How to Build a Holistic Bartonella Treatment Plan

• What is Bartonellosis?|
• Bartonella Symptoms|
• Diagnosis and Treatment|
• Holistic Treatment|

Recently, I’ve seen more and more clients with chronic infections like bartonellosis. This makes sense as the symptoms of chronic infections can easily be mistaken for other conditions, and infections like bartonella are lesser known in the public eye.

While prescription antibiotics can be effective, we prefer to take a more holistic approach to bartonella treatment. By supporting the body with diet, lifestyle, gut health supplements, and natural antibiotics, we’ve found that our clients tend to experience more complete healing.

In this article, I’ll define what bartonellosis is, the symptoms it causes, and how it’s usually treated. And I’ll share our holistic approach to bartonella treatment. 

What is Bartonellosis?

Bartonellosis is a vector-borne microbial infection—meaning people can get it if they’ve been bitten or scratched by an insect or animal infected with the gram-negative bacterium Bartonella 1. 

There are several species of Bartonella (sometimes written as Bartonella spp, which just means multiple species) that can cause disease in people, as shown in the table below:

Bartonella henselae from cat fleas may be the most common way a person gets bartonellosis. But It’s also possible to get a bartonella infection from Ixodes ticks (black-legged ticks).  

Ixodes ticks also carry the microbe that causes Lyme disease. So, it’s possible to get Bartonella from a tick carrying Lyme disease and have a co-infection 1 2.

Bartonellosis is a zoonotic infection, meaning it’s passed from a non-human to a human. It invades the inner lining of blood vessels (endothelial cells), bone marrow, and blood 1. But, it’s usually mild, resolved without medication, and short-lived 3. 

In some people, bartonellosis causes chronic or relapsing symptoms as the Bartonella bacteria cycle into the red blood cells every now and then 3.

What Does Having Bartonella Feel Like? 

Generally, vector-borne microbial infections, including bartonellosis, can cause flu-like symptoms such as 2:

• Fever
• Fatigue
• Brain fog
• Body aches
• Swollen lymph nodes (lymphadenopathy)

If a person hasn’t had an obvious Bartonella exposure, like a cat scratch or bite, these symptoms may be written off as a common virus. 

If the immune system doesn’t successfully defeat bartonellosis, it can wreak havoc with waxing and waning neurological, circulatory, skin (cutaneous), and pain symptoms, including 2 3:

• Brain fog, cognitive impairment
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Cramping
• Uncontrollable muscle contractions
• Tingling, weakness, numbness, and pain in the hands and feet
• Shin pain
• Tooth pain
• Pain on the soles of the feet (upon waking)
• Eye redness
• Spider veins
• Unexplained stretch marks that resemble pregnancy stretch marks
• Bacillary angiomatosis (tumor-like organ and skin lesions)
• Anemia (Oroya fever)
• Blood-filled tumors on the skin (verruga peruana)

In rare cases, it’s possible to develop bartonella endocarditis (inflammation of the heart’s lining) 4. And case reports of Bartonella henselae infection specifically have described neuroretinitis (blind spots in the middle of vision) 5 and peliosis hepatis (blood-filled cavities in the liver) 6. 

All of this may sound alarming, but I don’t want you to avoid being outdoors in nature due to concerns over Bartonella. There are many natural strategies for creating a strong immune system to keep you safe from an infection and help you recover if needed.

How is Bartonellosis Diagnosed and Treated?

If bartonella infection is suspected, there are several available testing methods. This table shows the type of test and how it works: 

PCR testing may be the most accurate but can be expensive, whereas serologic testing is probably the least expensive. A healthcare provider can help determine the best testing option if bartonella is suspected.

Treatment of bartonella may require antibiotics such as azithromycin, rifampin, or doxycycline 1 7. It can take 3–6 weeks for these prescription medications to successfully treat the infection 8.

Experience in the clinic has taught me that while antibiotics are necessary, using them in isolation may not always lead to complete healing 9. 

So, I favor adding natural antibiotics, diet, lifestyle, and gut health support to create a more integrative path to healing for people with infectious diseases.  

Holistic Bartonella Treatment Guide

I agree with antibiotic treatment to target bartonella, whether from a B. quintana, B. bacilliformis, or B. henselae infection. But I also feel it’s important to improve the terrain of the host (the person with the bartonellosis infection). 

It may be easiest to think of it like a plant in a garden. If the plant isn’t thriving, we need to ask a couple of questions:

• What does this specific plant need to thrive again? (water, nutrient-rich soil, sunlight)
• What do we need to remove for this plant to thrive again? (pests, overgrown brush that’s blocking the sun, pruning) 

A holistic view means using all of the tools in the toolbox (natural antibiotics, diet, lifestyle, and gut health support) to help someone with bartonellosis thrive. 

So, while I’m targeting the Bartonella bacteria with antibiotics (natural and prescription), I’m also working to make the terrain of the body inhospitable to it. 

Natural Antibiotics

Natural antibiotics are plant compounds that have antimicrobial properties. So, unlike prescription antibiotics, natural antibiotics can target bacteria and other unwanted microbes like viruses, yeast, and parasites 10. They also have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant functions. 

We don’t have many human studies on herbal antimicrobials for Bartonella treatment. That doesn’t mean they aren’t effective; we just need more research to be completed. 

A few evidence-based herbs that may be most effective at improving Bartonella cure rates include 9: 

• Cryptolepis sanguinolenta
• Juglans nigra (black walnut)
• Polygonum cuspidatum (Japanese knotweed)

It may be tempting to try adding these herbs without speaking with a healthcare provider. But it’s extremely important to seek guidance before trying herbal antimicrobial agents. 

I review other natural antibiotics that may help treat bartonella in my video 9 Warning Signs You Have Lyme Disease. In this video, I share information on Lyme but also two other chronic infections (bartonella and Babesia) we’ve been addressing in the clinic.

Diet

As I discuss in my book, Healthy Gut, Healthy You, diet is one of the main drivers of gut health and immune system function. We can use food-related changes to control inflammation, reduce the burden on the immune system, and so much more.

I think of diet as low-hanging fruit—it’s a low-cost intervention with a massive return on investment. But, which diet is best during bartonella treatment?

There isn’t one perfect diet for repairing the internal environment. I help my clients work through a hierarchy to determine which meal plan is best for their body. If someone is following the standard American diet, then shifting to a Mediterranean diet may be what they need to thrive. 

If the Mediterranean diet leaves room for improvement, then a Paleo diet or low FODMAP diet trial may be the best next step. Working with a nutrition professional to learn what works for your body can be very helpful—we’re happy to help you work through this process in the virtual clinic. 

Lifestyle

Lifestyle changes are another powerful way to improve the internal environment of the body. This table provides an overview of the lifestyle change with examples of how to incorporate it into a daily routine:

As someone who has dealt with lingering symptoms, I understand that it may be difficult to make huge lifestyle changes when going through bartonella treatment. 

I don’t expect anyone to start with all of these right out of the gate. What’s most important is to focus on being consistent with the changes that can be made. As symptoms improve, incorporating other lifestyle therapies will likely be easier.

Gut Health Support

In addition to foundational diet and lifestyle strategies, we may recommend specific gut-supportive therapies such as probiotics, glutamine, and an elemental diet in a bartonella treatment protocol. 

Probiotics 

Probiotics have been shown to improve the internal terrain of the body. Their benefits include: 11 12:

• Increasing microbiota diversity
• Decreasing pathogens or their toxins
• Promoting more rapid recovery from imbalances 
• Stabilizing the gut microbiome during antibiotic use
• Directly inhibiting harmful microbes
• Reducing overzealous immune system activity
• Reducing inflammation

It’s not important to remember every one of these points. The big-picture takeaway is that probiotics work in various ways to promote great gut and immune system health. But is there a specific probiotic to use during bartonella treatment? 

For the most part, probiotic products can be distilled down into one of three categories 13:

• Lactobacillus/Bifidobacterium blends
• Saccharomyces boulardii, a helpful yeast
• Soil-based Bacillus species

There’s no need to seek out a specific probiotic strain—adding any one category will likely be helpful. But our clients in the clinic tend to have the most success when combining all three categories of probiotics—we call this triple probiotic therapy. 

Using triple therapy probiotics during bartonella treatment is also a great way to protect your good gut bacteria while taking antibiotics. 

Here are the dosing guidelines we use and the duration of treatment:

Glutamine and an Elemental Diet

For the majority of our clients, natural antibiotics, diet, lifestyle, and probiotics are very effective for restoring gut and immune system function during bartonella treatment. For our clients who need additional gut health support, we consider a trial of glutamine or an elemental diet.

• Glutamine supplementation can heal the intestinal lining, promote healthy gut bacteria, and aid in normal bowel function 14 15. 
• An elemental diet can act as a powerful gut reset by allowing the digestive tract to rest. It’s an easy-to-digest, hypoallergenic shake that can temporarily be used as the sole source of nutrition or as a meal replacement. 

I do not recommend starting with glutamine or an elemental diet until someone first creates a healthy foundation. But if natural therapies haven’t completely resolved symptoms, glutamine and an elemental diet can be worthwhile next steps. 

Thrive During Bartonella Treatment

Bartonella is a bacterium that can cause the infection bartonellosis. Most of the time, people can recover on their own. If formal treatment is needed, antibiotics can clear up the infection within 3–6 weeks. 

Antibiotic therapy is effective, but we favor a more holistic approach to bartonella treatment in the clinic. 

By helping our clients create a healthy foundation with natural antibiotics, diet, lifestyle, and gut health support, we build resiliency and increase the likelihood of complete recovery. 

If you would like more information or assistance with bartonella treatment, contact us at the Ruscio Institute for Functional Health.

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