Herx or doxycycline reaction

Infections
1

Hi,

I’m kind of new to all if this. I was diagnosed with lupus and secondary fibromyalgia. I’m on plaquenil ever since but have not seen much improvement. There are good days and bad days but it’s hard for me to live a normal life.

I had to quit my job about a year ago when my symptoms started suddenly.

Right after getting lupus diagnosis, I got tested for lyme by MDLabatories? and it came back positive. Igm positive but Igg negative. This test was done by my Naturopath and none of my medical doctors thought that I had lyme disease (said it was a false positive). 

I’ve never seen a tick in my life if I had a exposure it should be at least 10 years ago. I’m 30 yo and lived in a city my entire life except for camping trip near rockies around 15 yo. 

I continued with my lupus and fibro treatment for about 8 months - I improved a little - being painfully bed ridden to having some good days with few hours of activity. 

So I met with my naturopath again to try antibiotics - doxycyclin 100mg two times a day plus plaquenil which I was already taking. Few hours after first dose my nerve pain intensified so much. 

My feet were burning, buzzing and tingling. It subsided within few hours but did not disappear completely. 

I thouht it was herx reaction at first but this happens every time I take a pill. On the second day, my old symptoms that were long gone came back. Mostly nerve pains, tingling, pins& needles and itching. 

I’m scared to take the next pill. I’ve read a lot about herx reaction and it seems like they are usually delayed reaction (48 hrs after new treatment). Mine is couple hours after taking doxycycline and happens everytime.. 

If it’s a herx reaction I should suck it up and endure the pain (it’s the worst pain..) but I’m worried that it might some type of immune reaction. 

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thank you in advance. 

2

I read only today that the International Lyme and Associated Disease Society Guidelines recommends dosing Doxycycline at a minimum of 300 mg per day. They say that doses below that are

Link: http://www.ilads.org/lyme/B_guidelines_12_17_08.pdf

Scroll through the index to Antibiotics. Guidelines say too low a dose is "bacteriostatic" which is defined as:

"Capable of inhibiting the growth or reproduction of bacteria. Different from bactericidal(capable of killing bacteria outright)."

That does not sound like it would cause your symptoms but there are so many things that can cross react and each is an individual so I would call my doctor plus search online, using different combinations of the question and symptoms.

You have probably resolved it by now but I wanted to answer and give you support because it sounds like you are very ill at times and that can be lonely. I know because I am in that situation also. I hope your issues resolve but I would not count out Lyme disease. There has been at least one recent study showing evidence of mosquitos with Lyme spirochetes (although the out-of-date CDC denies this without any studies whatsoever to back up their information) and who knows what will be discovered in the future as technology advances. I hope you and all of us feel better someday.

Since your naturopath thinks you have Lyme then can you ask about the ILADS info?

I am new to all this just as you are and answered only  to give the little bit of info that I have

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Hello Kawhi if your symptoms are caused by a virus antibiotics will be of no use in fact they will feed the virus making it stronger go back to basic's only eat fresh fruit &veg for 1week this will detox your body and give it chance to heal its self