Man bitten by tick in Scottish Highlands ‘imprisoned’ in mum’s living room for four years
Keen outdoorsman Noah Greaves, 29, who was eventually diagnosed with Lyme Disease, was working outdoors near Inverness shortly before he fell ill and is now completely bed-bound.
Noah hopes the antibiotic treatment will help ease his Lyme Disease Symptoms (Image: Sylvia Suddes)
A man has been left ‘imprisoned’ in his parents living room for four years after being bitten by a tick in the Scottish Highlands. Noah Greaves, who was eventually diagnosed with Lyme Disease, was working outdoors near Inverness shortly before he fell ill.
As his symptoms worsened, the 29-year-old eventually went to hospital where he was wrongly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. But after speaking to a specialist clinic, medics confirmed the keen outdoorsman is suffering from the bacterial infection.
Noah, who now experiences severe tremors and muscle weakness leaving him unable to walk, feed himself or even send a text message, relies on his family for care. His mum has had to retire to look after him. (See link for article)
Like so many others, this man who worked outdoors was bitten by a tick.
Noah’s hands became “clawed” prohibiting him from using them at all.
His case is advanced and no one knows how much he can improve with treatment.
The “treatment” he is asking donations for (40,000 British pounds = 48,080 U.S. dollars) only lasts between 3-4 weeks, telling me all I need to know, and that this will most likely not be sufficient. Why it costs this much for a month of treatment is beyond me unless he’s going to the St. George Lyme clinic in Germany which uses hyperthermia and antibiotics(which is not curative but has helped many). Notice the clinic treats “acute” stage Lyme and states plainly on their website that after six months antibiotics don`t work anymore and even prolonged treatments useless. I disagree with this entirely. My husband and I and many others have achieved our health back after prolonged, judicial use of antibiotics and many other modalities, making sure to address all coinfections.
The article then goes on to regurgitate the same old crap about a rash, which many don’t get at all, as well as flu-like symptoms, headache, joint pain, and fatigue. It’s become so predictable, yet so wrong, I could personally write the script.
Finally we have some good news, this time coming out of my home country of Sweden.
Just a few weeks after a massive conference in Stockholm where top doctors warned about the dangers of the mRNA shots, news is coming out that Sweden has thrown away almost 8.5 million doses of the covid shots.
That means that around 1/5th of all covid vaccines Sweden bought has been destroyed. The cost to the taxpayer of buying in these shots only to be thrown away was a whopping $144 million. That is money that went straight down the drain because the state bought something that people do not want.
And they even admit that the reason they have been forced to throw away all these doses is because people do not want them anymore. The people are sick and tired of these garbage and dangerous shots. (See link for article)
WHO hopes to test an experimental Marburg virus vaccine amid an outbreak in Equatorial Guinea
The World Health Organization convened an urgent meeting to evaluate vaccine candidates after nine deaths and 16 suspected cases were reported.
Marburg virus particles (blue) both budding and attached to the surface of infected cells (yellow).Image Point FR / NIH/NIAID/BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The World Health Organization hopes to test an experimentalMarburg vaccine in Equatorial Guinea, which announced its first outbreak of the virus Monday.
Nine deaths have been confirmed, while 16 suspected patients are in quarantine. Health officials are also monitoring 15 asymptomatic close contacts of infected people.
On Tuesday, the WHO convened an urgent meeting to evaluate several possible vaccine candidates that could be administered during the outbreak. The meeting brought together a consortium of vaccine developers, researchers and government officials — a group the WHO created in 2021 to advance a Marburg vaccine.
Past outbreaks, mostly in Africa, have had death rates of 24% to 88%, depending on the virus strain and the strength of efforts to control transmission.
(See link for article)
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Vaccines Are “In.” Treatments Are So Pre-2020.
Important excerpts:
“….some at the meeting pointed out that there may not be enough cases in this outbreak to properly evaluate a vaccine.”
“If you look at the past history of Marburg outbreaks, they’re generally quite small, and the interventions that have been put in place have limited their size,” said John Edmunds, an epidemiology professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Somehow, I don’t think these little factoids will matter.
Worth pondering:
Some oral Poliovirus vaccines were contaminated with infectious simian virus 40 present in monkey kidney cells USED TO GROW the vaccine. One of the many animal-derived ingredients used in vaccines and openly admitted by the CDC is African Green Monkey kidney cells.
Where does the Marburg virus originate from? Fruit bats, but the first ever patient group it was detected in had been exposed to African green monkeys.
US health officials are gearing up to test a vaccine for poultry to combat the worst bird flu crisis on record — which is raising fears about human spillover.
The Department of Agriculture is involved in developing an updated shot and hopes to start trialing it soon, though it has not offered a timeline. The actual testing process, one it begins, would take at least three months.
While animal vaccines can take years to be licensed parts of the process can be accelerated in emergency cases.
Concerns about the avian flu strain currently circulating have risen in recent weeks after it became evident that it spread from birds to several mammals, including otters and foxes.
Excerpt:
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Veterinary Medicine for example are working on an avian flu vaccine that uses tiny particles even smaller than the width of a human hair to deliver immunity by sending pathogen-like signals to cells.
If an updated shot proves effective, that would open the door to USDA approval followed by a thorough vaccination campaign that seeks to reach the affected commercial poultry industry.
In truth, one month before the H1N1 “pandemic,” the WHO declared H1N1 a Level-6 “pandemic” based on 20 cases. It also changed the definition of “Level-6 Pandemic” so that severe destruction and widespread human death were no longer required. The origins of H1N1 were found in an industrial pig farm in Mexico where there was pig feces all over the property. When workers became ill, unknown chemicals were sprayed causing more workers to become ill. People were diagnosed similarly to how people are being diagnosed with COVID – by either “eyeballing sick people with ‘flu symptoms’” and automatically claiming Swine Flu was the cause, OR by PCR.
In the summer of 2009, the CDC secretly stops counting Swine Flu cases in America, because the overwhelming percentage of lab tests from likely Swine Flu patients shows no sign of Swine Flu or any other kind of flu.
Then, the CDC estimates there are 22 MILLION cases of Swine Flu in the US.
The catastrophic effects of the COVID-19 vaccines that were forcefully mandated onto the population are causing the general public to lose its trust in the medical establishment and the vaccine industry
A variety of limited apologies are being made to regain that trust without fixing the underlying issues that led to the disastrous COVID-19 policies being forced upon the population
The recent pseudo-apology in Newsweek has received widespread media exposure and highlights many of the catastrophic mistakes made throughout the pandemic that the medical industry is now trying to pivot away from. Those mistakes must not be forgotten and some will be reviewed here
The COVID-19 mRNA vaccine mandates have backfired on the conventional vaccine industry, and we are now seeing a degree of skepticism toward all vaccines that I have never witnessed before in my lifetime. Given how dangerous the spike protein vaccines were, this outcome was entirely predictable, which has led many of us to wonder why the medical establishment chose to nonetheless push them (likewise, I put forward the best explanations I could see for this here).
One of the best explanations was shared with me by a pharmaceutical executive from a major vaccine manufacturer (there are only a few instances of people in these positions speaking out against the industry).
This official informed me that Pfizer has very few vaccines besides the incredibly profitable COVID-19 ones (this is also true for Moderna), so in essence, the rest of the vaccine industry was thrown under the bus for the mRNA manufacturers to make a killing off COVID-19.
Now consider the implications of current polling for both the vaccine industry and the general public’s trust in the medical system: over a quarter of the American population know someone whom they believe was killed by the vaccines, and almost half believe that the COVID-19 vaccines are causing a large number of unexpected deaths.
To save the existing paradigm, some type of major pivot will have to be made by the medical industry and government agencies (this is also what Ed Dowd was recently told by a government insider). Biden’s recent State of the Union Address likewise provided strong evidence of this shift: https://twitter.com/i/status/1623294929287118849 (The narrative collapsing in real time)
One of the opening gambits for this switch was Emily Oster’s disingenuous plea for COVID-19 amnesty in The Atlantic at the end of October 2022. The responses to it were almost all “How about you [insert your preferred profanity].” My favorite response was someone choosing to pay to fly this over her house after the article came out:
I felt that Oster’s plea was an excellent example of a pseudo-apology — she “asked for forgiveness” but simultaneously refused to admit she was in any way at fault for any of her previous actions, and used a variety of linguistic constructs to try to both have her cake and eat it too. I really hate when people do that, so I decided to write a response.
Many people suspected that this article was a test to see if the public was open to accepting a very limited apology, and it appears that whoever commissioned it got their answer — more would have to be offered the next time around. Three months later, that offer appeared in Newsweek:
Newsweek’s article received mixed reactions. Many were jubilant, perceiving that a real apology had been made, while others viewed it with suspicion. After I read it, I realized it was best understood as a sequel to Emily Oster’s initial plea, and was written to test out soundbites (e.g., fancy academic constructs) all targeted to an educated liberal audience.
I believe the underlying goal was to see if there was a way that the medical establishment can both have its cake (say something nice that placates the public) and eat it (not have to actually admit what they did wrong or relinquish any of their power by changing the core problematic policies they advanced).
Unfortunately for them, because of how much public opinion has turned against the vaccines in the last 3 months, I don’t believe they can get what they want simply by issuing half-hearted apologies. Let’s now look at how Newsweek approached this problem:
Although there are many objections to how the COVID-19 pandemic was handled, as mentioned above, far and away the public’s greatest concern is the extreme toxicity of the vaccines. Because of how great that concern is, I do not believe that there is any form of propaganda that can gaslight the public into accepting what was done to them. I was thus very curious to see which reference Newsweek would cite to address it.
Newsweek chose to cite the paper written by faculty from numerous Ivy League institutions that argued that the risks of the booster mandates for young adults in college outweighed their benefits (it was also discussed by Steve Kirsch here).
As this was a surprisingly controversial position four months ago, the paper’s authors were very conservative in their claims of harm from the vaccines, and placed them within the context of the minimal benefit of this policy. In short, Newsweek was quite tepid when choosing how they could address the elephant in the room.
The next passage illustrates why people hate when writers use the passive voice in an attempt to get around a difficult topic (e.g., “mistakes were made” being widely used as the soundbite to whitewash how England’s horrendous policies directly caused the death of many of the elderly throughout COVID-19):
This is a great passage that cuts to the core of many of the issues I’ve observed in science and politics for decades. Because so much data exists, it will always be possible to arrange some of it in a manner that proves you are correct (this is why I’ve spent my entire life studying this question — the ephemeral nature of truth is absolutely fascinating).
Since many people are primarily motivated by their emotional patterning and pre-existing ideologies, this results in science consistently using data to arrive at a predetermined position (e.g., one that supports the researcher’s sponsors) rather than the true one.
Before COVID-19, I read industry publications that stated that vaccination could never be allowed to turn into a polarized political issue, because that would alienate 50% of the customer base from vaccine manufacturers. However, as you can see, that is not what happened, and because of that, for the first time in my lifetime, a large portion of the American population no longer trusts vaccines.
I believe this process started after the global players (e.g., Gates and the WHO) decided they wanted to push for a decade of vaccination, beginning with more mandates for children and gradually expanding that violation to adults. This campaign was largely advanced by the Democrat party with Obama realigning his party’s focus to support these interests.
This ended up creating an odd situation where, over and over, state childhood vaccine mandates (which met with heavy protest from the public and parents of vaccine-injured children) were almost unanimously voted for by Democrats and vetoed by Republicans.
The issue understandably became much more politically polarized, and Trump took a public stance on vaccination further increasing its politicization. Unfortunately, after Trump became president, he backed out of his commitment to investigate the safety of the vaccine schedule. I suspect this was partly due to this lacking support in his administration, and Bill Gates petitioning Trump to drop it (which Gates publicly admitted to): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY7byG1YGwg
At this point, I am not sure if the political polarization of the vaccine issue was something that broader political forces made impossible to avoid. Alternately, it is also possible that it was decided that the only way to convince the public to take a highly questionable and unsafe vaccine was if a large part of the public mindlessly supported it purely for political reasons that allowed their political tribe to “win.”
This is why, near the end of Trump’s presidency, we saw many prominent Democrats and news outlets insist that they would never take Trump’s rushed vaccine (as it was unlikely to be safe or effective).
These are amazing examples of “this did not age well.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_feSqSO3YUg Kamala Harris says she won’t take the vaccine because she doesn’t trust Trump.
Yet, the second that Biden won, the entire Democratic party flipped their views on vaccines, and endorsed the mandates to the point that they were willing to ruin people’s lives with vaccine mandates. In short, the entire subject was heavily politicized to the point that no facts or evidence could sway the narrative.
The lockdowns disproportionately affected the poor, and this was one of the primary reasons I and other lockdown skeptics used to argue against them (as the educated “progressives” pushing for the lockdowns always use addressing social disparities as the core justification for their policies).
Unfortunately, since their attempts frequently worsen rather than improve those disparities, this goal often ends up just being something that gets lip service and makes people feel good about themselves and not much more. I suspect that this is why our attempts to argue against abusing the working class with these absurd pandemic policies fell on deaf ears, even though in principle it should have been a winning argument against those policies.
One of the results of the pandemic response was the largest shift in wealth in history from the lower class to the upper class (e.g., many small businesses were forced to close and their market share was transferred to large corporations such as Amazon). This resulted in billionaires nearly doubling their share of the global household wealth through the course of the pandemic (going from owning 2% to 3.5% of it).
I really hate how the author tries to make all of this into a race thing when it’s not. People from a higher social class could telework from home when the lockdowns happened, whereas people in the lower classes were the ones who actually suffered across the nation from the lockdowns.
Similarly working class women (not mentioned above) were severely affected by the lockdowns, as they became responsible for taking care of their children during the work day (something they had previously relied upon schools for). Likewise, the lockdowns cause a huge increase in domestic violence, and many of the adverse events of the vaccines disproportionately affected women (e.g., 52.05% experienced menstrual abnormalities, which were sometimes quite severe).
I believe that the reason “Blacks and Latinos” were specifically focused upon here was due to a longstanding issue that the public health system has not been able to address: Blacks are well aware of what the government will do to citizens it deems as disposable (especially through medicine), so they were not as enthusiastic about vaccinating.
There is also an even more important point that this clip illustrates. One of the things I found fascinating about the pandemic policies was that those who benefitted from them (e.g., a teacher who got to work from home, while going to a beach in the Bahamas) tended to adamantly support them, while those who suffered from them always opposed them.
I, in turn, found myself in a rather small minority: I personally benefitted from the lockdowns, but worked really hard to stop them because I felt the “benefit” I received was inconsequential relative to the harm caused to others around me.
Similarly, once the vaccine mandates were introduced, they disproportionately harmed the poor and members of the working class who had no choice except to submit to the vaccine mandate. Immediately after Biden instituted his completely unscientific and — more importantly — illegal vaccine mandate (to the point that it was struck down by the Supreme Court), the working class experienced the largest wave of death ever experienced in American history:
There were three important points I wanted to highlight in regards to this part of Newsweek’s argument.
The first was that the Great Barrington Declarationproved itself correct. Since it was signed by almost a million people, many of whom took great risks to their careers to sign it, no one in the medical profession can argue they couldn’t have known about it.
The second was that Scott Atlas attempted to pressure the Whitehouse’s COVID-19 task force to adopt a policy similar to that described with the Great Barrington Declaration. Unfortunately, Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, working in concert with the national media, did everything they possibly could to sabotage it, and were successful in preventing it from ever being adopted.
The third was that at the start of the lockdowns on 4/22/2020, two doctors from Bakersfield, California had a press conference explaining why the lockdowns were a very bad idea (and were subsequently featured in the national news): Video Link
Each of these three parties essentially made the same points (e.g., the healthy members of society should develop herd immunity, while the vulnerable were sheltered from the virus).
Unfortunately, each time their points were raised, the media, and in turn, most of my colleagues, went hysterical over the fact that these parties wanted to sacrifice (and kill) large numbers of Americans for the greater good to create herd immunity. In turn, many disgusting things were said and done behind closed doors by my colleagues to those opposing the lockdowns.
Before long, those same people went a step further, from arguing that it was unacceptable to sacrifice people for the greater good (by developing natural immunity to the virus) to insisting we had the right to force everyone in America to vaccinate for the greater good regardless of the vaccine injuries that occurred in the process.
This ultimately created the nightmare scenario that many of us had envisioned: the mRNA spike protein vaccines would prevent the population from developing actual herd immunity to COVID-19, and cause the virus to be with us forever rather than one that disappeared after a few waves, like many pandemics that preceded it.
The best proof for the argument that vaccination prevented that from happening is what occurred in Africa. Africans had both very low vaccination rates and — unlike the rest of the world — now has much lower COVID-19 rates.
Note: this problem was further exacerbated by the medical profession holding the dogma that viruses essentially cannot be treated (and instead must be prevented with vaccines), and that vaccine immunity is superior to natural immunity. Both of these viewpoints are at odds with reality, but must be sustained in order to sell an endless number of vaccines to the general population.
I completely agree with the point of this passage (other than I do not believe the consensus alluded to was held by the entire academic field). The problem mentioned in this passage is that much in the same way you can’t apologize for something unless you also admit what you did wrong, you can’t have a “collaborative” project if you force everyone to follow a consensus that you decide is right, rather than letting the public decide to follow a policy based on its own merits.
Many of the medical “experts” have effectively been publicly shamed for pushing an incredibly bad policy onto the public, and as a result, have lost their ability of having people adhere to whatever they say just because they said to do so. No one likes to lose power, so it’s very difficult for them to come to terms with this, and that social class is doing everything they can to hold onto it.
Fortunately, we appear to be living in an era where the traditional propagandist form of governance no longer works (this is where leaders decide on a policy that much of the populace may not like, and then use propaganda to force it on them). It has failed because traditional propaganda cannot compete with the internet.
For this reason, sooner or later, we will have to move to an actual collaborative model where our leadership sells policies to the public on the basis of them making sense, rather than because they forced us to accept them.
Since I am sure you’ve all seen videos of Anthony Fauci lying throughout the pandemic, I wanted to share this video instead (you can also find remixes of the Fauci song online): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sJ-d33a-FA&t=49s
I have nothing against this singer, but I cannot say the same for the public health officials who paraded him around to promote their interests.
This specific excerpt is why I do not believe that this is a genuine apology; rather, it’s a forced apology and an attempt to minimize the losses of the vaccine pushers who have discredited themselves to the general public.
Throughout Newsweek’s article, the author attempts to say we had “valid concerns” (that I must emphasize were not political in nature) but nonetheless, in a backhanded way, dismisses all the actual objections raised to the policies (e.g., the alleged “conspiracy theories” that all proved themselves true).
Similarly, to help people who have been injured by their vaccine, I and colleagues have been forced into the very “cottage industry” the author lambasts. This is not my preferred “cottage industry” in which to be. Due to the political nature of the subject, we take on a lot of professional risks as physicians when you try to treat vaccine injuries.
Everyone I’ve talked to says the same thing: we’ve been forced to do it because the medical profession is doing nothing to help these victims (other than to gaslight them), and they really need help.
This is a pretty standard critique of this political class, but while it sounds nice, as far as I know, it being mentioned has never corrected their behavior. Now, let’s look at the actual reason I believe this Newsweek article was written:
One of the things I have come to appreciate from researching a series on the Pfizer whistleblowers is just how sales-oriented many of these companies are, and how completely unacceptable it is to them to lose a long-term source of revenue.
Since there are signs that usage of many other vaccines is declining globally (the vaccine pushers greatly damaged the vaccine “brand” as a consequence of using it to market the experimental gene therapies for COVID-19), the industry is understandably panicked.
Because of this drop in vaccinating, I am beginning to see pleas essentially stating that “we are sorry we messed up here, but please trust us on the other vaccines.” I do not believe that they should be allowed to have their cake and eat it too.
If you have any doubts about my assessment on the authenticity of the above passage, you should consider the source that was cited for that line. It was a hotly debated study that argued that people in geographic areas that vaccinated less were more likely to die from COVID-19 (when in reality, significant data exists that argues the exact opposite).
The major problem with this section is that like many other things in the article, the terms are vague and undefined. For example, how do you determine if a voice is “critical” as opposed to just being misinformation? Instead, it is almost certain that somewhat controversial limited hangouts will be used as the “unpopular voices” that must be tolerated, but the underlying censorship that prevented critical ideas from being heard, will remain in place.
Kevin Bass
When I began the discussion about this plea for amnesty, I made a point to avoid saying anything about the author, as I believe the message and not the messenger is what should be debated. Additionally, I felt that since a major publication was hosting this editorial, it was for all practical purposes their article (e.g., anything Bass said that they didn’t want published, would have been cut by Newsweek’s editors).
After I published my initial assessment on the article, numerous readers informed me that Kevin Bass has been a difficult individual whom they have had to deal with for years. This is because he aggressively defended the status quo and repeatedly attacked people online who supported things like low carbohydrate diets.
One of the most frequently utilized tactics in the propaganda public relations industry is to pay off a trusted third party (summarized here) to promote your interests (as people are much more likely to believe a message presented in that manner). This was something that many of us witnessed throughout COVID-19, and something many credentialed academics or physicians are regularly solicited to do.
One common form of the third party technique is “ghostwriting,” where industry will author something, and then commissions a trustworthy expert to claim the authorship.Ghostwriting is a huge problem in medicine, and frequently the “authors” of studies promoting the usage of pharmaceutical drugs were not the ones actually responsible for writing them.
In addition to the views in this article being diametrically at odds with many Bass had previously held when he attacked those who dissented from the narrative, the commentators I corresponded with who had read much of his previous writings also noted that “his” writing style throughout the Newsweek piece was very different from what they had seen previously.
Since those initial observations, two other events have occurred which suggested that Kevin Bass does not necessarily share the viewpoints contained within his article. The first was this tweet:
For reference, these are the individuals Bass stated were not real scientists:
The second was his demeanor during his recent appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show that appeared to be geared towards working to restore public trust in the medical industry: https://twitter.com/i/status/1623381857768448000
Conclusion
If you look at this article within the context of Oster’s previous plea and its response (both of these articles are essentially trying to do the same thing), I believe a strong case can be made that these were tests to see what narrative needs to be pivoted to.
Likewise, Germany’s minister of health (and a well-credentialed scientist) finally made a limited apology for the disastrous policies he pushed on the German people without acknowledging his worst mistakes, while simultaneously shifting the blame for his decisions to unnamed scientists who gave him bad advice.
In many ways it’s remarkable that we have been able to move the dialogue this far in just a few months, and to be honest, I would have given almost anything for a compromise like what Newsweek’s article presented, to have been proposed any time in 2020 or early in 2021.
However, any time a negotiation occurs, you must always keep in mind that whatever is initially offered is much less than the party is actually willing to agree to, and the fact that something like this is being openly offered means that we are in a very strong bargaining position.
Any type of promise or apology (especially disingenuous ones) will not prevent what we saw happen over the last few years from happening again. Laws, and ideally constitutional amendments (initially at the state level, and then ideally at the national level) can prevent such tragedies, and many people I have spoken to feel we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to correct many of the systemic issues within medicine that have poisoned our culture.
In my own opinion, if these people are actually sorry for what they did to us, they would be willing to relinquish some of their power so that it could not happen again.Anything less should not be considered acceptable for them to be granted any type of amnesty. That said:
A Note From Dr. Mercola About the Author
A Midwestern Doctor (AMD) is a board-certified physician in the Midwest and a longtime reader of Mercola.com. I appreciate his exceptional insight on a wide range of topics and I’m grateful to share them. I also respect his desire to remain anonymous as he is still on the front lines treating patients. To find more of AMD’s work, be sure to check out The Forgotten Side of Medicine on Substack.
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**Comment**
Excellent article. The ‘powers that be’ are experiencedpropagandists and have successfully made health a politicalissue. Please wake up to their ability to control the narrative by using all sorts of psychological tricks against an unsuspecting public.
Hopefully Lyme/MSIDS patients are wiser having gone through a similar propaganda war for 40 years, but emotions run high and people often forget to use logic and common sense. The fact our corrupt public health ‘authorities’ were successfully able to ignore, deny, and completely censor basic facts of immunology should frighten us all. They’ve also successfully ignored and denied Lyme/MSIDS science for decades.
The same attacks upon doctors, researchers, and in fact anyone who dares to defy the narrative have been done in Lymeland as well, with devastating results for patients. Many of these doctors are experienced, savvy, and experts in their field – yet are brought down by a powerfulmachine that is evil to the core due to an unholy alliance between industry, research institutions, and the government. Until this entire monolith is destroyed, nothing will change. Allowing these corrupt organizations to get a tiny slap after destroying so many lives would only allow it to continue in the future.
Eileen Clossick opens up about her Lyme disease, Bartonella, Babesia, and Anaplasmosis, and PANS in an effort to help others and spread awareness.
The puzzle pieces are finally starting to come together after going through what I now recognize was the perfect storm this past year: getting the Covid vaccine (& subsequently developing paresthesia in my legs), contracting Covid, going through an emotional stressor, and then being exposed to mold (and later finding out I have mold toxicity, or “mycotoxicity”). The floodgates were opened, and my body could no longer suppress the viral load it was carrying.
Experiencing Symptoms
I was experiencing such severe insomnia that I would go days without sleeping, even after taking four or five Benadryl at a time. I was having heart palpitations, night terrors, such severe brain fog that I couldn’t plan my days off of work without ending up in tears, tingling in my head as well as my legs, intrusive thoughts, dizzy spells, tinnitus, and neck stiffness. I was seeing black dots, snowflakes, and stars. I had weird neuro symptoms like dropping things all the time and mixing up left and right. I would wake up at night with shaking episodes because I couldn’t regulate my body temperature. And worst of all, I was experiencing a darkness and spiral in my mind that I have yet to figure out how to explain in words. By nature, I am a very joyful, energetic, and enthusiastic person, so I knew that this was not me, and something was deeply wrong. I was afraid to hurt a patient at work due to my exhaustion caused by severe insomnia, so I started calling out of shifts.
After a boatload of research, and visiting and calling multiple doctors and clinics, I finally got into a Lyme Literate doctor. I explained my story to her, all the way back to the onset of symptoms at 5 years old. She looked at me and said, “this is classic Bartonella,1 I’ll be shocked if it isn’t.” I instantly burst into tears in her office, and the only thing I could repeat was “no one should ever be told they’re just anxious for 20 years.”
If it hadn’t been for the flare up this past year, I may have never gotten the answers I needed. I was forced to ask the deeper question of what was really going on.
At the age of five, I had a sudden onset of severe anxiety, OCD symptoms, destructive behavior, night terrors, and sensory issues. It escalated to the point that I needed to be admitted to a children’s psych hospital for a little over a week. My doctors tested me for Strep (for a PANDAS diagnosis), which was negative. Unfortunately, they did not have the knowledge of tick borne illnesses or PANS (Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome). So, I was seen as a psych case, told I had a “delay in my neurological development” and prescribed psych meds at a young age. Over the years, I led a normal life, but always dealt with what I believed was an anxiety disorder. So I attributed other strange symptoms to anxiety throughout my life. There have been periods when it was worse than others, but overall, I tried incredibly hard to hide it from most people, because I hated that I struggled with it. If it hadn’t been for the flare up this past year, I may have never gotten the answers I needed. I was forced to ask the deeper question of what was really going on.
Multiple Tick-borne Diseases
When the full Tick Borne Panel came back, my doctor was correct in her assumption. I was diagnosed with Lyme, Bartonella, Babesia, and Anaplasma. Along with these tick borne illnesses, I also had the Neural Zoomer Plus test done which identified blood brain barrier disruption2 and demyelination. With that, I was diagnosed with PANS. Along with those diagnoses, I was also diagnosed with 9 new food sensitivities and mycotoxicity. My doctor looked at me and said “you’re one tough cookie for walking around with all of this.”
Surprisingly, with each new diagnosis came a sense of relief. I finally had proof that everything I was experiencing was real. This illness can be dangerously misleading, and oftentimes cause me to doubt my own experiences, as I look normal from the outside and I have good moments and days when I feel like myself. Because a lot of what I endure is not outwardly visible to others, I have been challenged to put into words what I am experiencing, so I can let others in, especially those closest to me.
My Most Recent Flare
This past spring, I was having flashbacks to my childhood, and experiencing odd bouts of deja vu. My body was trying to tell me I was experiencing a flare, but I couldn’t read the signs. I was begging the Lord to give me sleep, fighting for rest in any way I could: putting my phone away 2 hours before bed, creating a nighttime routine, etc, all to no avail. Even when I did fall asleep, I was awoken by night terrors, pinprick sensations, or shaking episodes and required even more sleep aides to get back to sleep. I didn’t know if I was doing something wrong. All I knew was that I was struggling and needed help, badly. I didn’t know exactly what was going on at the time, but I knew that I was done taking the band aid approach offered to me. I didn’t want to just take more pills; I wanted to know why I was experiencing all of these random symptoms.
Unfortunately, when these tick borne illnesses and other infections have crossed the blood brain barrier and gone systemic after being in the body for years, antibiotics alone do not work. These bugs are quite intelligent. They create a biofilm to protect themselves. So, while I will most likely be on antibiotics and anti-parasitic drugs long-term, the road to recovery involves so much more than just antibiotics. I have yet to meet a single person who healed from long-term Lyme/coinfections with antibiotics alone. In fact, I experienced some of the worst die-off symptoms (herxing) after starting some of the herbal regimens prescribed by my ILADS doctor. From someone coming from healthcare and working with pharmaceuticals, I had no idea how potent and effective some of these herbs could be.
The Healing Process
In addition to medications and supplements, there are other supportive therapies to help my body and mind heal. Since this has gone undiagnosed for so long and crossed the blood-brain barrier, I will be undergoing treatment for the next couple of years. There are numerous routes to take, so treatment may look different at different points in time over the next couple of years. Because my immune system has been suppressed for years, I need to do everything I can to help boost it. I am currently taking Immunoglobulins. There are many diet and lifestyle changes to make as well to help boost my immune system and decrease the inflammation in my body and brain.
For me, I’ve found that the best medicine of all is being with people. It’s often seeing others and socializing that pulls me out of the never ending darkness or mental spiral that I can’t escape alone.
And, since my body has been stuck in a fight or flight mode (sympathetic state) for so long fighting infection without me knowing, I have to help my body learn how to re-enter the parasympathetic state (or, rest and digest state). For me, I’ve found that the best medicine of all is being with people. It’s often seeing others and socializing that pulls me out of the never ending darkness or mental spiral that I can’t escape alone. When I was a kid, nothing worked, so I am thankful that I have found something that does work. There are other simple things I’ve found effective such as laughter, music, prayer, and being in nature. There are also certain therapies like cold-water exposure, craniosacral therapy, EMDR therapy, & neurofeedback, that help my body shift from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic state. Our bodies heal best in the parasympathetic state. I could create a whole other blog post just on all the treatment and therapies involved. Keeping track of it all is a full time job in and of itself!
And as I mentioned, there is something called the Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction (or “herxing”). I don’t have a worst enemy, but even if I did, I would not wish this on him or her. Basically, as the bacteria die off, they release toxins, so all of the symptoms you’ve experienced come to a head and get worse before they get better. But, as people have told me, even though it’s a living hell, it’s something to celebrate, because you know you’re hitting the nail on the head. Since most of the symptoms I have experienced have been neuro and psychiatric, and because these bacteria have crossed the blood brain barrier and caused PANS, most of the herxing involves worsening of the neuro and psychiatric symptoms. “In PANS and PANDAS, autoantibodies target healthy proteins or receptors in the brain, principally in the basal ganglia, a region of the brain responsible for motor movements, learning, cognition, and emotion.”3 Because I’ve had this for so many years without knowing, there will be a lot of bacteria that need to die off, and lots of herxing to go through, but I am determined to go through whatever I need to in order to get to the other side. It’s taken me years to arrive at this point; I can’t expect to heal in a month or two. As I begin to experience some days in between herxing where I feel like myself again, I am hopeful for complete healing in time and better days ahead.
There is also the issue of mycotoxicity. Who knew mold could wreak such havoc on your brain and nervous system? When not excreted from the body, it gets stored in fatty tissues, including the brain, which explains why everything got worse when I had a new mold exposure. For whatever reason, people with Lyme & co-infections don’t flush out toxins from their body like the average person (many of these people also have an MTHFR gene mutation).
Due to the ups and downs of these illnesses, many weekly appointments, and the financial burden that comes along with all of this, I made the decision to move home to Rhode Island and go ‘all in’ on my healing journey. Although this has felt like rock bottom all around, I am challenging myself to view this situation in a new light. What if this is an opportunity to give my body the rest, space, and time it needs to heal? What if the “falling apart” of my old life, is actually a new path falling together? What if I can use this as an opportunity to spread awareness, and therefore alleviate the suffering of others? What if I can heal completely, and then get back out there, further my degree, and work with the kiddos (& their families) who battle PANS/PANDAS?
Earlier diagnosis = earlier treatment, and therefore, better outcomes.
As I’ve mentioned before, I am open about my journey, in order to spread awareness, and to one day fight alongside and achieve victories for others, so that no one will ever go misdiagnosed for so long like I did. Earlier diagnosis = earlier treatment, and therefore, better outcomes. Because of the frequent mental spiral I experience, especially during this past year, I have doubted many of my decisions. However, since I discovered all of this, I have not for one second doubted that I was handed this cross so that I can one day help others with a similar cross. They say people who battle long term Lyme & co-infections with a purpose and reason to get through it, have better outcomes than those without a purpose, and I have most definitely found mine. No one should go misdiagnosed for 20 years, and then have to fight so hard just for a diagnosis. No one should have to go to therapy to process 1) the trauma that comes along with PANS, and 2) the shock of going misdiagnosed for so long. No one should have to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket to regain their health after it was the medical field that missed the bigger picture. No one should be treated as though they are crazy by certain doctors who have not been trained in or educated themselves on tick borne illnesses (as well as PANS, molecular mimicry, etc), because it’s often a complicated and “controversial” topic.
As passionate as I am about this, I am also realizing there are emotional, spiritual, & mental components to work through as well. I could also write a whole blog post (or book, truthfully) just on those aspects alone. I am learning that I can’t expect to heal while holding onto anger and resentment towards all those who couldn’t help me more when I was a kid, or even this past year. I am also learning to be patient with myself as I process the aftershocks, all the emotions that come with it, and some of the painful memories.
It was only when I came to a place of deep acceptance, that I achieved a sense of peace.
4. Neil Nathan, MD, “Toxic: Heal Your Body from Mold Toxicity, Lyme Disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, and Chronic Environmental Illness” (Victory Belt Publishing Inc, 2018).
Photo credit @Charlie Weinmann/ (L-R) Brendan McCay, Todd Risenmay, and Candice Brock in “Lyme Disease: The Musical”
A new musical about Lyme disease has been nominated for five Broadway World Los Angeles Awards.
LOS ANGELES, CA – The world-premiere production of Lyme Disease: The Musical is nominated for five Broadway World Los Angeles Awards including Best New Play or Musical and Best Ensemble Performance. The show premiered at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in June 2022, helmed by veteran Fringe Festival director Robert Glen Decker, who earned a nomination for Best Direction of a Musical. Todd Risenmay is nominated for Best Performer in a Musical for his portrayal of the bloodthirsty tick narrator, and Zozo Chen-Wernik, who played both level-headed Rachel and ditsy Pippa, is nominated for Best Supporting Performer in a Musical. The rest of the ensemble includes Taylor Murphy-Sinclair, Candice Brock, Brendan McCay, and Eric Delgado.
Lyme Disease: The Musical follows an optimistic young woman stricken by a mysterious illness who must navigate unsympathetic doctors, disbelieving friends, and her own depression as she fights to recover both her health and sense of hope. The book and lyrics were written by Ellen Thompson, an award-winning writer and graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Thompson, who also produced the musical, battled Lyme disease for eight years and is now in remission. Emmy-winning songwriter Hughie Stone Fish composed the music. Lyme Disease: The Musical will be available to watch online in early 2023.
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection primarily spread to humans by ticks. Health insurance records suggest that approximately 476,000 Americans are diagnosed with Lyme disease each year. Early symptoms include a possible rash at the site of the tick bite, fever, chills, muscle aches, fatigue, and headache. Late-stage symptoms include arthritis, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, and mental disorders, among many others.
The Hollywood Fringe Festival is an annual, open-access, community-derived event celebrating freedom of expression and collaboration in the performing arts community. The Broadway World Regional Awards allow readers to honor their favorite local theatrical productions. Voting is open through December 31, 2022 at https://www.broadwayworld.com/los-angeles/voteregion.cfm. Winners will be announced in January. For more information about Lyme Disease: The Musical, visit http://www.lymemusical.com.