Sometimes it happens that the treatment causes side effects when the bacteria die off, called a Herx reaction.
Doxycycline is not the only medication that can be used for Lyme; I am not sure what is commonly used for Bartonella.
If you are not entirely comfy with your current doc's approach, you might get a second opinion.
Hi,
For bart, the combo often used is doxy or minocycline (similar but more powerful) plus bactrim/cotrim plus plaquenil, plus rifampicin.
An alternative is levofloxacin, but ILADS is no longer recommending that because the side effects are dangerous and it is less effective (bart goes inside your body cells and levofloxacin only works outside them).
Is your doctor an ILADS member, or just a doc how tells you he knows about Lyme?There's a big difference.
There are herbs that work on bart but if your infection is bad, they won't help a lot (I say that since i am no herbs for bart and they are not doing much).
Bart is a horendous infection, just as bad as lyme itself or possibly worse - I have both so I cannot be certain but that's what I think.
As for all these symptoms springing up - are they pre existing ones or old ones getting worse/comig back, or are they new?
If they are symptoms you have ever had before then you're having a drug reaciton and need to get onto the doctor about it.
If it's old stuff getting worse, I would sit it out for a while as it is very possibly a herx.
Good luck with it.
I was recently diagnosed with barts and I have all those problems and more. I agree with everyone above, if it's brand new symptoms, then tell your doctor, if you have had them before it could be the herxing which I have been doing a lot lately and is not always pleasant. Good luck
For my Bart, I have been through rifampin (gave me stomach pain, which just added to the existing Bart caused stomach pain), Avelox, which gave me an achilles heel cramp, Levaquin, which seemed to work well for me, but also caused achilles heel discomfort, and now I am starting Bactrim. I started Plaquenil last week. I believe the Bactrim/Plaq combo is also good against both Bart and Lyme when they go intracellular.