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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 8 of 8. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by bleauberry on May 8, 2018, at 9:10:57
So the past few months I've had terrible anxiety and nervousness. I mean, it's crippling. It makes me not want to go out in public. I makes lighting bolts go through my heart. It makes butterflies in my stomach. It's awful. It feels exactly like stage fright. Horrible.
So with a great deal of experience in psychiatry, and a great deal of experience in lyme, my doctor and I had to make a decision.
1.Do we treat immediately with Xanax and see how it goes?
2.Do we treat with Bartonella antibiotics and see how it goes?
3. Do we treat with all of the above and see how it goes?We chose #2. I really, really didn't want to introduce the psychiatric medication angle again unless life-saving.
So today is about 6 weeks later. The heart lightening bolts are 99% gone. The overall nervousness is 95% gone. The butterflies are 100% gone. The stage fright is about 95% gone.
As usual, like most of us here, it required a cocktail. The medications that treated this horrible anxiety are listed here:
1.Rifampin (Tuberculosis and Bartonella antibiotic) daily
2.Doxycycline antibiotic daily
3.Ceftin antibiotic daily
4. Flagyl on weekends only.IT'S WORKIING AWESOME!
And I am so happy about that. Being stuck in that terrible kind of anxiety is straight out of hell!!!!!!
At the same time I can't help but feel desperation and doom for all the thousands of other people out there with anxiety who don't have longtime experience in lyme and psychiatry, who probably got put on an SSRI or something, with no other course of treatment. Really sad that we only bandaid symptoms instead of nuking them at the source.
Posted by Franz on May 9, 2018, at 10:22:18
In reply to Anxiety Almost Gone From This Med, posted by bleauberry on May 8, 2018, at 9:10:57
I'm glad for you.
How is it that an antibiotic treats anxiety?
Posted by bleauberry on May 10, 2018, at 6:03:09
In reply to Re: Anxiety Almost Gone From This Med, posted by Franz on May 9, 2018, at 10:22:18
> I'm glad for you.
> How is it that an antibiotic treats anxiety?Because Bartonella is a bacteria from cats and ticks with a predominant psychiatric presentation of anxiety and unexplained nervousness.
Most patients with those symptoms would go to a family doctor and get Zoloft or Xanax or something like that. Which don't actually fix the underlying problem. They only cover it up and hide it so you don't know it's there. While it continues to do more damage. Until eventually the meds become overwhelmed and cannot keep up. Poop out.
I was fortunate that my doctor is an LLMD instead of an average family doctor. LLMDs know psychiatry way better than psychiatrists do, generally speaking, in my experience.
My doctor claims that in his experience in his clinic, 9 out 10 new patients who come in from other doctors, poorly managed, with psychiatric medications, most of these patients are actually misdiagnosed tick-born disease patients. That is where the depression and anxiety comes from.
My journey has been such that all of this is crystal clear to me. When this is a new revelation to somebody else, it sounds profound at first.
Posted by Prefect on May 11, 2018, at 18:05:36
In reply to Anxiety Almost Gone From This Med, posted by bleauberry on May 8, 2018, at 9:10:57
Are you on any psyche meds right now? How do all these daily antibiotics interact with psyche meds? I might be going on Trintellix in a couple of weeks and was thinking about going the nuclear option on Bart, but I'm concerned about the interaction all these antibiotics will have with the psyche med.
Posted by bleauberry on May 12, 2018, at 9:42:37
In reply to Re: Anxiety Almost Gone From This Med » bleauberry, posted by Prefect on May 11, 2018, at 18:05:36
I am not on any psych meds. I would like to be on Ritalin again but the cost of $120 a month is out of my reach.
Medication interactions can happen. They are usually related to speeding up or slowing down the clearance of a med in your system. Which can sometimes require dosing adjustments.
But in terms of bad reactions, I don't think there are any worries or risks there.
Here is an example of what I mean: One of my antibiotics is Rifampin. It is a strong inducer of the CYP3A4 liver enzyme. That means any chemical which is metabolized by the liver with that enzyme will be chewed up and spit out faster than normal. So if you were on Rifampin, as an example, and you took an antidepressant that was primarily metabolized by CYP3A4, then you might - might- have to take an increased dose as long as you are taking Rifampin.
There is a study that shows higher doses of oxycodone are required in the presence of Rifampin, and that if rifampin is stopped but Oxy stays the same dose, it results in overdose.
In terms of serotonin syndrome or whatever, I would suspect those kinds of risks are super low or nonexistent.
I take a med sometimes that is metabolized by CYP3A4. It used to work great before Rifampin. After I started taking Rifampin it didn't work so good any more. That's because Rifampin was causing it to clear out of my body too fast. I simply had to increase the dose a little bit as long as I am taking Rifampin. And then it works good.
So you may or may not have liver enzyme issues like that. It's primarily a dosing thing if you do.
> Are you on any psyche meds right now? How do all these daily antibiotics interact with psyche meds? I might be going on Trintellix in a couple of weeks and was thinking about going the nuclear option on Bart, but I'm concerned about the interaction all these antibiotics will have with the psyche med.
Posted by bleauberry on May 12, 2018, at 9:46:38
In reply to Re: Anxiety Almost Gone From This Med » bleauberry, posted by Prefect on May 11, 2018, at 18:05:36
I forgot to mention one thing.
Milk Thistle.
I think EVERY psych patient should be taking that herb. It is a liver protecter and helper. It helps protect us from the toxicities of chemicals and meds. If there are any liver worries of taking a bunch of meds at the same time, Milk Thistle can end those worries.
The best single thing any one could do as an insurance policy against some unseen toxicity issues from multiple meds is to take Milk Thistle every day.
I take 300mg once a day. I was on 150mg for a long time. The herb also has a multitude of other benefits for a psychiatric patient, besides just the liver thing. It's a great all-around herb.
> Are you on any psyche meds right now? How do all these daily antibiotics interact with psyche meds? I might be going on Trintellix in a couple of weeks and was thinking about going the nuclear option on Bart, but I'm concerned about the interaction all these antibiotics will have with the psyche med.
Posted by Lamdage22 on May 26, 2018, at 4:01:58
In reply to Re: Anxiety Almost Gone From This Med » Prefect, posted by bleauberry on May 12, 2018, at 9:42:37
bleauberry,
is it possible to treat Lyme without conventional antibiotics?
Posted by ed_uk2010 on May 27, 2018, at 11:29:35
In reply to Re: Anxiety Almost Gone From This Med, posted by Lamdage22 on May 26, 2018, at 4:01:58
> bleauberry,
>
> is it possible to treat Lyme without conventional antibiotics?
>I'm not Blueberry but....
If you have definite or probable Borrelia infection, you should be treated with antibiotics. Usual first-line choices for early infection (eg. erythema migrans) include amoxicillin and doxycycline. Ceftriaxone injection is suitable for seriously ill pts with Lyme meningitis, cardiac infection, and other severe manifestations. Less severe neurological manifestations can be treated with 'double dose' oral doxycycline, continued for several weeks at least. It is even possible to treat most milder case of Lyme meningitis with doxycycline 200mg twice a day (with food). Non-neurological Lyme is treated with 100mg twice a day.
Some people diagnosed in the US with chronic Lyme disease haven't ever had clear evidence of Borrelia infection, and indeed may not need antibiotics... this is a very controversial area.
This is the end of the thread.
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