H Pylori and Elevated Creatine Kinase

by Seph
(Orange County, CA )

Initially, I experienced muscle pain, weakness, nausea, fatigue, frequent urination, and dehydration and went to the ER. They ran a blood test and saw elevated creatine kinase levels and were quick to diagnose me with a condition called "rhabdomyolosis" (muscle fiber destruction which leads to a release of creatine kinase in your system and causes symptoms similar to what I had) they deduced that I incurred this from working out too hard since I was a gym rat.

The solution was to be rest and hydration and symptoms were to likely improve within 3 weeks.

Fast forward two months of "watching and waiting" for the symptoms to come down while not working out and hydrating like crazy I decided to get a second opinion. After a variety of tests with perfect results, I was finally diagnosed with h pylori. Which I know can cause a variety of problems beyond the digestive area.

My question is - can h pylori cause muscle inflammation and can muscle inflammation result in a higher creatine kinase level?

Also do my initial symptoms fall within the scope of h pylori? If so it is likely that this bacterial infection is the culprit for all of my resulting symptoms over the last 2 months (which eventually included stomach cramps, diarrhea, and chills.

I am currently on the triple threat treatment (day 2) and already feeling a little better. All associated symptoms with this infection should go away after eradication correct?

Comments for H Pylori and Elevated Creatine Kinase

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Rhabdo not from H Pylori
by: Kerri Knox, RN

Rhabdomyolysis is almost certainly NOT from H pylori no matter how bad your infection was. This infection just simply would not cause something like that.

And just taking the triple treatment is no guarantee you'll eliminate the bacteria. Failure to eradicate is a huge problem and occurs in about 1 in every 3 people, even with the triple therapy.

And your symptoms may or may not go away EVEN IF you eradicate. It is not guaranteed that your symptoms are even from H pylori. Millions of people around the world live with H pylori for decades and never have a problem.

Obviously, it's good to get rid of it (but taking antibiotics is always questionable and can lead to LOTS of other problems, such as candida yeast infection overgrowth, chronic Clostridium difficile infection and general damage to the gut microbiome.

So, whether you even eliminate the bacteria, or whether you feel better if you do is 'to be seen'. Health is not guaranteed like that. The H pylori could be the cause of your gut problems, or it just might be 'incidental' and have no relationship to your problems whatsoever, you'll have to wait to find out.

However, the H pylori is almost CERTAINLY unrelated to the rhabdomylysis, so it's likely there is something else going on to get such a serious and life-threatening condition like rhabdo out of the blue.

Kerri Knox RN Immune Health Queen

Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune System Queen
Functional Medicine Practitioner
Immune System

PS: Don't forget that I wrote the book on H pylori. Get The H Pylori Solution today and end your struggle with this infection.

You may have missed my point...
by: Seph

I don't believe I ever had rhabdo.

The point was that the first doctor was quick to diagnose it merely due to the fact that I had muscle weakness and joint pain on top of the fact that I work out. I had no classic rhabdo symptoms ie. coke colored pee, swelling, etc.

H pylori can actually cause muscle soreness/joint pain in addition to the other things I was feeling ie. chills, nausea, and fatigue. So I'm saying that now, day 12 of triple therapy for HP, I am actually no longer experiencing muscle issues or fatigue and the nausea has decreased tremendously. I don't believe that it was ever rhabdo and neither did the MD that I got a second opinion from. The only mystery to me is does muscle inflammation cause an elevated ck level and can h pylori cause inflammation? (according to this site it can do these things).

Agree With You
by: Seph

I agree with you. But we are saying different things. I disagree with doctors that I ever had Rhabdo in the first place since I didn't have classic symptoms like Coca Cola colored pee or limb swelling. All my symptoms could and were likely caused by hp.

It's incredibly unlikely
by: Kerri Knox, RN

So, you have to understand that a high CK is actually muscle DAMAGE. And a high enough CK for a doctor to even CALL it Rhabdo is going to be EXTREMELY high.

H pylori is an INFECTION. That's why it causes muscle aches and such. Just like a bad cold gives you achy muscles, but you aren't going to get a high CK from the muscle aches of a cold because the achiness is from, usually, toxins being produced by the virus, not from direct muscle inflammation and damage. That's just not how an infection works.

H pylori DOES cause inflammation.. in the stomach. And can also cause immune activation that can lead to food allergies and, in extreme cases, even autoimmune disease.

But for an infection, ANY infection to cause such severe inflammation in the muscles to cause muscle DAMAGE, the infection would have had to have been systemic, meaning that it got into the bloodstream.

And if it had done that, you'd have been in the hospital being treated with IV antibiotics for a while. That is called sepsis, and it's very very bad.

H pylori just simply doesn't do that. In all the years of working as a nurse, I've never seen someone get 'H pylori sepsis' or get a systemic infection from H pylori. In fact, even AIDS patients are not known to get sepsis or overwhelming infections from H pylori.

You need to understand that H pylori is possibly one of the oldest bacteria to ever infect humans. We've had a million years to adapt to the problems that H pylori causes, and we are possibly even in symbiosis with it, to the extent that it can actually be BENEFICIAL for us in some ways.

Someone who is healthy enough to be going to a gym is simply NOT going to get some OVERWHELMING infection from H pylori, and I've never even SEEn a case of H pylori sepsis. Perhaps it exists, but I've never seen or heard of it.

In most cases, when someone has a serious health problem like you had, and particularly when the person is otherwise healthy, and H pylori is found, the H pylori is 'incidental' to the health problem. Meaning that the person probably had had H pylori for many years and it was just found on a test, but it had nothing to do with their health issues.

Because we've learned to adapt to H pylori over so long of a period, H pylori tends to cause CHRONIC illnesses, and not acute illnesses. This is not an infection like strep or pneumonia, where you get sick, fight it off, then you don't have it any more.

It's an infection that you get, never necessarily even notice it, then you live with it for many years and even decades, and it might not even cause you any problems.

Many people hear 'infection' and think 'being sick'. But H pylori simply does not make you 'sick' in the same way that the cold virus or the flu does. It doesn't knock you down or make you feel sick, it just sits there in a sort of balance with your body until, perhaps, the balance of power leans one way towards the H pylori.

So, unless you have some OVERWHELMING immune system failure that allowed the H pylori to go systemic in your body to the extent that the infection caused MASSIVE inflammation, then H pylori is just simply not the cause of such a problem. IMHO. And you would have been in the hospital getting IV antibiotics and in very serious condition for at least a few days.

It's just not that kind of infection. I hope you find the cause of your muscle damage, as that is a very serious thing, and I completely understand why you would feel like it might be the H pylori, but correlation is not 'necessarily' causation. And I think that the finding of the H pylori was simply 'incidental' and unrelated to your muscle damage.

Makes Sense - Thank You
by: Seph

You make a lot of sense and I certainly will concede to your expertise since I'm not a medical professional.

It was just worried because the day I was admitted to the ER my ck was 1,000 but I ran 10 mi that day. Since then, I stopped working out (on the advice of my doctors) & it quickly dropped to 500 and stayed there. Given that I am a black athletic male with a lot of muscle mass and my mysotis panel, biopsy, and EMG show no muscle damage whatsoever, I just believed that my CK runs higher than the normal range (1-200) and 500 doesnt reflect muscle damage. But what the hell do I know? I've never measured prior so I have no baseline.

Thank you for your advice and insight. I appreciate that you take the time to respond to each person - certainly not easy to do. You will happy to know that 90% of my symptoms have disappeared after prevpac treatment (ended 2 weeks ago) of course my system is still in a state of repair so something's are still taking time.

It’s true
by: Anonymous

I had a ck of 55k and I’m a gym rat. The md also dx me with the rapid muscle breakdown. Also I’m a nurse. Also I found out later I had h plyori infection. H plyori can Indirectly effects other organs outside of the gut. Also the pathophysiology of this bud is much deeper than what this nurse generalized. See microbiologist etc as starting to link h plyori with heart disease. The bud also can live outside of the gut and within other organs. And to keep this short, the bud depletes minerals which can start a cascade of events and can cause an autoimmune response. It’s actually really amazing the things this bug can do indirectly. So yes brother you ck can initially been from the bug. Just the same as mines.

HP was indeed the issue
by: Seph

Thanks for your comments. All Rhabdo symptoms went away after HP eradication for me.

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