Has Anyone Tried Antibiotics For Pots?

[Evergreen]

Has it helped with you're symptoms? I remember having a fever before my POTS symptoms started and my DR. Suggested an antibiotic but I'm not sure about getting on antibiotics because I don't want it to weaken my immune system any more than it already is.

[lewis]

I've been on two antibiotics since dysautonomia showed up. One was amoxicillin and it made me worse.The other was a zirhromax and that's when all my heart issues began to show up.

[ks42]

This might be interesting for you: http://forums.dinet.org/index.php?/topic/24421-feeling-great-on-antibiotics-hmm/#entry228491

It seems a lot of people with POTS report feeling worse on antibiotics, but then again, there are many antibiotics that have side effects that involve the heart or nervous system, so it would make sense some of them could potentially worsen POTS.

I get much, much worse on Doxycycline, so much so that some of my doctors think it's a Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction, indicating there may be an underlying infection. I wasn't able to tolerate staying on it long enough to see if it actually would make me feel better in the long run, though. Four weeks of it would have been required to really tell if it was helping or hurting. I've been on Keflex, too, since getting POTS, and it actually completely gets rid of my brain fog, cough, digestive issues, muscle / joint pain, and some other symptoms. But, it makes me super tired, and flares my adrenaline surges a little bit. But I haven't been on it long enough to tell if it could actually be beneficial for the POTS at all.

I will say, though, that my spouse, who developed POTS shortly after I did, was recently on a pretty long course of Ceftin, and found it cleared up a bunch of symptoms like cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, brain fog, and may have even been responsible for reducing standing heart rates a little.

We both got a pretty full infectious disease workup initially, including things like Lyme, bartonella, babesia, mycoplasma pneumonia (for which we are somewhat positive), and a bunch of viruses. However, fevers have always been a symptom we've both had since getting POTS, so we are going to be tested soon for residual / recurrent strep, FL 1953, mycoplasma fermentans, and a bunch more obscure bacterial infections. They're also looking into toxins and mold exposure, though, which is the other reason we haven't been on longer courses of antibiotics yet.

Some POTS patients have tested positive for certain chronic infections, like Lyme, co-infections, and others like Mycoplasma pneumonia. I've spoken to several patients whose POTS has gotten better once they've treated the underlying infections - I think there may be a few like that on this board as well (?) Don't know if you've been tested for some of the more common infectious diseases that can go along with POTS, but if you haven't, it might be worth looking into.

[Katybug]

You might find this of interest:

http://forums.dinet.org/index.php?/topic/27329-cvid/