Doxy(cycline) Blues

You never know when something that you share, may prove beneficial to others.


Doxycycline and the Doxy(cycline) Blues:


Every once in a while you have a BINGO moment, one of those where what you hear or read, bounces right back at you, as if it were mirror reflecting your own life or experience. Today, I read a section of a book on Lyme. BINGO!

As background, my first LLMD informed me that my case was so complex that I was going to have to proceed very slowly with all of my treatment. I arrived on her doorstep so ill that I was unable to comprehend a good deal of what she shared with me, but luckily, for that meeting, I wasn't alone. Anyway, I'm keenly sensitive to most medications, have inordinately strong reactions to both those and even supplements. Anything that's not natural, is apt to cause problems for me, and even natural remedies are a challenge for me. I spend a lot or most of my time feeling what I can only describe as toxic. Toxic from head to toe, through and through. I've never tolerated antibiotics in the dosages that are generally given in the treatment of Lyme and its coinfections. When I departed this doctor's care for another LLMD, she sent me a brief note stating basically the same thing about taking things extremely slowly and wished me luck in my care.

I need to expand my Lyme library, and have been looking at a couple of books that might be of some value to me. It's time to consider a new path in the treatment of my Lyme. As I browsed books today on Amazon, I found an interesting bit of information concerning treatment of Lyme and coinfections. It concerns the use of doxycyline and one physician's viewpoint (amongst a compilation of valuable viewpoints by other Lyme practitioners), gathered from his Lyme practice. This concerned the complications that may arise from the use of doxycycline to treat Lyme. Interestingly, women were found to be more prone to these complications than men, but anyone whose body is overwhelmed with a number of coinfections tends to have similar difficulties in handling doxycyline. The excerpt below, sounds exactly like me. I wonder if any others will see themselves in this...

From the book, Insights Into Lyme Disease Treatment: 14 Lyme Literate Health Care Practitioners Share Their Healing Strategies. This quote from, Steven Harris, M.D.

"It can also be diffcult to treat patients if they have a lot of co-infections, such as Bartonella, Mycoplasma, Babesia and Ehrlichia, or if they are quite ill with predominant symptoms of one or two of these co-infections. Such patients tend to get very strong reactions to treatment, which means that I can't hit their infections as directly as I would like, as they will get too sick. Doxycycline, in particular, creates this type of scenario, particularly in women. So while it may be an effective medication, I don't like to use it in patients that have multiple, or severe co-infections. Many practitioners like to start with doxycyline because it's cheap and metabolized mostly in the colon (instead of the liver and kidneys), which means it's fairly easy on the organs. It also has great activity against Borrelia, Anaplasma, and Ehrlichia and is somewhat effective for treating Babesia, Barotnella, and Mycoplasma. But, I find that people just "tank" if they take doxycycline when they have a lot of co-infections."

Traditional Lyme treatment isn't successful for everybody. Some end up seeking alternative therapies  and finding success there. I think that I'm beginning to fall into the "other" category.