Cpnhelp.org - Chlamydia Pneumoniae Treatment

I haven't updated in a while as I hate to report day to day changes any longer when I'm on an approach that has no real conclusions for an extended period of time. I'm still "in progress" on this continuous protocol (CP), but have enough time put in to give a summary and update.

First, let me note up front that I've been on the CAPi since 11/04, pulses since about 2/05. My Cpni load was so high (I've had CFSi for so long) that I had to go very gradually. It took two years to get to my 60-70% improvement and plateau from the pulsing approach. I could not even imagine a CP CAP until just now.

For those who have come to Cpnhelp since the last protocol revisions, the original Vanderbilt protocoli was to build up to continuous use of all the anti-Cpn agents. The shorter time periods for treatment you read in the patent case reports are due to the use of a CP. But this is a very challenging treatment and patient drop outs were common. It also takes more monitoring by the treating physician. Dr. Stratton, in the last revision of his public recommendations, gave his blessing to the pulsed method as it is easier to manage, covers the exigencies of the different conditions being treated in terms of allowing adequate recovery time between pulses, and allows timing of pulses to manage normal life demands. The original handout, superceded by what is in the handbook currently, can be found HERE.

To review or re-CAP:
I started gearing towards continuous Tinii after a conversation with Dr. Stratton. We were discussing how for some people pulsing reaches a pattern of diminishing returns after a certain point, with milder reactions during pulses and no improvements evidenced between pulses. He said that there is much unknown about tissue penetration and tissue concentrations of the bactericides needed to reach the tipping point, and blood concentrations are not a good measure of what actually gets into particular tissues. With a continuous protocol, CP-- actually the original Vanderbilt protocol built up to continuous use of all the agents, you will reach tissue saturation, equilibrate into all the tissues, and likely overcome the natural efflux pumps that try to get the abxi out of the cells. As I had reached a plateau on my improvement, this seemed like the next step, and Dr. Powell gave his blessing. By now I was taking 4000-mg Vit. D daily.

• 2/13/07 I added 500mg Tini/day. Reactions stronger than expected from previous pulsing, but manageable and diminishing over time.
• 2/19/07 I added a second dose for 1000mg Tini/day.Reactions stronger than expected from previous pulsing.
• 3/4 & 3/21/07 I was experiencing "bad Tini days" i.e. stronger than expected reactions and not diminishing. I guessed from Red's reports that the added D was making the pulses stronger, so...
• 3/35/07 Dropped back to 500mg Tini/day until reactions eased.
• 4/1/07 Back to 1000mg Tini/day. Tolerated better.
• 4/18/07 In a fit of optimism I switched to 1000mg flagyl/day to see if the affects were any different from the tini. I knew that I could now tolerate flagyl. I'd always used tini because for the first two years flagyl would make me violently nauseous, but recent experiments gave me no worse nausea than the tini now.

About this time I also was doing near-infrared sauna, about 20-minutes twice a day (I know, I know, but I didn't see that the D, flagyl and sauna were potentiating each other then, only know that now).
Over the next two weeks I was increasingly brain fogged, depressed, flattened affect, lethargic.
5/3/07 I was completely flattened and getting incapacitated so I stopped the flagyl and Vit. D completely.

Took at over a week to clear the depression and flatness.
Check-in with Dr. Powell who noted that the amount of sauna alone that I was doing could produce considerable die-off, and he recommended using lower Vit D as it clearly potentates both sauna and flagyl/tini, and with many patients he was taking them off the abxi as the combo of D and sauna was producing more than enough results. In other words, his polite way of saying that I had unwittingly overdone it!
We agreed that I would drop back to 1000mg D, do less sauna, and take a more gradual approach to the continuous.

• 5/14/07 Started again at 500mg Tini, only 1000mg D. Sauna for 10-15 minutes only a couple times a week.

By the way, my "sauna" is 4 brooder (near-infrared or NIR) lamps on porcelain clip on lights in my bathroom. This is the cheap-o Ace Hardware sauna. It turns out that this NIR (as opposed to the far-infrared or FIR) may actually have a more potent effect on the immunei system and on bacteria than the FIR. Dr. Powell uses only one NIR lamp to amend the FIR sauna, or two NIR lamps one front and one back, in a bathroom or small closet for up to 30 minutes twice a day. So with 4 lights this was really overkill unless one adjusts for time.

This has gone much better. I still have mild aches and periods of fuzziness cognitively, and lowered appetite, but quite manageable on a day to day basis. This demonstrates to me that continuous dosing is needed for me to get at tissues that I haven't been able to clear otherwise. Interesting after all this time on the CAP. Notable is that I have decreasing discomfort in joints, hard areas to clear completely without continuous dosing according to Dr. Stratton.

Discovered (by running out of one product and changing my anti-candid maintenance stuff) that I also had built up an increased Candida load judging from the die-off from this (a familiar and different die off than from CPn which I won't detail here).

• 6/12/07 Added second tini for 1000-mg/day. Main symptom is increased nausea and low appetite, some increased aches. Only a couple days into this, so no conclusions of any kind yet about the impact of continuous full dose. As I said, a long term project.

What I've learned?

1. Don't do this until you really well-tolerate pulses!
2. Continuous dosing does appear to get at tissues not reached as well in shorter pulses.
3. Vitamin Di does potentiate bacterial kill for both bactericides and for the affects of infrared sauna.
4. Infrared sauna, especially when used with D, niacini and other adjuncts, is a powerful antibacterial and immune boosting treatment that produces clear Cpn die-off reactions.
5. Don't count your chickens....

That's all folks!

CAP for Chlamydia pneumonia since 11/04. 25yrs CFS & FMSi- Currently: 150mg INHi, 200 Doxycycline, 500mg MWF Azithromycin, 1000mg Tini daily (Continuous protocol)

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CAPi for Cpni 11/04. Dx: 25yrs CFSi & FMSi. Currently: 150mg BID Roxithromycin, Doxycycline 100mg BID, Tinii 1000mg/day pulses; Vit D2000 units, T4 & T3