Aggressive bartonella infection

by | Mar 22, 2013 | bartonella, Co-Infections, Columns, Healing Lyme | 10 comments

Dear Stephen,
You say that the bartonella protocol should be used for 30 days. If I still have bartonella symptoms after 30 days should I stop the protocol or continue longer?


Stephen’s response:
If you are feeling better, that is, if the protocol seems to be working, but the symptoms come back when you stop, then the protocol should be modified and continued. The point is to get rid of the blood cell infection. If it comes back then the dosage was probably not high enough.
Stephen

Author

  • Stephen Harrod Buhner

    Stephen Harrod Buhner was an Earth poet and an award-winning author of twenty-four books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, and herbal medicine including the acclaimed book Healing Lyme: Natural Healing & Prevention of Lyme Borreliosis & Its Co-infections.

    Stephen came from a long line of healers including Leroy Burney, Surgeon General of the United States under Eisenhower and Kennedy, and Elizabeth Lusterheide, a midwife and herbalist who worked in rural Indiana in the early nineteenth century. The greatest influence on his work, however, was his great-grandfather C.G. Harrod who primarily used botanical medicines, also in rural Indiana, when he began his work as a physician in 1911.

    Stephen’s work has appeared or been profiled in publications throughout North America and Europe including Common Boundary, Apotheosis, Shaman’s Drum, The New York Times, CNN, and Good Morning America. Stephen lectured yearly throughout the United States on herbal medicine, the sacredness of plants, the intelligence of Nature, and the states of mind necessary for successful habitation of Earth.

    He was a tireless advocate for the reincorporation of the exploratory artist, independent scholar, amateur naturalist, and citizen scientist in American society – especially as a counterweight to the influence of corporate science and technology.

    View all posts

This protocol was incredible. After only a few weeks most of my symptoms were gone. After six months all my symptoms were gone… it has given me my life back.

– Amazon review by Joseph

Please note:

Stephen Buhner is no longer living and this Q + A column on Planet Thrive is closed to new questions. It will be kept on our website so readers can access vital information in the archives, communicate with each other in the comments section, and find herbs, books + lyme adjuncts in our directory. If you want to read more of Stephen’s writings, please see his website at: stephenharrodbuhner.com.



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10 Comments

  1. Corinne Ogrodnik

    Dear Stephen,

    What herbs can you recommend for addressing cardiac impacts (i.e. irregular heart rhythm) from lyme?

    Thank you for being such a crucial resource for the lyme community!

    Best wishes,
    Corinne

  2. Fiona burnett

    Hi Stephen,
    I have read your book Healing Lyme and am keen to use herbal remedies. Do you supply to the UK please? I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme in 2011. Had IV treatment 4 weeks, oral anitbiotics for further 2 weeks. That was all treatment I got. Today suffer from severe joint pain, fuzzy head, and severe pain in soles of feet which I think is down to Bartonella but have never been tested for it. I am seeing a homeopathic practitioner who is giving me some remedies at present but she advised me to buy your book and follow the protocols. Can you have Bartonella and not Lyme? Could I be clear of Lyme but still have co-infection? I find it hard focusing and getting motivated although I know I’m not as bad as some folk. Did, for a while, lose sight in one eye and loss of leg mobility. Any advice on where I can buy the herbs would be much appreciated. How are you? Hope you’re doing ok.
    Cheers
    Fiona

  3. Tiffany Shank

    I took the Bartonella protocol herbs that I could (some I didn’t because I am still breastfeeding) and for the last two weeks my symptoms have become WAY worse than they were before I started the protocol. Should I do another 30 days and Up the dose?

  4. epiphany

    Dear Fiona –

    Look up EUROLYME forum. There you will find much of the info you seek.
    Meanwhile it is very common (perhaps the norm) to have a co-infection along with the borrelia. Wishing you well. I am unable to follow this forum with any regularity.

  5. Stanley

    You are suffering from herx, probable your herbs are working but the kill-off is not getting out of your system fast enough. You need to detox while using the herbs and afterwards. I suggest P&B shakes, 1 per day for 2 days then 2 a day for a month. Drink 8 glasses of purified water each day. Buy some Burber drops, take 4 per day as well. Eat lots of organic vegetable and fruit and wild rice , cut out all junk food.
    if you feel too bad, stop the Lyme protocol and concentrate on detox of colon, then kidneys and then liver. read Dr Shulze program. Follow that for 4 months, then come back to killing the Lyme. It all works together anyway. any Lyme symptoms are usually due to clogged colon, liver, kidneys etc.

  6. AL

    I was diagnosed (thank God) with a severe bartonella infection, along with Lyme disease and babesia. I was originally diagnosed with and treated for Lyme in 1996–with 200mg of doxycycline for 10 days. So, probably not enough to kill the infection, and so I most likely have had it all this time.

    My skin is marred all over, presumably from the bartonella.

    After 15 months on different oral antibiotic approaches, the pain that I’ve attributed to Lyme disease is mostly gone most of the time. I had severe nerve pain ranging from neuropathies to cluster headaches and on and on. However, the skin rashes, itching and severe pain, which occur where I have scarring from bartonella, has not improved at all. At the moment, it feels like it is getting worse.

    To be frank, I am freaked out. Over the past couple of weeks, my skin calmed down (it hurts 80 percent of the time) until the past few days. But some symptoms I haven’t had in a year are flaring up: pressure pain/tenderness in my fingers, the palms pf my hands and the soles of my feet; a stiff left knee and moderate pain in my knee, shin, thigh and hip on the left side when I walk; and tinnitus and blurry vision. Not to mention a region of my back that is stinging and, when I just looked, has new “claw mark” rashes.

    Presently, I am on a pulsed dose of rifampin and biaxin. I felt like rifampin helped a lot last year, but I went off of it and came back on, and I don’t think it is helping much now. I also have taken a huge number of herbs for the past year. I am about to re-order the Montana farmacy Buhner protocol for bartonella, which I took for several months before running out about a month ago; I didn’t reorder because it’s expensive, but it seemed to have worked to a degree.

    Any recommendations on what else I can do? I’m really discouraged. I have learned a lot about Lyme disease, and I’ve spoken with many people who were on antibiotics for many years. Yet, everything I read about bartonella says that it is typically very easy and quick to cure over a few weeks to a few months, and that definitely has not been my experience. After all this, I didn’t expect it to get worse.

  7. John

    Al how are you doing? Just read your post. Looking for answers myself. I have Lyme and I’ve had Bart rashes and air hunger as well as a ton of other symptoms. My Bart and bab test were negative for antibodies but my immune system is suppressed. I’m on minocyline and Rifampin and starting mepron as well today. I will let you know how it goes. I had a decent night sleep last night and felt reload. Since I’ve been on Rifampin I’ve been coughing up crap. Think body is purging toxins This is week 3 or 4 and I think I am just now seeing improvement as I went all day without major pain in my sides until right now. Armpits starting to hurt and burning back pain. Keep in touch. [email protected]

  8. Jessie

    Dear Stephen, I have nearly identical symptoms to Al. I have taken your protocol for Bart at the full dose for a month now. It took me about a month to work up to the full dose, as my body wasn’t able to handle it at first. At the full dose, I began feeling a lot better, but now, during the last week, my symptoms have increased quite a lot. Bladder discomfort, extremely itchy skin, neurological pain and discomfort pretty much everywhere, frontal headaches. Do you recommend that I continue with your Bartonella protocol and perhaps up the dosage, and if so, by how much? Are any of these plant extracts harmful over a long period of time? I do not know of one doctor who is knowledgeable about Bart. You are by far the most knowledgeable. I have tried antibiotics in the past, but after a month of so, my gut cannot tolerate them, and I become very ill.

    I also had Babesia about six months ago, and treated it with Cryptolepis.

    Assuming I may still have some Babesia, along with the Bartonella, what do you recommend I do to address these problems? I should mention that I have not been able to take as much Cordyceps as you recommend, but have now ordered from a new supplier who sells a 50:1 concentration. Do you think adding the Cordyceps at the higher dose may help me? Any other recommendations. The suffering is pretty severe, and I am very discouraged.

  9. healing lyme admin

    Hi Jessie,
    The Q & A is no longer open to new questions. Please browse/search the archives to see how Stephen answered similar questions in the past or try writing to him directly at [email protected]. I am not sure if he is still taking emails but you can try. You can also hire his partner Julie McIntyre as an herbal consultant. See https://buhnerhealinglyme.com/contact/ for info. Best, Julie

  10. jessie

    Thank you, Julie.

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