A friend of a friend asked me about what treatment did I use for for Babesia because his Doctor gave him one week of Mepron and refuses to treat him longer; the friend of my friend thinks one week of treatment is not enough and is searching to get other possible treatments. This is my answer:
“I guess E. told you to contact me because we have spoken before about ways to treat the parasites. As you might know Babesia is a big parasite that travels inside the red blood cells, imagine that, a bug living out of our life resource, so of course the anemia is huge and the symptoms are many. I found Babesia to be worse than malaria because the parasites of the malaria go inside the red blood cell but one at a time, the Babesia seems to be a gringo malaria smarter and stronger because two and sometimes three bugs go inside each red blood cell; "Babesia bigemina"? Means two! This is not to scare you but to show why it is indeed vital to treat it and as long as it is needed.
I am Hispanic, so I always heard about treating parasites in my home country, and then I traveled and lived in an area that was endemic of malaria, so this topic is not new to me, what surprises me is to find it here in the US where in theory there are "no parasites" in the US, and of course no infections of this type like in South America or Africa.
So in my case living in Florida, after many Doctors and tons of not knowing what was wrong with me and after lots of suffering and finally treating with antibiotics for long time and not recovering I called my former family physician in Colombia and he remembered me and helped me by phone and all I am going to tell you and what I write in my blog is based on his teaching and my researching meaning, I am not an expert, nor the wise one here, just a friend willing to share and help if I can; at least I try.
The one thing about your case that calls my attention and I have seen here a lot is, why Drs do not re-test? Your Doc treated you, thank you, but he won't re-test to see if his treatment worked? Who he thinks he is? God? Or his treatment is the ultimate cure? Really?
To the point - finally sorry -
I have been taking Ivermectin - this is an anthelmintic, meaning anti-parasitic. There are many medicines of this type, Flagyl, Tindamax and even herbs and garlic are part of the group (see in the bottom from Wikipedia the definition and types of anthelmintics). The difference with Ivermectin is that this drug started as a veterinarian medicine - and if you permit me my opinion, medicines made for animals are made to cure them; the ones for us are made to keep us going to the Dr and taking more medicines to fill their pockets.
Seriously, it was a veterinary medicine and then used in humans and after twenty years or more using it in South America and in Africa the US is starting to use it. In most parts it is used as antiparasitic and in Africa not only as anti-malarial but also to treat "filarial infections" such as "Onchoneriasis" or also called "River blindness". As long as I've heard Mr. Burgdorferi said the ticks transmit a bacterium called Borrelia and also some protozoans of the filarial type; of course the medical community doesn't want to hear this and are consciously ignoring the filarial infection condemning the patients to not be cured!
For all this the Ivermectin seems to be the medicine to treat us, both filarial infections and Babesia. But that is not all. My Dr told me that Ivermectin was found to not hurt the Central Nervous system as many of the anthelmintics do; plus, he didn't want me to take regular antimalarials because those act by immune suppression and me, we, Lymies have multiple infections bacterial and parasitic that could be free of growing if there is immune suppression. So again my Dr recommended me to take Ivermectin to begin with. He said that if I needed to combine it, or to altern it from time time time I could take Alinia was his second drug of choice, again because it seems to not hurt the Central Nervous system as much. In my country Albendazole is very used to treat malaria and parasites, but he preferred me to not take it if I could have Ivermectin instead or Alinia -Nitaxozanida. The "Albenda" as many call it her in the US was found to hurt the CNS to the point children were showing symptoms similar to Parkinson's. But a short treatment is good, not the long one intended for me.
So how to take the Ivermectin? after seeing my labs my Dr said I had so many infections running at the same time and so many of them being parasitic, I must start very low in the treatment and do it for long time. He said the strong treatments are better for the acute infections and when the patient is not that invaded yet. By "invaded" I mean the parasites can lay from 250 to 250,000 eggs even per day, week or month, so the more they reproduce and travel around the body the sicker we are - invaded I mean! My Dr said the toxins the parasite release are the ones that make us sicker even more than having he parasite eating us alive, these toxins are released in bigger amounts when the bugs die (their poop in clear words); also the medicine itself to be able to kill parasites is a big toxin (now we are talking about two time toxicity when killing parasites), and the last third big toxin load we get is the bodies of the dead parasites, imagine these creatures dead and our body trying to get rid of them. We need good bacteria to come eat these dead bodies –debris-, and we need to eat papaya and good digestive enzymes to help the belly and digestive process and then we need to detox with treatments like enemas and colonics to kick them out. Also Castor oil and Milk of magnesia help a lot!
Yes my first treatment was truly strong, I thought I was stronger than those bugs and I could kill them before they could kill me so i took a higher dose.. Of course I was wrong, lol, got so sick that I had to call my Doc and he almost yell at me: cut the dose in half and keep it long time, 3 to six months before considering to raise it to your regular dose; and that I did. I've been taking it once a week long time!
Which is the dose? the Ivermectin sold in SA is a little bottle like tear drops and the dose is one drop per one kilogram ONCE A WEEK in my case due to my overload; meaning it is a dose according to each one's weight and condition, and it is not given daily due to the medicine stays in the body four days. So if I was supposed to take 50 drops I started with 25 and just around the first year I was taking the dose for me. I kept my antibiotics until I was able to not take them anymore, and I do probiotics and eat papaya every day and try to take some care eating without sugar nor carbs.
After all my meds from my home country were finished I looked for options here in the US. I found the Ivermectin here is called "Stromectol" comes in pills, boxes of 3 or 6 pills and it is very expensive. I guess these pills must be of a lesser concentration than my liquid human version because I found some Drs here, well Dr K who comes from outside of the US, gives 12 mgs a day and sometimes he gives 12 mgs three times a day for two weeks and to some patients he has given them this "megadose" every day for one month? I called my Dr and asked for his opinion. He was the one that concluded that probably the pills were less concentrated and could be given in such amounts. The dose I've taken is barely 3 mgs once a week, and I have not had any bad reaction and I can talk about recovering. So Stromectol is one human version in pills. Ivermectina gotas the human in drops bottles of 6 ml. The other option is Ivomec, injectable ( for cows) but people in the rural areas of my country swallow it in small doses for the malaria. I learn in the US this is considered a illegal idea so, just for information purposes as where it is taken and how much.
(Due to I have to buy everything out of pocket and help myself with God's help, I looked for more alternatives and asked my Dr about the veterinary versions of Ivermectin. -My husband's relatives told me that the people living in the endemic areas injected themselves with "Ivomec" the Ivermectin made for cattle; they used one cm for 50 KILOS of weight. - Well, my Dr said this medicine is as good as the human one and could be taken orally too. He said he preferred the oral method to be able to control the dose according to the weight, and better absorption of it. I found the Ivomec very cheap in the internet but I think I don't have four stomachs as the cows do, so I looked into horse medicine because we all know these animals are the most expensive and the medicine for them is the very best. I found many versions of horse Ivermectin for just $4.99 and it called my attention one product called "Zimectrin Gold" because it contains Ivermectin and also "Praziquantel" another anthelmintic used for bigger bugs including treating for flukes which I suspect I have and many Lymies have found to have too. I bought it for $13.99 a tube with higher concentration and with the amount for a horse of 1,250 pounds, meaning I found medicine for long term treatment at a price I could certainly afford. I called my Doc again and he told me to reduce the dose to the half of the horse dosing. So I take max the amount marked for 100 pounds if I weigh 200. One thing you must know, this medicine is the bitterest nasty of the planet. I put the little amount of paste in a spoon, and then I grab it with my finger and put it deep inside my throat and then swallow it with water and try to eat some peanut butter or anything to pass that taste. But listen, my Dr told me to have Ivermectin with the stomach empty, not meaning fasting but for example before going to sleep, two hours after my last meal. This I did once a week and after feeling so good I stopped all medicines for a month, then tried another one called Triventor because this one has "Triclabendazole" to treat the flukes and just took two doses in two days and have not had any treatment since this two months ago and I pray thanking God every day I feel better and recovering! Is this the cure? I don't know, cannot tell yet; plus my heart and my body are still very battered after six years of antibiotics and extreme illness so I still won't sing victory, but yes I am feeling well.)
I share my experience and all my thoughts in my blog hoping to bring some light to others - many- who could be as desperate as I was after being so sick and the sicker I was the more Drs dismissed me. I'm not saying take this medicines nor do as I did, just research and find out that Lyme Disease is also a parasitic infection and we will continue to be sick if Drs don't treat the parasites that came with the tick bite, I don't mean only the regular intestinal parasites but parasites in our blood inside our red blood cells, inside the white blood cells and inside our tissues, organs and everywhere!
Denying the parasitic infection that comes from a vector borne infection is the most cruel ignorance of the medical field in the US.
I pray for Dr J in Maryland who diagnosed me and for my Dr JQP who takes my phone calls. I have no words to thank my family for sending me so many medicines and to all who help me here; but my reason of doing all I do is to help my Lymie friends because there has to be light out of this tunnel and it looks like I found a piece of this puzzle I need to share, for free with no commercial obligations nor compromises. Yes take antibiotics as needed but to recover from Lyme Disease and Babesia you do need anthelmintics. My thinking.
May God guide me to say and do what is correct every day amen. May God guide you to do what you need to do to recover and heal. I pray for your recovery and hope to share this light with love and happiness, wooo hooo, to recovery we go!
Hugs and big hugs to my friend E!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Note:
EGCG
Would like to add a link to a great information my friend CH just sent me, it is a study made in Japan that shows that patients who received this medicine taken from the green tea "significantly (P<0.05) inhibited the growth of B. microti at doses of 5 and 10 mg/kg body weight, and the parasites completely cleared on day 14 and 16 post-inoculation in the 5 and 10 mg/kg treated groups, respectively. These findings highlight the potentiality of (-)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate as a chemotherapeutic drug for the treatment of babesiosis.
PMID: 20025823 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]"
Thank you all for sharing all these with me!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babesiosishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babesiosis
MARIA.
NOTE: LYME THE ROLLERCOASTER BLOG DOES NOT OFFER, DOESN'T GIVE, NOR INTENDS TO GIVE ANY MEDICAL ADVISE NOR MEDICAL RECOMMENDATIONS.
Maria LymeDisease Lyme is indeed very discouraging lol! Not just saying parasite free, I think it is not bacteria Borrelia free and this one going inside the white blood cells is the one allowing the proliferation of so many other organisms that other wise could be controlled. That is the basic problem; parasites "die easy" but they reproduce in thousands every month if not every day; if the bacteria is there feeding them, and them feeding the bacteria with their "left overs" the problem is much harder to eradicate.
E. F. Side effects of Ivermectin. Where do you get this stuff?
PD R: Maria I asked my mom about getting a doc in Ecuador to send me ivermectin; but supposively u can get horrible nuero side effects that can be irreversible ; any experience with this ???
D R Makes me happy I followed my gut instincts and said no to most all treatments. Artemisinin did wonders for me
PDR Ms Dana How did you dose Artemisinin ?? that's an herbal right ??
Maria LD Dear Dana sorry to tell you Artemisin as the other anti-malarials work in the immune system and suppress it, in fact, this is the reason why I am getting sicker dear G B; I started a couple of days ago a herbal medicine made from "Sacred medicine Sanctuary" that contains Artemisa Annnua, oh God, and the more I took it the more swollen I get... this is kind of funny, me writing to everyone to not take antimalrials and taking it and getting sicker by the minute. Yes, back to ivermectin tonight!
Maria LDSo just to clear this up, I am swollen not because I stopped the Ivermectin but because I started a treatment with Artemisa annua, precisely what I was posting to not do I was doing, oh yeah, live and learn; thank God I found out on time, I'm about to explode!! Where is my Ivermectin caramba lol!
Maria LD: E F and P D R by the contrary Ivermectin seems to be a helper with the neurological infection; it is an anthelmintic made to kill parasites and protozoans; Lyme is a bacteria Borrelia that goes intracellular, especially inside the white blood cells - parasitic?; - the Babesia is a parasite inside the red blood cells, in fact two parasites jump inside the red blood cells at the same time, double worse than the malaria; so, if we must not get anti-malarics because those work by immunesuppression, what to take? anti-parasitics, antifilarials andti-protozoans than won't hurt the immune system nor the Central Nervous system. I have taken Ivermectin for more than a year, small doses and it has been a blessing, by the contrary the Bells Palsy and the neurological symptoms are gone! (The Dr has the Bells Palsy registered in my record, but I don’t have it anymore nor even a small twist in my face!) God is big!
These are my opinions and my conversations with my friends!I hope they are of some help to others suffering not knowing what is going on! It is not a medical advice nor intends to replace any medical information.
NOTE: LYME THE ROLLERCOASTER BLOG DOES NOT OFFER, DOESN'T GIVES, NOR INTENDS TO GIVE ANY MEDICAL ADVISE NOR MEDICAL RECOMMENDATIONS.