I don't know of other places where people have in-depth knowledge of gut bacteria and syndromes, so I thought I'd post here.

 

How it began

Last summer I did a antiretroviral treatment course (after a positive PCR for MLV). The first month I felt nothing. Than I got gradually worse, and even thought I quit the ARVs, I continued getting worse and worse for months. But when I added doxycycline as an attempt to stop the downwards spiral, a severe symptom appeared: I got completely numb over my hands, feet and pretty much throughout my whole body. There was so little feeling that I without problems could have had surgery without anaesthetics. This went on for about a month, and then I thought it might have been the doxycycline making things worse, and I totally quit, and added biaxin instead, and the numbness slowly reverted itself, along with several other symptoms which popped up in the aftermath of the antiretrovirals.

 

But... In order to get better, I need to understand the mechanisms of what happened.

 

Here's my hypothesis, and I'd be glad to get your two cents:

 

I used antiretrovirals. The drugs poked at the virus, making it more active instead of less active. I got worse. The mechanism of getting worse could possibly be that the treatment made the MLV (or other somewhat similar virus) make the body even more unable to control the gut flora, resulting in more severe symptoms. The strange thing is that it really went downhill (a lot of other symptoms) after a car ride (which I had been 100% able to tolerate for years before the ARVs). But now, the stress was enough to cause a lasting severe worsening. I also got acne all over alongside the relapse. I think they're related.

 

I am thinking the doxycycline made things worse for some essential gut bacteria, which in turn let the pathogenic gut bacteria get more of a free pass. But the biaxin (or, just as likely the not doing doxycycline) made things slowly more normalized.

 

Another reason why this is important for me to work out now, is that my numbness is coming creeping back now. It's not extreme, but it's bad.

 

It was bad prior to the HPI, and it has been going up and down for some months.

 

I am thinking it can't be two mechanisms causing this. It's the same as last time. So if I can work out why it came last time, I have a good chance of getting rid of it.

 

When doxycycline made it severe, I am thinking it's most likely some protective bacteria in the gut flora which got hit by it.

 

Any thoughts folks?

 

I am not sure if my donor has the right protective gut flora to help me... I will do some tests (same as Maff) when I have the capacity to get it done.