New allergies?
I've discovered in the last three weeks that I am allergic to tomatoes. I may or may not have been mildly allergic to them before I started taking cipro/doxyi/NACi, but now I am very allergic to them. After eating tomates I have diarrhea, fatigue, more joint pain, more back pain, more arrhytmias, and a plugged-up nose.
After I began to suspect I was allergic, I went through two abstinence/challenge cycles to confirm it. Many of the disorders I was attributing to a Herxheimer reaction are fading away now after a week without tomatoes. Has anyone else noticed new allergies on the anti-CPM protocolsi? Russ http://potbellysyndrome.com
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Stratton/Wheldon protocol 02/2006 - 10/11 for CFSi and many problems 30 years
Hi Lala. I've been on cipro since the beginning of the year, and I started taking doxyi three weeks later. I've had two "pulses" of flagyli, and I took NACi for a while, too. I think I recognize HerxHeimer symptoms, and my tomato allergy/reaction greatly exacerbated those symptoms. I have no explanation; I was just wondering if anyone else had noticed an increased sensitivity to food. Russ
Russ,
Here is sort of a half baked and probably incorrect idea. Tomatoes (and lots of other vegetables) contain quercetin. Quercetin is an efflux pump inhibitor which means that it could impede pumps in your cells and Cpni which might otherwise pump out antibioticsi. This action lowers the concentration of antibitotics inside of cells and and away from the pathogen which reduces their effectiveness. Efflux pumps are the primary mechanism that pathogens use to thwart drugs that target them and Cpn has them. So conceivably eating some vegetables might increase the effectiveness of the antibiotics and cause the sypmtoms your are experiencing.
I think a much more likely explanation is that vegetables require more energy and take longer to convert to useable energy for your body and as such do not provide as quick a boost like carbs and sugars. So you eat some vegetables and your body expends energy breaking them down and does not get a quick boost of energy to compensate. Your cells are already energy depleted because Cpn is an energy parasite and uses its host cell's ATP. As a result you have shortage of ATP when the normal process of making hemei occurs and end up with a heme precursor (porphyrin) left over. And porphyrins cause the exact symptoms you describe.
Or... you may have just eaten a bad tomato
- Paul
Paul, what an excellent explanation. I did used to be rather hypoglycaemic, especially noticeable when out walking. If I didn't have something like dried apricots with me and I suddenly felt hungry, I would rapidly go limp and useless. When David first experienced this he couldn't believe it. It started happening when I was in my teens and got much worse when I developed what was then very benign MSi a few years later. The week before my massive relapse which I somewhat recovered from but after which my disease turned progressive, I felt hungry all the time. I was literally eating all the time but still feeling hungry. I couldn't concentrate and had a general sense of unease. I walked 3/4 of a mile into town to go to the main post office but couldn't get back. The day after I couldn't walk across the dining room without holding on to the mantelpiece then hurling myself across.
Now, after having got rid of most of the CPni, I eat much less because I'm not so hungry......Sarah
Hi Sarah,
That is exactly right. Since Cpni is stealing energy from cells your body is always deficient and wanting more. This is probably why people who are well conditioned require less calories and why people who eat less need less calories... That is you eat less, starve and shut down some Cpn, and then need to eat less because your are not supporting as many Cpn organisms. (Obviously excercise is the best way to shut down Cpn via starvation but alas you are starving your cells too... so there is no free lunch on excercise or ABXi.)
On an interesting side note, it has been shown that mice that are caloric intake limited live longer than those that are not. There is a contest called the Methuselah Mouse Prize that is an attempt to increase longevity (eventually) in humans by finding techniques to increase longevity in mice. The prize is still open but most of the successes to date have revolved around limiting caloric intake. If I had 5 years to waste on this, I would enter mice treated by ABXi ;)
Also this explains why Cpn infection is often followed by weight gain or weight loss. If you get a Cpn infection and eat the same diet as normal because of habit, you lose weight. If you get a Cpn infection and give into hunger cravings (which are very real) you gain weight. Anyway this is getting off topic quite a bit and probably deserves its own thread if someone feels like starting one.
- Paul
Paintings (and painter) on the floor, jars of urine on the windowsills, and geriatric mice running over it all. Now there's a picture of an active, happy household in my book.
Ron
On Stratton protocol for CFSi starting 01/06 (NE Ohio, USA).
Ron
On CAPi for CFSi starting 01/06 (NE Ohio, USA)
Began rifampin trial 1/14/09
Currently: on intermittent
Sarah, sorry to choke you -- I don't mind mice, so I thought it might be amusing. Oh, well.
As far as hypoglycemia -- I stayed on the "Carbohydrate Addict's Diet" for ten years -- up until I started my protocol, in fact. My poor kids and wife put up with a long, long period (years)before the diet where "Make sure Dad doesn't get hungry." was far too much of their life. Eating carbohydrates for only one hour of the day, and lots of veggies at all times, really helped.
Now I am on the protocol, and I am supposed to get most of my cals from carbs! I eat carbs 3 meals a day, and have for the last month. No sugar, but lots of whole wheat, oatmeal, etc. Dianna and I have been worried about the hypoglycemia returning, but yesterday she was having back surgery (which looks successful, yay!), and I ate nothing at all from 11 in the morning until 8 at night when I brought her home. I was hungry, but I didn't get at all "bonked" or "limp and useless." In fact, I've lost a few pounds over the last month. Dianna can't believe how little I'm eating.
So, one possible explanation, since my current diet should have brought my hypoglycemia and it has not:
If those are true, then my C.Pn. goes clear back to my undergrad days in the '70s -- I need to rethink a lot of things, if that's true.
Ron
On Stratton protocol for CFSi starting 01/06 (NE Ohio, USA).
Ron
On CAPi for CFSi starting 01/06 (NE Ohio, USA)
Began rifampin trial 1/14/09
Currently: on intermittent
Paul proposed two explanations for my apparent tomato "allergy." The first, and the one that really interests me, is that tomatoes have quercetin. The quercetin enhances antibiotic action and increases the herxheimer effect.
I should be able to test this theory by eating onions--which have a lot of quercetin--or by taking quercetin supplementsi. If the quercetin theory is right, then a lot of people must have experienced similar heightened sensitivities to tomatoes, onions, broccoli, and other high-quercetin foods. The effects of my tomato challenges were not subtle--they were in the same range as my reactions to flagyli.
Paul's second theory was that maybe the tomatoes didn't provide enough energy, eventually leading to porphyriai symptoms. That seems less likely to me, and it would be very difficult to test for it, but I will keep it in mind. My apparent "allergy" could even be a mix of both things. Thanks Paul--I'll let you know how my onion challenge turns out. Russ http://www.potbellysyndrome.com
Hi Russ,
I guess this serves me right for "showing off" and presenting two ideas when I am almost certain it is the second idea. The onion test will only prove that it is either the first or second idea;) So if you really want to test this (and I think that test might be useful for others here on the board), get some querciten supplementsi from the heath food store. If the change is dramatic then this might be very relevant for others.
(Oops, did not read the whole message where you metioned querciten supplementsi...)
- Paul
Man you guys are cool! What fun to have this level of thought going on here. thanks for doing this
marie
Good, Sarah, that's what I was going for.
BTW, if you do start a thread on blood sugar/hypoglycemia/weight changes here's a kind of interesting abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&lis...
This 2000 paper concludes that people with hyperglycemia are more susceptible to C. Pn. taking up residence in arterial plaques. I'm not sure how they came to that conclusion -- but I only have the abstract.
Ron
On Stratton protocol for CFSi starting 01/06 (NE Ohio, USA).
Ron
On CAPi for CFSi starting 01/06 (NE Ohio, USA)
Began rifampin trial 1/14/09
Currently: on intermittent
Ron, I will look for a link. I have read that the cells which sustain the most damage in diabetes such as in the kidneys and arteries[think poor circulation] become that way because of a reduced ability to rid themselves of excess sugar. Infection further throws that out of whack.
Very interesting! There has been some diabetes on both sides of my family. I'll definately do much more research on this.
KK2 :)
Wheldon Protocol for rrmsi since Oct '05. Added LDN 4.5mg qhs Oct '07. All supp's. Positive IGGi's for Lyme Disease,Babesia, & Erlichiosis Sept. 2008. Currently: Mepron 750mg bid and Azithromycin 250mg qdi for Babesia.