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Anyone else getting brainfog from every antibiotic?

Messages
54
i dont mind this thread being hijacked for hooha-talk :angel:

unfortunately my fatigue and asthma deteriorated badly last week when i first felt i was improving a bit. the reason was i tried again an antibiotic, which was a bad idea.

since years ago cephalosporins helped me a lot i tried suprax now.

but only some hours after taking half of a pill i had to went straight to bed. cant leave the house since then, breathing is much harder again, insomnia is in and my arms are so heavy i can barely use them, a symptom which had gotten so much better when experimenting with amoxicillin. maybe i shouldnt touch abx anymore, and if, only amoxicillin.

i also started to take high dose probiotics after the suprax-mistake. the first days d. id did experience lots of flatulence and my gut felt even more inflamed than before. today the gut feels okay. hopefully the probiotics havent contributed to deteriorated fatigue.
 

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
Bedman, I am really sorry to hear you are havig such a bad time again. :-(

How long have you persisted with these antibiotics? If it is a herx reaction it lasts up to 4 days and, having had one, I can tell you it feels seriously as if you are going to die. I was in bed for 4 days, seriously scared, an d almost paralysed. Definitely not something you can go through if you are alone in the house, you need care.

I don't know supraz, but is it a sulfa drug? Some types of antibiotics are sulphur base dand some people canont tolerate them.
Just an idea.

Sending you best wishes and I hope you start feeling better soon.
 

Sing

Senior Member
Messages
1,782
Location
New England
Bedman, thanks for your humor (and kindness)!

I am really sorry you are feeling blasted by the antibiotic. I had a bad reaction to antibiotics when a doctor thought I had chronic lyme. (It was perfectly ambiguous on testing, so this was just his clinical judgement.) The bad reaction went on for 3-4 months, so I decided to quit antibiotics for good. Once I did, I gradually regained the degree of health I had before. My interpretation was that if the bad reaction was a herx only, it would have started to subside before those 3-4 months. And also my improvement afterwards, which maintained itself, seemed a sign that I wasn't helped by those antibiotics. I really disliked how I had to stay out of the sun, when the outdoors is my saving experience, and how they stimulated my appetite so much I gained weight and ate unhealthy foods. I could see why the farmers use antibiotics not only to stop infections in their penned animals, but to make them hungry and gain a lot of weight for market. I just made a decision that I am not going to take them--for better or worse!
 

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
Hi Sing,
I definitely think you did the right thing stopping antibiotics.
My Lyme doc is most emphatic that the longest a herx can possibly last is 4 days, if it goes on longer it is a toxic drug reaction.

Bedman,
I hope you're feeling a bit better now??
 

Sing

Senior Member
Messages
1,782
Location
New England
Athene,

That really reassures me! My Lyme doctor, when pressed by me, said that there is no time limit for a herx reaction. He also said none of the tests were definitive, the diagnosis is still a clinical one. And the only way to tell if someone really has long term Lyme is if they get better with antibiotics. But since if you don't get better, and this can be regarded as a herx of indefinable limits--which was my situation--the situation makes no sense. The whole proposition seemed fallacious in terms of logic. Though for me to come to this conclusion, having serious brain fog, vs that doctor who had a mind like a steel trap, also seemed contradictory. Yet I just made the executive decision, as the head of my own health care team, to stop the treatment! He believed I would get worse and come crawling back, but I got better after stopping antibiotics.

I always thought I had ME/CFS and continue to. I don't think a load of antibiotics works well for us, and I haven't learned otherwise--except for particular infections, have you?

Sing
 

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
Athene,

I don't think a load of antibiotics works well for us, and I haven't learned otherwise--except for particular infections, have you?

Sing


I am still trying to decide about that. I got a strong positive Lyme result, and so many of my symptoms have gone away since I've been on antibiotics.
I was going blind, had headache all the time, pains in my muscles all the time, hideous suffocation-type attacks, far too many symptoms to list which have all gone now. I do think it has been worth for me, and also I haven't had any negative reactions at all apart from that 4 day herx.
I know I still have Lyme and I don't know how much longer I will want to keep on antibiotics, but so far it has been all positive for me so I'll keep going for now.
My hideous thrush problem existed for years before this antibiotic regime so that won't play a role in my decision at all.

I definitely think antibiotics don't get you all the way, they only resolve part of the whole situation.
I also think they are not the solution for everyone - some people who most definitely have Lyme do not get better an antibiotics and are better off using just herbs or even just nutrients.
My Lyme doc says ten to thirty percent of his patients go in this category. The leeway here is that, for ten percent it becomes rapidly obvious, for the other 20 percent it is a matter of opinion and he tells the patient they have to decide. Some people are willing to keep on antibiotics for years, but some just get fed up and the likelihood of being fully cured looks more and more remote, so they prefer to switch to gentle palliative treatments that tackle symptoms.
 

Sing

Senior Member
Messages
1,782
Location
New England
Sounds like you have a good doctor, Athene, and a clear view of your situation. I'm glad you got better from a lot of those symptoms, which sounded awful to go through!
 
Messages
54
Thanks for your ideas and kindness.

Suprax is also called cefixim. But I dont think any longer my reaction to it had much to do with this special subtance.

I have started a new thread because in the meantime i discovered its not nesessarily only antibiotics that makes my symptoms worse. Its also most other meds, even "natural" ones like iron and st johns wort. both of them caused absolutely the same symptoms (fatigue, breathing problems, hot flashes, brain fog, heavy arms) as the antibiotics. how is that possible?

here is the thread:

http://forums.phoenixrising.me/show...very-medicine-worsens-my-symptoms-immediately!
 

Lala

Senior Member
Messages
331
Location
EU
For my hooha problems with trush and some other things when on antibiotics two products works wonder. The first one was diatomaceous earth and the second was Heal candida from Amoils. Diatomaceous earth should be only food grade and can be mixed into the water or food and Heal candida from Amoils should be put on a tampon (few drops). The effect is very quick.
 

Lala

Senior Member
Messages
331
Location
EU
Regarding long term antibiotics and sickness, there are also other reasons why one can be sick and it is not toxic effect of antibiotic. If we have chlamydia pneumoniae infection, we also suffer from secondary porphyria. Porphyrins are accumulated in the cells and are released intermittently during and also after therapy is finished. This can make us sick without apparent immediate cause. Another reason can be natural process of cells' apoptosis. When we kill pathogens inside cells, some of our cells die immediately with those pathogens and we are sick, some die later and we are sick later, not immediately after the dose of atb. Further reason is that when loads of pathogens are killed, our immune system gets bussy and does not manage to clear everything at once along with keeping some other pathogens (usually viruses or candida) in check. So these viruses and candidas reactivate and are making us more sick for some period of time (usually longer than 4 days). There are yet further factors in the game like releasing heavy metals and next...nothing is simple.
 

maryb

iherb code TAK122
Messages
3,602
Location
UK
For those of you with hooha problems would this help?

Cervagyn (Probiotic Vaginal Cream) 50g
 
Messages
54
If we have chlamydia pneumoniae infection, we also suffer from secondary porphyria.

Good idea. I will ask my MD to check it. But on the other hand i dont have other typical symptoms of porphyria like abdominal pain, vomiting, neither do I have the photosensitivity cutaneous porphyria causes.

Another reason can be natural process of cells' apoptosis.

Also a very good explanation. But then how long would the worsening last in this case? Sometimes it didnt go away at all.

Four days after taking St. Irons Wort I still feel like crap, more pain and fatigue than in months. So strange.
 

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
Lots of good procuct tips - thanks everyone. I'll have to see what I can obtain here in The Middle of Nowhere.

Lala, do you know any websites that give a good explanation of porphyrins or how they relate the chlamydia pneumoniae?
 

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
1. A healthy hooha has a natural Ph of 3.5, i.e. very acidic and probably the same acidity as the vineagar and water
2. This acidity is created by lactobacillus acidophilus, which the immune system maintains as the dominant resident there
3. immunodeficient women cannot maintain this balance, so the pH gets more alkaline and harmful bacteria and yeast grow there.
4. The acidophilus and other secretions in the vagina create hydrogen peroxide, which is what the vagina uses to disinfect itself.

A HEALTHY HOOHA! LOL. Thanks for the laugh Athene...I'm so deathlike and weak lately that it's easy to laugh at anything, but that cracked me up.

Seriously, you make a good point -- the large intestine should be acidic, the body does as much as possible to keep it that way, and probiotics (high dose) make a difference. The problem is finding the "right" strains, as we're all different.

I'm not sure, but I believe that other strains besides acidophilus also help acidify the colon.

???

d.
 

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
Hi Lala,

I posted the same question on another thread, but if you didn't see that, could you go into more detail about diatomaceous earth -- how you used it, what things you believe it helped you with (parasites?), and how often, how much...etc.

THANKS.
 

Lala

Senior Member
Messages
331
Location
EU
Hi Bedman, Denny and Athene,

sorry I did not see your new posts. I am still not very familiar how to use this site.
Danny, I wrote some description about me and DE in worms thread.

Regarding porphyria here is some extensive info. http://www.cpnhelp.org/secondaryporphyria

And I do not know, how long apoptosis can take, days, weeks, months? I really do not have idea. If we damage bacteria by bacteriostatics, it can repair itself to the some degree, so sometimes it takes few cycles till it is finally so damaged it cannot repair and then dies and only then our cell dies too.