lyme would suck at lot.
I need to be honest and I recognised that I am a pretty pessimistic person and I tend to overthink too much, specially in situations where things can go wrong like now, so probably part of the spike could be caused by my anxiety towards taking antibiotics for two weeks

For completion I have also to mention that I am following a glutathione treatment via injections for T and H prescribed by an audiologist and I take everyday supplements of magnesium, vitamin b and omega 3. Would that be enough to prevent or limit any possible side effect of the antibiotic?

Sorry for the long post, but I feel really hopeless at the moment

 

[fishbone]

So two weeks ago I went camping and the day after I did some gardening the whole afternoon. I got bitten by a tick which I discover to have still on my body the next Monday, so potentially 3 days after it jumped on my body. After developing a skin rash compatible with Lyme disease, my GP put me on a 2 weeks course of antibiotics that I started yesterday. The treatment consists on phenoxymethylpenicillin 1g, 4 tablets a day.

I already got the same antibiotic months ago (when I already had T), but in a lower dose (650 mg, 4 times a day) and for a lower period (4 days) and it did not affect my tinnitus at all.

Last night, 1 hour after going to sleep, I woke up because of a tinnitus spike. Needless to say, I got pretty scared and paranoid about it and I did not sleep much for the rest of the night. The spike was still there this morning and also now when I am writing and I have also little feeling of inflammation in one of the ear.

I spoke to the doctor again this morning asking if it was necessary to be on such dosage and if it was possible to change to another antibiotic. He said that this is the standard protocol for treating Lyme and the only other alternative to the penicillin is the doxycycline which is not recommended due to its side effects.

I read here and on internet that penicillin should be quite safe to take in term of ototoxicity and the fact that it did not affect tinnitus few months made me feel a bit more relaxed at first but now I am scared of continuing with the antibiotic

I have had many spikes since the onset of the tinnitus and the current one is not the worst I got, but I had worked so hard on myself the last months that finally I was starting to see little improvements and I don't want to throw everything away. On the other side getting stuck with Lyme would suck at lot.
I need to be honest and I recognised that I am a pretty pessimistic person and I tend to overthink too much, specially in situations where things can go wrong like now, so probably part of the spike could be caused by my anxiety towards taking antibiotics for two weeks

For completion I have also to mention that I am following a glutathione treatment via injections for T and H prescribed by an audiologist and I take everyday supplements of magnesium, vitamin b and omega 3. Would that be enough to prevent or limit any possible side effect of the antibiotic?

Sorry for the long post, but I feel really hopeless at the moment

Sorry for your issues. I might possibly have lyme and I am seeing an infections Dr next week. I have tried doxycycline and with in 1 hour I felt and heard a new tone. I will never touch that med again. If the dr has given you another med, then possibly stick it out. Lyme is no joke and I have more body pain lately. I cannot 100% say that I have lyme. I never had the huge rash or never felt a tick being stuck on my body, but my new/unusual body pain/fatigue makes me think i might have it. So I'm seeing an infections dr to see what he/she will say.

Sorry that you are having a hard time with this, hope things get better for you...

 

[Wolfears]

Sorry for your issues. I might possibly have lyme and I am seeing an infections Dr next week. I have tried doxycycline and with in 1 hour I felt and heard a new tone. I will never touch that med again. If the dr has given you another med, then possibly stick it out. Lyme is no joke and I have more body pain lately. I cannot 100% say that I have lyme. I never had the huge rash or never felt a tick being stuck on my body, but my new/unusual body pain/fatigue makes me think i might have it. So I'm seeing an infections dr to see what he/she will say.

Sorry that you are having a hard time with this, hope things get better for you...

I have just completed treatment for Lyme via Bicon technology (bio-resonance).
My Tinnitus is now easing off to levels that are sometimes barely audible, but it might take a bit until it is all flushed out of my system...

I also have black mold, which can also cause Tinnitus..haven't got to treating that one yet.

Will give a detailed report once all completed to anyone who is interested.

Another alternative for Lyme is the HBOT chamber, but this requires around 100 sessions and can get very expensive.

 

[Nanny chocolate]

Hi
I took doxycycline for 10 weeks last year for eye problems. It had zero effect on my T but neither did it help the eye inflammation. Go figure as the saying is. I guess we are all so very different but you must take something for Lyme disease as it can have potential long term health implications. Good luck with your treatment.
Eve x
@supernovae

 

[cspc]

Sorry for your issues. I might possibly have lyme and I am seeing an infections Dr next week. I have tried doxycycline and with in 1 hour I felt and heard a new tone. I will never touch that med again. If the dr has given you another med, then possibly stick it out. Lyme is no joke and I have more body pain lately. I cannot 100% say that I have lyme. I never had the huge rash or never felt a tick being stuck on my body, but my new/unusual body pain/fatigue makes me think i might have it. So I'm seeing an infections dr to see what he/she will say.

Sorry that you are having a hard time with this, hope things get better for you...

I read somewhere that you can get lyme from mosquito bites. I just saw a tick on my window's net fence today while having the window open. No clue how it got there because something with it's size can't get through the net. I closed the window after this.

 

[Greg Sacramento]

I starting to get more muscle and bone/joint pain, but it may be stress causing it or something else. I called the hospital where I once worked and got the current trend case percentages for fibromyalgia for the last ten years. Lyme disease in my area is still a very small cause of fibromyalgia. There has been an increase connection to gluten intolerance and Candida - yeast. Thyroid is slightly up. Small intestine bacterial growth is lightly up. Glutathione deficiency is also slightly up. Hepatitis C has dropped.

For men, vitamin deficiencies has increased considerably - lack of magnesium, MTHFR mutations - lack of B12 and folic acid. Mold exposure has increased. Lack of Vitamin D is also found, but they are now finding that lack of magnesium is almost always found in middle age to older men with fibromyalgia. Magnesium use can make a big difference.

I know this is stuff stuff that you already know @fishbone - my dear friend. Fibromyalgia is on the increase at almost ( 3% total older population) in my area. So this is just a general board information post for whatever it may be worth.

 

[supernovae]

@fishbone @Nanny chocolate thanks for your words. I just had a call with my family doctor from Italy (I am italian although I live in Norway) which happen to suffer from T as well. He confirmed that I should stick to the antibiotic that I am taking it now and the spike I am experiencing is most likely temporary and will subside when I am done with the antibiotic. He also recommend to keep taking strong dosage of antioxidant while doing the therapy and for some time after that. Hopefully he is right about it

 

[fishbone]

I starting to get more muscle and bone/joint pain, but it may be stress causing it or something else. I called the hospital where I once worked and got the current trend case percentages for fibromyalgia for the last ten years. Lyme disease in my area is still a very small cause of fibromyalgia. There has been an increase connection to gluten intolerance and Candida - yeast. Thyroid is slightly up. Small intestine bacterial growth is lightly up. Glutathione deficiency is also slightly up. Hepatitis C has dropped.

For men, vitamin deficiencies has increased considerably - lack of magnesium, MTHFR mutations - lack of B12 and folic acid. Mold exposure has increased. Lack of Vitamin D is also found, but they are now finding that lack of magnesium is almost always found in middle age to older men with fibromyalgia. Magnesium use can make a big difference.

I know this is stuff stuff that you already know @fishbone - my dear friend. Fibromyalgia is on the increase at almost ( 3% total older population) in my area. So this is just a general board information post for whatever it may be worth.

Thank you buddy for your message. Due to the overdosing of the meds 11 years ago, my central nervous system was ruined and the gastritis, acid reflux, fibro, arthritis symptoms have all appeared. I have been dealing with this for quite awhile now. I have an appointment with an infections dr to just get some answers. I want to know if I have lyme or not. I am realistic. if I have to battle lyme now, i'll kick it in the tail..trust me. I never give up.

I just need to have some answers, as to what I am facing. My body is just odd. The past few days to 2 weeks I have been in major pain, more than usual. The past 3-4 days I have had insane fatigue that I normally never have. It's been so bad that i have not went to the martial arts. I went one day to the gym for treadmill and it took all my energy.

As I said before, i'll figure this out and beat it.......You are always in my prayers my dear friend. AS are all of those that suffer on this site...

Bless all....

 

[Wolfears]

Thank you buddy for your message. Due to the overdosing of the meds 11 years ago, my central nervous system was ruined and the gastritis, acid reflux, fibro, arthritis symptoms have all appeared. I have been dealing with this for quite awhile now. I have an appointment with an infections dr to just get some answers. I want to know if I have lyme or not. I am realistic. if I have to battle lyme now, i'll kick it in the tail..trust me. I never give up.

I just need to have some answers, as to what I am facing. My body is just odd. The past few days to 2 weeks I have been in major pain, more than usual. The past 3-4 days I have had insane fatigue that I normally never have. It's been so bad that i have not went to the martial arts. I went one day to the gym for treadmill and it took all my energy.

As I said before, i'll figure this out and beat it.......You are always in my prayers my dear friend. AS are all of those that suffer on this site...

Bless all....

Hey Fish..just make sure that they test you with something else besides the standard ELISA test, which is very inacurate at best and almost always comes back as negative.

 

[fishbone]

Hey Fish..just make sure that they test you with something else besides the standard ELISA test, which is very inacurate at best and almost always comes back as negative.

Thank you for that. I have read about this test and I will discuss it with the dr. Im sure I don't have lyme, but I need to have the dr and the test either prove me right or wrong...

 

[DebInAustralia]

So two weeks ago I went camping and the day after I did some gardening the whole afternoon. I got bitten by a tick which I discover to have still on my body the next Monday, so potentially 3 days after it jumped on my body. After developing a skin rash compatible with Lyme disease, my GP put me on a 2 weeks course of antibiotics that I started yesterday. The treatment consists on phenoxymethylpenicillin 1g, 4 tablets a day.

I already got the same antibiotic months ago (when I already had T), but in a lower dose (650 mg, 4 times a day) and for a lower period (4 days) and it did not affect my tinnitus at all.

Last night, 1 hour after going to sleep, I woke up because of a tinnitus spike. Needless to say, I got pretty scared and paranoid about it and I did not sleep much for the rest of the night. The spike was still there this morning and also now when I am writing and I have also little feeling of inflammation in one of the ear.

I spoke to the doctor again this morning asking if it was necessary to be on such dosage and if it was possible to change to another antibiotic. He said that this is the standard protocol for treating Lyme and the only other alternative to the penicillin is the doxycycline which is not recommended due to its side effects.

I read here and on internet that penicillin should be quite safe to take in term of ototoxicity and the fact that it did not affect tinnitus few months made me feel a bit more relaxed at first but now I am scared of continuing with the antibiotic

I have had many spikes since the onset of the tinnitus and the current one is not the worst I got, but I had worked so hard on myself the last months that finally I was starting to see little improvements and I don't want to throw everything away. On the other side getting stuck with Lyme would suck at lot.
I need to be honest and I recognised that I am a pretty pessimistic person and I tend to overthink too much, specially in situations where things can go wrong like now, so probably part of the spike could be caused by my anxiety towards taking antibiotics for two weeks

For completion I have also to mention that I am following a glutathione treatment via injections for T and H prescribed by an audiologist and I take everyday supplements of magnesium, vitamin b and omega 3. Would that be enough to prevent or limit any possible side effect of the antibiotic?

Sorry for the long post, but I feel really hopeless at the moment

Hi there,

I am in a similar boat to you, and can fully understand your fear of exacerbating your tinnitus.

Firstly, I dont suppose you kept the tick? If so, you can send it to labs to have it analysed for borrelia/coinfections.

The other thing is; doxycycline is the first line drug used (mainstream) for preventing the borrelia from disseminating, not penicillin.

I took doxy for 5 months, with a few spikes (that may have been incidental). I have a positive result for 3 species of borrelia, along with relapsing fever and babesia with Arminlabs in Germany. Further testing at an american based lab has refuted the presence of borrelia, and suggested I have strep. Who knows!

I was nearly a week in to taking amoxicillin when my ears out of nowhere started bothering me again, so I have stopped my treatment, and seeking an alternative.

Stephen Buhner; a reknowned American herbalist, suggests the following for new tick bites:

For new tick bites, Stephen typically recommends taking astragalus – 3,000 mg daily for 30 days, 1,000 mg daily thereafter, indefinitely. Also: using a paste made of andrographis tincture mixed with green clay, the paste applied on the tick bite area can often prevent an active infection.

I regularly take magnesium, tumeric, nicotinamide riboside, and nac.

 

[supernovae]

Hi @DebInAustralia thanks a lot your sharing your experience!

Firstly, I dont suppose you kept the tick? If so, you can send it to labs to have it analysed for borrelia/coinfections.

I actually went to the emergency room to get it removed properly because I was afraid of messing it up. They threw the tick right away without mentioning the possibility of getting it analysed. I am not that surprised anymore by the emergency room...it is the same guys that sent me home after I first got T when I was still in the firsts days and maybe a steroids treatment could have been effective

The other thing is; doxycycline is the first line drug used (mainstream) for preventing the borrelia from disseminating, not penicillin.

My GP told me that phenoxymethylpenicillin is the standard treatment for borrelia here in Norway and they prescribe doxycycline only when someone is allergic to penicillin. I am not sure what to say in regards to his choice. I did also a blood test to check if I have borrelia but the result will come in a week or so

Stephen Buhner; a reknowned American herbalist, suggests the following for new tick bites:

For new tick bites, Stephen typically recommends taking astragalus – 3,000 mg daily for 30 days, 1,000 mg daily thereafter, indefinitely. Also: using a paste made of andrographis tincture mixed with green clay, the paste applied on the tick bite area can often prevent an active infection.

Do you know if those herbs can be taken while taking the antibiotic?

 

[fishbone]

Hi there,

I am in a similar boat to you, and can fully understand your fear of exacerbating your tinnitus.

Firstly, I dont suppose you kept the tick? If so, you can send it to labs to have it analysed for borrelia/coinfections.

The other thing is; doxycycline is the first line drug used (mainstream) for preventing the borrelia from disseminating, not penicillin.

I took doxy for 5 months, with a few spikes (that may have been incidental). I have a positive result for 3 species of borrelia, along with relapsing fever and babesia with Arminlabs in Germany. Further testing at an american based lab has refuted the presence of borrelia, and suggested I have strep. Who knows!

I was nearly a week in to taking amoxicillin when my ears out of nowhere started bothering me again, so I have stopped my treatment, and seeking an alternative.

Stephen Buhner; a reknowned American herbalist, suggests the following for new tick bites:

For new tick bites, Stephen typically recommends taking astragalus – 3,000 mg daily for 30 days, 1,000 mg daily thereafter, indefinitely. Also: using a paste made of andrographis tincture mixed with green clay, the paste applied on the tick bite area can often prevent an active infection.

I regularly take magnesium, tumeric, nicotinamide riboside, and nac.

What test did you have, that showed that you had lyme? Hope you are feeling better.....I have an appointment with an infections doctor soon and I want to make sure that they do the proper testing...

At what stage, what length of time can lyme become dangerous. I been at this (have not been diagnosed yet) for 1 month now.....I don't want it to further affect my neurological system...

 

[DebInAustralia]

What test did you have, that showed that you had lyme? Hope you are feeling better.....I have an appointment with an infections doctor soon and I want to make sure that they do the proper testing...

At what stage, what length of time can lyme become dangerous. I been at this (have not been diagnosed yet) for 1 month now.....I don't want it to further affect my neurological system...

Hello there,

I started off with a local lab, and got a pos for borrelia but only on band 41 i think, which isnt confirmatory for lyme.
Off to the US (Igenex) given equivocals for borrelia and babesia.
Armin labs gave me a pos for 3 strains of borrelia, relapsing fever, and babesia (elispot)
Aperiomics in the US refuted my lyme diagnosis, and as mentioned, said I have an overgrowth of strep. I chose aperiomics because they can test for every bug in their data base from a single sample. They claim to have very high accuracy and sensitivity.

I attempted treatment for suspected mycoplasma pneumonia, borrelia, and babesia. None of it worked, which is why I retested at another lab (aperiomics).

Are you seeing an ID or a lyme literate dr. My belief is if you see a lyme literate dr, you are going to get a diagnosis for lyme. If you see an ID about lyme, its probable you will hit a brick wall. This is my experience of the medical merry go round in Australia.

You want to catch borrelia before it disseminates (spreads). At that stage, it becomes pleomorphic (can change from cyst to spirochette form), rendering antibiotics less effective.

Have a look at Stephen Buhner's books on lyme and co. There are several. He has a very good grasp on stealth infections.

Others are Dr Horowitz and Marty Ross.(has a website you can visit and an online book you can purchase)

Let me know how you go.

 

[Geoff alston]

I am diagnosed with Lyme disease from Arminlabs in Germany. I took a 10 day treatment of doxy twice a day. I already had T from the bacteria entering my ears. My doxy treatment did not increase my T.

I advise any reader to get tested for Lyme ASAP if they think they have it. It affected my nervous system within two weeks of a serious collapse with chest pains and other serious problems.

I have had a crash course into Lyme and T is one of a few of my serious problems caused by Lyme disease.

I would advise to consider at least 6 weeks of doxy treatment. In my case I had hyperthermia heat treatment as well to kill the bacteria and other detox treatments otherwise a longer course of doxy very strongly recommended. Two weeks alone is not sufficient as some medics may say is sufficient. Lyme is so hard to get a positive result as you may know. But based on symptoms alone you know if you have lyme. Arminlabs in Germany will mail you a symptoms Checker, they are very helpful. Igenx in the US are top to get positive results.

 

[DT_N_DA_CLUB]

Can't you take Amoxocillin instead for Lyme?

 

[DebInAustralia]

Can't you take Amoxocillin instead for Lyme?

Borrelia that causes lyme has different life cycles.

Amoxil will only treat cyst form.