The Antibiotic-Resistant Champion
Dr. Kyle Warren
Meghan Feir Walker
When you’re affected by serious tick-borne diseases like Bartonella, you need specific support. So how do you get over Bartonella? Treating all tick-borne illnesses as you would Lyme isn’t an effective method. Bartonella needs specific support to overcome its effects on the immune, cardiovascular, and nervous systems.
To learn what Bartonella is, how it differs from Lyme disease, common symptoms, and much more, click here to read our first article in this Bartonella series.
Key takeaways
- Bartonella can greatly affect your life, even if it usually isn’t life-threatening.
- In my practice, I’ve found herbals and nutraceuticals to be much more effective than antibiotics at helping patients overcome Bartonella and regain their health.
- Diet alone, while helpful at minimizing inflammation, won’t defeat a Bartonella infection.
- While many Bartonella patients are too sick to exercise at all, light activities and using a sauna may help others feel a bit better as they’re on their Bartonella protocol.
- Having multiple infections can make healing time slower than for those who are just fighting one infection.
- If you’re suffering from mysterious symptoms and haven’t found any answers, testing for tick-borne diseases with more thorough, accurate testing may be helpful.
Is Bartonella serious?
Much of the time, only virulent, aggressive, deadly diseases get called “serious.” However, for most people who don’t have severe immune deficiencies, like HIV or AIDS, Bartonella won’t take your life. We don’t often see it like the Bartonella outbreaks in WWI with trench fever, but that doesn’t mean it can’t ruin your life and cause severe complications.
So is Bartonella serious? Absolutely. It may not kill you, but it greatly affects your life and inhibits you from living the healthy, joyful life you want to lead. Bartonella is often underestimated. It can create significant long-term health burdens if not addressed. The bacteria’s ability to persist inside blood vessels means it can subtly affect the nervous system, immune system, and vascular system all at once.
One of the problems with Lyme and Bartonella is that while they aren’t highly deadly, they can disable you and ruin your life. Unfortunately, you don't get as much medical funding and research for diseases that aren’t usually life-threatening, even though they're impacting the quality of so many Americans’ lives.
What supports the body with Bartonella?
Antibiotics vs. herbals for Bartonella
Unlike conventional “one bug, one drug” models, in our office, we focus on supporting your entire body, particularly your immune and cardiovascular systems, before and as we attack the bacteria.
Just like Lyme, once Bartonella has entered a chronic state, doxycycline isn’t effective at eradicating the infection.
While many Lyme doctors choose to treat Bartonella with multiple, long-term antibiotics and only focus on attacking the bacteria, I haven’t found that to be any more effective than going the herbal and nutraceutical route. In fact, when I get patients who have been on 3+ antibiotics for a year or two, the most common infection I find they still have despite that is Bartonella.
Many Lyme doctors consider Bartonella to be the most antibiotic-resistant of the tick-borne infections. The herbal route is also much easier on patients and their bodies while still being extremely effective. Going this route also makes it easier for patients to go through the protocol and still live their lives, as much as they were able to before starting any protocol.
Immune and cardiovascular support for Bartonella: Different than for Lyme
Since Bartonella also attacks and evades the immune system, we have to boost the immune system so it can join in on the fight once more. However, we need to take a different approach than we do with Lyme.
When looking at important immune markers, we’ve seen that Lyme suppresses the natural killer cells in your immune system. However, Bartonella focuses on harming the nitric oxide system and depresses your Th17 cells, a type of white blood cell necessary for fighting infections. VGF, a protein and neuropeptide precursor that plays a role in both the nervous and immune systems, may be up or down in Bartonella, although it's frequently down.
The main place Bartonella likes to live is in the endothelium, the lining of your cardiovascular system. Along with addressing the unique needs of the immune system, Bartonella patients also need cardiovascular support.
Almost everything that has been found effective against Bartonella in research is also good for your cardiovascular system. I don’t think that’s a coincidence because that is the system Bartonella likes living in.
Japanese knotweed, garlic, and black walnut all have terrific research that shows how beneficial they are for your cardiovascular/circulatory system, and they're also extremely helpful at fighting Bartonella! Other herbs like Hawthorne and nutraceuticals like vitamin E help as well, and a variety may be used, depending on the patient’s specific needs. The main point is that we want to incorporate immune and cardiovascular support into each specific Bartonella protocol.
After beginning to address the support aspect of your protocol, we can begin to attack Bartonella in its hidden forms.
Can an anti-inflammatory diet treat Bartonella?
While this might sound controversial, lifestyle and diet changes don’t make a huge difference when it comes to Bartonella. Even though we always encourage eating an anti-inflammatory diet, you won’t defeat a Bartonella infection with diet alone.
I’ve had innumerable patients who have adhered strictly to particular diets for years, but that alone couldn’t get rid of the infections. My family and I did the same thing for several years, and while I’m sure it helped lessen some of the inflammation, it wasn’t enough.
That being said, eating a healthy diet is always worthwhile for your body. One of the biggest, most beneficial things you can do for your long-term health is to remove or greatly reduce processed food and added sugars. Sugar is the enemy of your immune system, and you can make it much harder for your immune system to function by eating lots of sugar and processed food. You can add to the inflammation you’re already dealing with just from the foods you choose to eat, so choose wisely.
I often tell my patients, I can’t get you better if your diet is Pepsi, Oatmeal Cream Pies, and Pop Tarts… so you can certainly block healing from Bartonella with a terrible diet, but you can’t usually “cure” it with a good diet.
Can you exercise with Bartonella?
Exercising with Bartonella is usually difficult for patients because Bartonella affects so many systems in the body through the circulatory system. This is why, with most of my Lyme and Bartonella patients, we have to clear out the infections first before we slowly add in activity.
However, for some rare Bartonella patients, getting the blood moving can actually help them feel better. These activities include time in a sauna and light exercise.
Once a patient’s testing is clear, we’ve helped rebuild some of the systems that have been affected by the infection, and the patient has more stamina, then we are able to incorporate more exercise. For most patients, I will spend 6-18 months clearing infections and work in more activity as their retests start coming back clear.
What makes you fast or slow to heal?
If you come into my office and only have one or two infections, it’s likely your progress will be faster than someone who’s fighting five or six infections. Someone fighting multiple infections will almost always be more complicated and slower going than another person with fewer infections.
Also, someone who has just developed a chronic infection will generally heal faster than someone who’s had an infection for years.
In general, younger people heal more quickly than older people.
Being able to track which infections are getting better and which ones aren’t will help us make adjustments after trying a protocol for a few months. Knowing what bugs I’m fighting has been the single biggest factor in helping patients recover.
When to seek functional support
If you’ve been experiencing troubling symptoms and standard medicine can’t pinpoint the root cause(s), testing for tick-borne illnesses like Bartonella is crucial.
Bartonella is nothing to mess around with. It’s real, it’s complex, and it’s a problem that’s spreading rapidly, affecting the lives of thousands.
While conventional medicine may overlook or minimize co-infections, functional medicine — when applied with Lyme-specific expertise — offers powerful tools to support the body’s ability to heal.
Take control of your health
If you’re ready to take control of your health, reach out to our clinic and set up your free consultation with one of our team members. They will go through your history, symptoms, and next steps with you.
Discovering what your body is fighting is the first step in recovering. You can get better from Bartonella, Lyme, and other co-infections!
To learn more about Lyme disease and co-infections, check out our Lyme page and blog.
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