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Babesia treatments ?

duncan

Senior Member
Messages
2,240
@heapsreal, are you antibody positive or did they find it in the smear? Are you babesia symptomatic or are your efforts pre-emptive?

I am consistently antibody positive, but the one time I had the smear they didn't find babesia. I fear they were out on a cigarette break when my slide came up. lol

Regardless, I have had some good people tell me to let sleeping dogs lie, unless symptoms are in my face. But I keep second-guessing that approach. Maybe when that dog wakes up I will be too sick to mount a good immune response.
 

IreneF

Senior Member
Messages
1,552
Location
San Francisco
Being antibody positive just means you've been exposed to something. It doesn't mean you still have it.

"Several methods are available to manage and treat babesiosis in animals. In many cases, patients spontaneously recover, having only experienced mild symptoms undiagnosed as the disease. This occurrence is almost always seen in B. microtiinfections, which are generally more common in the United States. For B. divergens and more severe B. microti infections, the standard treatment historically for symptomatic individuals was oral or intravenous clindamycin with oral quinine.[4] With the results of research completed in 2000, however, treatment regimens have been increasingly leaning towards oral atovaquone with oral azithromycin. The latter medications are preferred, as they are equally effective in all but the most severe cases and exhibit fewer associated adverse reactions.[21] In severe cases, blood exchange transfusions have been performed to lower the parasitic load in the individual.[5] Other rudimentary treatment measures include addressing and correcting abnormal clinical signals."
--Wikipedia
I can't tell if this applies only to animals.

I'm with the let-sleeping-dogs-lie folks. Why subject yourself to the risks of treatment if it's not necessary?
 

Lou

Senior Member
Messages
582
Location
southeast US
@heapsreal, are you antibody positive or did they find it in the smear? Are you babesia symptomatic or are your efforts pre-emptive?

I am consistently antibody positive, but the one time I had the smear they didn't find babesia. I fear they were out on a cigarette break when my slide came up. lol

Regardless, I have had some good people tell me to let sleeping dogs lie, unless symptoms are in my face. But I keep second-guessing that approach. Maybe when that dog wakes up I will be too sick to mount a good immune response.


Count yourself lucky. Wish my dog would sleep, since 2012 he's not so much as taken a nap. A small pool probably wouldn't hold the sweat he's wrung from me.

Yeah, sounds like your immune system fought it off, good for you.
 

duncan

Senior Member
Messages
2,240
Yes, @IreneF, but the kicker here is that we are talking about babesia - and that usual just-means-you're-been-exposed observation takes on a slightly different overtone. Our bodies just don't resolve that as easily as other diseases.

I agree, though. I hate doing meds anyway. It's just, are people like me simply forestalling a fight that we may be less equipped to deal with years or even months down the road?

But, yeah, I lean toward letting that dog sleep uninterrupted, too.

@Lou, I'm sorry it has hit you. Stories like yours are what concern me. Because it may be just a case of my immune system has held it at bay so far.
 

Lou

Senior Member
Messages
582
Location
southeast US
@duncan

The good thing is you'll know what's going on.

My problem was believing CDC and ruling out babesia because Lyme was supposedly unheard of in area where I live. Spent over a year chasing red herrings, ie West Nile Fever and many other more common maladies with similar symptoms. By then, it had taken deep root.
 

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
@heapsreal, are you antibody positive or did they find it in the smear? Are you babesia symptomatic or are your efforts pre-emptive?

I am consistently antibody positive, but the one time I had the smear they didn't find babesia. I fear they were out on a cigarette break when my slide came up. lol

Regardless, I have had some good people tell me to let sleeping dogs lie, unless symptoms are in my face. But I keep second-guessing that approach. Maybe when that dog wakes up I will be too sick to mount a good immune response.

Im guessing by symptoms as many are similar to sinusitis plus get the nights sweats etc frontal headaches. I respond well to bactrim which ive heard is also used in babesia. But augmentin also helps, so not really sure.

Horowitz has a questionaire for lyme which i scored high on. Testing lyme is expensive from australia plus i cant last long enough off abx to get accurate testing or to keep holding down my job.

Im searching other babesia treatments which i will try which might help with diagnosing babesia. Its not 100% but if it helps, thats what matters?

Mepron i have seen people use but it seems quite expensive . Bactrim/roxithromycin seem to work well together.
 

Dufresne

almost there...
Messages
1,039
Location
Laurentians, Quebec
@heapsreal,

I've heard it's not easy to get drugs into Australia without a doctor's prescription.

If this isn't a problem there are a couple cheap protocols you might look into. Chloroquine and primaquine is one, and quinine and azithromycin is the other. Normally quinine is coupled with clinddamycin but the latter is ridiculously expensive taken at the recommended dose. There's actually a study supporting the use of quinine and azithromycin in subjects who failed quinine/clindamycin therapy.

Biaxin is a good babs med, as is doxycycline. But you really have to employ combination therapy with a babesia infection. Doxy is a good one to throw in with a babs protocol because it also hits so many other TBI's. I'm currently taking chloroquine, primaquine, and doxy and I'm surprised at how it's changed up my borrelia treatment, which was stagnant. I got the idea from Horowitz who uses hydroxychloroquine in combination with other intracellular antibiotics for this form of the infection. And, of course, hydroxychloroquine is the main metabolite of chloroquine.

Some of the herbs that have helped me are: wormwood, cryptolepis, and sida acuta.
 
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