by Dr. Bill Rawls
Posted 6/23/22

Bartonella can contribute to cardiac symptoms in people with Lyme and coinfections. Listen as Dr. Rawls explains what you need to know about this stealth microbe. Get our guide to understanding bartonella here.

Video Transcript

Question: Can bartonella cause cardiac symptoms?

Tim Yarborough: Next one from Kathleen is about bartonella. She’s got bartonella, or a family member has bartonella and has carditis symptoms. Can you say a little bit more about specifics for bartonella and how to approach that?

Dr. Rawls: Yeah. You know, we don’t see myocarditis with bartonella quite as often, but endocarditis is pretty common. And it is something we see in veterinarians and veterinary workers because bartonella is actually pretty common. Bartonella is one that can infect blood vessels in the blood vessels’ lining, endothelium.

So it can affect the insides of the heart valves in the vascular system. And it can be a bad actor. So it’s certainly not something to ignore. There’s certainly a lot of good herbs out there. Antibiotics, it’s kind of hit or miss. I mean, the thing with antibiotics is you slam your normal flora. My preference is still the herbs. There are some good studies showing that things, some of these same herbs like Japanese knotweed, then have activity against bartonella. Also, others, like cryptolepis and neem can have some activity.

But we’re starting to see the studies that are documenting the use of herbs specifically for specific kinds of bacteria, including bartonella. So I think there is a lot of good efficacy there for us to pay attention to.

Dr. Rawls is a physician who overcame Lyme disease through natural herbal therapy. You can learn more about Lyme disease in Dr. Rawls’ new best selling book, Unlocking Lyme.
You can also learn about Dr. Rawls’ personal journey in overcoming Lyme disease and fibromyalgia in his popular blog post, My Chronic Lyme Journey.