Archive for the ‘Chiropractic Care for MSIDS’ Category

Novel Therapeutic Options for Lyme Patients

https://www.bayarealyme.org/blog/treating-complex-chronic-diseases-novel-therapeutic-options-for-lyme-patients/

TREATING COMPLEX CHRONIC DISEASES: NOVEL THERAPEUTIC OPTIONS FOR LYME PATIENTS

Bay Area Lyme Speaker Series with Steven Harris

BAL Happenings Series

Bay Area Lyme Speaker Series San Jose 2022
Dr Steven Harris speaking at the Bay Area Lyme Speaker Series in San Jose, September 29, 2022

Dr. Steven Harris, a physician specializing in Lyme at Pacific Frontier Medical, was guest speaker as part of our Distinguished Speaker Series. His presentation on the complexity of tick-borne diseases is transcribed below to share his invaluable insights into novel treatment options for those living with chronic/persistent Lyme and other intractable infections that severely curtail patients’ quality of life, bringing hope and restoring health to many. Note: This transcribed presentation has been edited for clarity.

What is “Precision Medicine”?

“The concept of precision medicine, which is a growing area, is where we look at an individual and try to create a tailored plan for that person. I think many doctors wish that we could have a ‘cookbook’ approach to medicine that would work for our patients. But unfortunately, that approach doesn’t work. Luckily, here in the San Francisco Bay Area, there are doctors offering precision medicine including Dr. Sunjya Schweig in Berkeley, Dr. Christine Green, with us at Pacific Frontier Medical, and Dr. Eric Gordon, at Gordon Medical Associates in Marin and others. And thankfully, we have Stanford and UCSF (our local medical centers) that we work peripherally with. In addition, the Open Medicine Foundation is making great strides in understanding illness and Dr. Mike Snyder’s group at Stanford who are working on multi omics for chronic fatigue that track an individual patient’s data.

Mike Snyder, PhD
Mike Snyder, PhD, Stanford University

“These doctors are working in their own fields, not necessarily just tick-borne diseases, but our work overlaps. For example, the Snyder Lab multi-omic study involves genomics, epigenomics, metabolomics, where they are looking at tons of data and assimilating a lot of this different data to try to create treatment plans that work for the individual, because of the fact that a ‘cookbook’ approach doesn’t work for this group of chronic complex patients. For example, we look at someone’s multi-ome and the parts that make them up, including their microbiome, epigenome among many others, which is becoming a bigger and more exciting field. One of the practical aspects we try to determine is how to address an individual’s level of inflammation, the diversity of their personal bacterial flora, and how to help compensate for any deficiencies—or over abundances—that help contribute to disease.

“Precision medicine doctors are looking at as much data as we can, but we are also learning to  incorporate treatments that illustrate how our bodies interact with an ever more toxic world, such as with glyphosate and organophosphates, toxic metals, among hundreds of others harmful agents. Some may argue that electromagnetic sensitivity or electromagnetic stressors are also affecting people. This needs more research and is still a very young field, but what providers report is that electromagnetic sensitivity does affect many patients. In addition, if we look at some of the old stalwarts, such as mold, actinomyces, and other biotoxins, these can contribute significantly to a patient’s burden of illness. So, taking a very detailed approach to looking at what external stressors someone has is really important.

Human Energy and Mitochondrial Function

“Another nascent area that is probably going to become bigger is mitochondrial work, i.e., mitochondrial function—at least in the ME/CFS world—which translates too many other areas, including the Lyme and co-infection world, because illness and wellness is fundamentally all about energy. The concept is that if we have enough energy to mobilize our immune systems and get ourselves to detoxify, and to absorb nutrients, the body will be able to function effectively on its own. The goal of treatment is to ease the body to do what it needs to do by itself without so much external intervention. That is one of the subtle things that we’re learning as we do this. The approach in the past has been, ‘there’s an infection and we want to knock the infection out,’ but many times we have discovered that healing doesn’t work that way.

Eric Gordon MD
Eric Gordon, MD

“Dr. Eric Gordon describes the healing exchange as being like a dance that the provider helps the patient do with various treatments. You try to tease out the way forward to get on the right path, like finding that yellow brick road. And if we are able to do that leg work early on to eliminate the stressors, evaluate and optimize the mitochondrial dysfunction, etc., then we can often take a much more direct path to wellness. 

“What is exciting is that there are new tests in the research world that assess mitochondrial function. Seahorse testing, for example, currently in the research phase, looks at ATP production and free phosphate production. We’ve been using mitochondrial muscle biopsies primarily to evaluate mitochondria in the past, but there’s more to investigate regarding the way energy is made at a cellular level. In the near future more research is going to be examining the inner mitochondrial membrane to watch how the very basic pieces of electron chemistry are translating to a cell and then translating to the organism as a whole. 

Telomeres and Cellular Aging

Dr. Horvath and a group at Stanford recently wrote a paper focused on decreasing cellular aging using things like growth hormone and DHEA, and metformin (a diabetes drug), to try to decrease the age of cells. There’s also a lot of talk in medical fields about telomeres and their relationship with cellular senescence. The hard part is, how do we translate this when a patient comes into the office and put burgeoning research into actual practice? Much of this is not going to be FDA approved as treatments for perhaps the next 10 or 15 years. So, part of the approach to addressing some of these very complicated patients is working in a partnership with them, because we don’t have the answers. We can work towards the likely answers, but sometimes we have to do it with very short steps, and with a patient who is deeply engaged in the treatment process.

It’s like a dance that the provider helps the patient do with various treatments. You try to tease out the way forward to get on the right path, like finding that yellow brick road. 

“This is a very different model than we’re used to. When I grew up, the doctor told you what treatments to take. You took the treatment. Then, you went back and reported your symptoms. This doesn’t seem to work for this very complicated group of patients. These patients also happen to be some of the most savvy, educated, well-researched, intelligent people, mostly because they’ve been through so much and have seen so many doctors. By the time they come to one of us, they may have seen 20 or 30 doctors. So, we have to offer them something fresh and new that also has a high likelihood of actually working. 

Dynamic Neural Retraining System“On top of the physical issues, we must also consider the psychological burden that chronic illness has had on people. This may seem simple and obvious, but it is such an important piece: We have to address the trauma. And sometimes we can’t address trauma head on. We have to address it in a very circuitous but meaningful way. There are a lot of non-pharmacological, non-ingestible ways to do this: Through the Dynamic Neural Retraining SystemTM (DNRS), through vagus nerve training, through neurofeedback, neuro stimulation, and through various other methods. There is a new device called the PoNS device, which will hopefully become widely available very soon, which is a tongue neurostimulation device. It is FDA approved for head trauma, but it also works for post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s an amazing way to use electricity with neuro signaling to the amygdala and help to retrain the brain to get out of that stress response. A scientist in Wisconsin, Yuri Danilov, developed it and the company that owns it is called Helius Medical technologies. They’re trying to get FDA approval for it, and they are making it available to physical therapists. It’s mentioned in Dr. Norman Doidge’s book The Brain’s Way of Healing. I’ve seen it used with some patients, and it’s phenomenal.

Regenerative Therapies and Exosomes

This is How I saved My Life by Amy B. Scher“In addition to the cell aging and telomere lengthening concept, one area that does seem to be slightly farther ahead is the field of regenerative therapies. Regenerative therapies include exosomes, PRP, and alpha 2-macroglobulin, among others. Some of these chemicals are injected. Oftentimes, we use it mostly for tendon issues and for osteoarthritis and for different orthopedic situations. But exosomes, especially, have other uses. There are many doctors who are using exosomes in parallel to stem cell therapies and there are many types of stem cells from autologous cells that come from your own body—to umbilical, to fetal, all the way to human embryonic. There is a book by Amy Scher titled, This is How I Save My Life.  She has become a notable author who wrote about her journey through India, where she received human embryonic stem cells, and went from a very severe neurologic case of Lyme to being quite well now. 

When I grew up, the doctor told you what treatments to take. You took the treatment. Then, you went back and reported your symptoms. This doesn’t seem to work for this very complicated group of patients. 

“These various therapies can be amazing if used properly, but we need more studies. Much of this is outside of the purview of many mainstream practitioners and health plans and the medical establishment at large. But many of these treatment approaches can be done safely and effectively, and definitely have their place for decreasing that overall illness burden.  One of the thoughts about stem cells used to be that ‘Oh, the stem cells can change into whatever cell, and then the cells can regenerate this way or that way.’ But what we now think is that it’s probably more to do with the cell signaling chemicals, and the growth factors, that are really at play here. Exosomes don’t have any nucleic acid in them, it’s just those chemicals themselves. Many people are using those very successfully and it’s still early, obviously, but there are some very neat ways to do it, especially with some of the structural conditions such as CCI.

The Body’s Structure and Craniocervical Instability

CCI Craniocervical Instability“CCI is Craniocervical Instability, which is a fairly new conceptual understanding, but as a condition it’s been with us for a long time. It is where micro shear forces are happening in the neurovascularly structurally dense area where the skull meets the cervical spine, which can lead to lots of inflammatory responses. Mast cells, which are some of the allergy producing cells, are involved, among many other immune cells.  A very big inflammatory response occurs when there is a combination of an infection, such as BorreliaBabesia or Bartonella, mycoplasma, viruses, et cetera, usually plus head trauma, or a hypermobility syndrome such as Ehlers-Danlos; it’s one of the part of a triad for these people who are a setup for CCI. Dr. David Kaufman is an expert in the area who helped popularize the idea of CCI, and it’s been absolutely amazing for some of these patients who have especially severe chronic fatigue. The ME/CFS world are early adopters in considering it, but for many Lyme patients and practitioners, it is not yet on their radar. It should be because fatigue is one of the very significant presentations of chronic Lyme patients. I’ve seen four or five patients who have had this surgery with pretty astounding results. But what we’re trying to do is get away from a fusion surgery if at all possible. That’s where the exosomes can theoretically come in, especially properly placed injections of exosomes and PRP and these other regenerative therapies to stabilize an area in the cervical spine. The inflammation goes down with many of these injections but getting the benefits to continue when people move their heads frequently is another matter. 

Much of this is outside of the purview of many mainstream practitioners and health plans and the medical establishment at large. But many of these treatment approaches can be done safely and effectively, and definitely have their place for decreasing that overall illness burden.

“Obviously, this is a complicated and very new field, and the challenge is that the neurosurgery boards in America don’t allow surgery for fatigue. You need something like a chiari malformation or an instance where a vital system is being compromised before the neurosurgeon can actually do surgery for this. So, sometimes by the time they do surgery, the patient can be significantly decompensated. The results aren’t quite as good as they would have been if we could have done it earlier. But in addition to the environment, genomics, and metabolomics, and microbiome, a way to approach some of these pathogens is by looking at a patient’s body structure—CCI being one of those aspects. 

Jaw Misalignment, CCI and Spinal Issues

“Another important structural approach is to investigate jaw misalignment. We can see when people have a bite that’s ‘off.’ There’s been quite a bit of work on this, mostly with the craniosacral folks, but there’s some very good science that shows that every time we speak, and every time we bite that we’re moving our cerebral spinal fluid, and if it moves and flows in an aberrant way, then the whole nervous system becomes ‘off’ as it were. Sometimes just by repositioning the jaw we can make an incredible impact on patients. I’ve seen absolute magic. It’s not usually something we do first, but it is something that we now think about, especially with the chronic complex illness. We look at things like root canals, and of course, that’s old news, but it’s still important looking at some areas of surgery and surgical scars and things like titanium rods, etc.

One insult by itself isn’t probably going to do anything. Throw that insult in with the Lyme, with the environment, with the structural issues, and you start seeing how complicated some of these patients are.

Rat Borrelia“Therefore, jaw misalignment along with CCI and other spinal issues, such as scoliosis and different ways the spine presents in space can have very profound implications for a chronic illness. Let’s not forget, these patients are coming to me, and they typically also have infections. So, the infections are probably one of those rate-limiting steps. There are a lot of people who have scoliosis and who have jaw misalignment and CCI, who aren’t actually sick. But when you throw in what these infections are doing to people, and you combine that with the structural issues, then you start seeing the picture come together about the infections. And it’s not just about Lyme and babesia species and Bartonella and ehrlichia and anaplasma, relapsing fever, borrelia, etc. There are a lot of other organisms that come into play: there are a lot of GI parasites, brain parasites, worms, and amoebas of all kinds that compromise the human system. Not that they’re necessarily making people sick by themselves, but they change the conditions in the body. One insult by itself isn’t probably going to do anything. Throw that insult in with the Lyme, with the environment, with the structural issues, and you start seeing how complicated some of these patients are. And so, then it becomes a question of, ‘Okay, let’s evaluate all these different things that could be happening.’ I look at it as being like an onion. What’s the top layer of the onion? How do you pull that top layer off and then go to the next one and then finally get to the core? It’s a model that often works. It’s just sometimes slow, but it’s better to be slow and complete than trying to race to the finish and then having to do it over again.

Viruses and Body Decompensation

“And then of course viruses are another piece of the puzzle, that are becoming bigger and bigger. We just happen to be right in the midst of a very large viral thing right now. Viruses have their own problems, and they can cause the body to decompensate on its own. But in the case of things like Epstein Barr and human herpesvirus 6, enteroviruses and varicella, they can be very opportunistic. We know about opportunistic viruses through the HIV world. The immune system is typically able to surveil these opportunistic infections really well. However, if the body becomes weakened, whether through the immune system already being weak or there’re being too many stressors on it, those viruses can take on a life of their own. Dr. Jose Montoya earlier and now the current folks at Stanford in the chronic fatigue center are looking closely at human herpesvirus 6. The late, great Paul Cheney, who was so important in putting chronic fatigue on the map, was looking at human herpesvirus 6 primarily, while John Chia has been very involved with enteroviruses. These different viruses definitely can contribute to fatigue and contribute to various related symptoms. But, in my view, they are often purely opportunistic and come up because the body is decompensated. So just treating those, in my experience, hasn’t been fully effective, but it is very important to look at them in the overall scheme of what we’re doing for patients.

mTOR Agents and Autophagy

Dr Steven Phillips
Dr Steven Phillips at LymeAid 2019

“At an ILADS conference a few years back, Dr. Steven Phillips did an amazing talk on the use of mTOR agents, (mammalian target of Rapamycin). This process has to do with how our cells can clean the body by degrading older and dead cells. People who can clean their body of debris have a much higher chance to heal and recover. People who have high levels of autophagy can heal, because there’s cellular turnover and new healthy cells taking the place of old or unruly cells. There are many agents that we’re starting to look at for people who have been sluggish, who have been sick for many years, and have been through many different treatments and have been stagnant. Trying to increase one’s autophagy through the use of things like Rapamycin is starting to get attention nationwide. At the 2022 ILADS conference in Orlando, I met with many people who are starting to use this cancer drug in low doses to try to increase the body’s ability to rid itself of debris. Other things include Honokiol, which is a magnolia leaf, and doxycycline, and many other agents increase autophagy including methylene blue. This is one of those areas that we’re exploring as a group, and one of the ways that we approach these complicated patients. Vitamin D is another example of an mTOR agent.

If the body becomes weakened, whether through the immune system already being weak or there’re being too many stressors on it, those viruses can take on a life of their own.

Toxic Load, Nutrient Status and Environmental Stressors

“One way to approach patients is to look at what’s happening with their ability to absorb nutrients and then get rid of waste i.e., absorption and detox. And it always comes back to that for many of us in the day-to-day working with these patients: how do we increase their absorption and nutrients? Their ability to tolerate nutrients? Their ability to get rid of the stuff that they don’t need? One way to do that is through membrane chemistry and using different kinds of fats to flush out some of the debris, on the so-called classic lipid bilayer on the surface of cells. There were common, simple methods used in the past to just detox patients and assist them in draining and elimination that we used to employ, but simple strategies no longer work in the most complex subset of patients. Oftentimes there is too much happening in their metabolism. There’s too much junk that is causing their bodies to react. Sometimes the reactivity is so profound that nothing happens if we can’t fix that reactivity.

Sometimes, this over reactivity is related to infection. Sometimes it’s because there’s too many bad chemicals in the body. With all of these environmental exposures that people have, a way for the body to respond to these stressors is by overreacting. While it could be driven by just the infections, it’s usually a complicated causation as to why people have ‘mast cell activation.’ We learned about it through a tumor of mast cells called mastocytosis. This is a little bit different because people don’t have these tumors, but they elicit an infection-related, allergy-producing response. It’s the body trying to help itself, but it does so ineffectively and in a way that increases a person’s suffering. David Kaufman and some other folks have found a triad of Ehlers-Danlos or hypermobility syndrome with what’s called POTS or orthostatic tachycardia with mast cell activation. We’re finding groups of these people where this hypersensitivity syndrome is actually the first thing that we have to assess. Unless that is successful the rest of the treatment process can’t really ensue. Again, we used to just do some detox, get patients prepared, and then work from the top down, working on the biggest thing like worms, then go to parasites, then go to metals, then go to babesia, then go to Lyme, etc. Now that initial dance to diminish the reactivity can become the bulk of the treatment regime. On the positive side, once we get past that part, the rest of the treatments can often be done faster, with very positive results, where patients develop momentum in approaching wellness.

In conclusion, these are a few different ways to address this most complicated, most difficult group of patients. I truly believe that everybody can get better, and I think that sharing that hope with the patient is a way for them to be able to hold on during what is a marathon for many of them. Not everybody needs to take every step, but the steps are there, and it can be done.

– Dr. Steven Harris

This blog is part of our BAL Happenings series. Bay Area Lyme Foundation provides reliable, fact-based information so that prevention and the importance of early treatment are common knowledge. For more information about Bay Area Lyme, including our research and prevention programs, go to www.bayarealyme.org.

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For more:

Osteopathy for Tick borne & Other Chronic Illness – ZOOM May 10, 2022

https://mnlyme.org/upcoming-events

Minnesota Lyme Association
Zoom Presentation with Simone Childs-Walker, MD
Tuesday, May 10th at 6:30PM CST

Osteopathy for Tick borne Illness and Other Chronic Illness

We are honored to have Simone Childs-Walker, MD sharing her knowledge about the various ways patients can utilize osteopathic manual medicine to heal. Dr. Walker completed her family medicine residency with Hennepin Healthcare and received her certificate in integrative therapies and healing practices from the University of Minnesota.

Osteopathy is a tradition of hands-on healing that aligns the body’s structure to promote optimal function and health. By opening blood flow, lymph drainage, and nervous system innervation to all tissues in the body, Osteopathic Manual Medicine can help facilitate recovery from almost any illness – including tick-borne disease.

Access the meeting on Zoom here:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86445852820?pwd=RGppRWVpR3A3VUdUU3dWWFNEMkwzZz09

Meeting ID: 864 4585 2820

Passcode: 675316

Learn more about MN Lyme Association here: https://mnlyme.org/

 

For more:

What Helps Improve Cognitive Function for Lyme Patients?

https://www.globallymealliance.org/blog/what-helps-improve-cognitive-function-for-lyme-patients

When Lyme disease bacteria (spirochetes) cross the blood-brain barrier, they can cause myriad neurological impairments and nervous system inflammation. Neurological Lyme disease can manifest as brain fog, memory loss, word and song iteration, confusion, anxiety and depression, sleep disturbancesand more. “Lyme brain” is terribly frustrating for patients who could once multitask, but now lose their train of thought mid-sentence, or can’t find their way to the store. Many have written to me to ask what helped me improve cognitive function. Here’s what helped the most:

  • Pharmaceutical treatment: Lyme is a bacterial infection, and you can’t improve cognitive function without killing the bacteria that’s causing it. Sometimes symptoms can get worse as bacteria die off faster than your body can eliminate them (a Herxheimer reaction), but in my experience, the payoff is worth the temporary increase in discomfort and decrease in capabilities. Your doctor may want you to pulse antibiotics in order to give your body time to recover. There are particular antibiotics that work best to penetrate the blood-brain barrier and improve cognitive symptoms. Because every single case of tick-borne illness is unique, there is no set protocol, but your Lyme Literate Medical Doctor (LLMD) can tailor one to your needs.
  • Supplements: Certain supplements can help reduce inflammation and neurotoxins. Glutathione and Essential Fatty Acids are two that are commonly used (but again, I can’t give specific medical advice; you need to check with your LLMD about which supplements, and what dosage, would be appropriate for you). I’m wary of doctors who sell supplements themselves (you want to make sure your health, not their financial gain, is their top priority). Though supplements may seem good because they’re “natural,” they can have side effects and contraindications, so don’t always assume that natural is better. For me, I’ve needed a combination of both pharmaceutical treatment and supplements to improve all of my symptoms of Lyme disease, babesiosis, and ehrlichiosis.
  • Rest: Your body needs adequate sleep to heal. This can be really hard to come by for Lyme patients, and it also can be aggravating and downright boring to be in bed all the time. But your body is working really hard to fight infection, and it needs all the rest it can get in order to do so. Even now, a decade into remission, I still can get neurologically overstimulated and experience a flare-up of cognitive symptoms. When that happens, I need to wind down, give myself some quiet time, and get extra sleep.
  • Anti-inflammatory foods: In my post “The Lyme Diet,” I discuss foods that help with reducing inflammation. There are good foods to avoid, like gluten and processed sugar, and good foods to include, like fruits, vegetables, and proteins. Certain foods have antioxidant properties. Whether eating them has helped my cognitive function, I can’t say for sure, but I know it hasn’t hurt, and I’ll take any excuse to have a piece of dark chocolate!
  • Pacing: It can be enticing to keep reading a book that you’re really into, or to binge watch a show, but doing either can be taxing on a Lyme-riddled brain. Often, I don’t know I’m overstimulated until it’s too late. I feel fine reading one page, and then another, and then all of a sudden, my head feels like it’s full of molasses. I’ve learned to stop while I’m ahead. You might tell yourself, “I have to stop reading after two pages, even if I feel fine, and rest for twenty minutes.” Eventually, as your infections get better, you’ll be able to do more, but you have to think of improving cognitive function as a marathon, not a sprint.
  • Making lists: Because memory can be so impacted by tick-borne illness, it can help to make to-do lists for each day. You can literally write down tasks like “shower” and “eat lunch,” and check them off when you’ve done them (it’s especially helpful to set reminders, either in writing or on your phone, to take your medications). Write out only what you can handle for one day at a time, and put other items on lists for later in the week. Remember to include self-care items, too, like “rest” or “take a bath.”
  • Neurofeedback: This non-invasive brain training program helps your brain to work optimally (the system I use is called Neuroptimal). I use it to help quiet my brain down; others use it to sharpen their thinking. The process uses your brain’s own information to figure out what it needs. It’s a relaxing process that involves watching kaleidoscope images on a screen (you can close your eyes if those feel overstimulating) and listening to gentle music while sensors are attached to your head. You’ll hear occasional skips in the music, which are signals that help your brain get back to its optimal state. Neuroptimal is great because it works on the whole brain at once. The neurofeedback practitioners I’ve worked with have cautioned against doing neurofeedback that only works on one section of the brain at once, saying this can actually worsen Lyme brain. I first got connected with my practitioner through a sleep clinic (which meant that sessions were covered by insurance). Your LLMD may want to do a sleep study, or refer you to a practitioner; you can also find one through the Neuroptimal site.
  • Body work/cranial sacral massage: I do a type of hands-on therapy called Integrative Manual Therapy, which encompasses cranial sacral therapy and neurofascial processing. This gentle, light touch helps lymphatic drainage, and often calms my limbic system Easing these symptoms reduces my brain fog, allowing for better cognitive function. Some physical therapists offer this type of therapy (which again means that insurance can cover it).
  • Play word and memory games: To help sharpen my brain (and keep me busy), a friend used to play writing games with me over email. He’d set rules such as, “Tell a story about a dog using only three syllable words” or “Tell me the name of someone we went to school with, and then come up with another using the first letter of that person’s last name.” I think these games helped improve my memory. It was nice to do them over email because I could take as long as I needed to complete them.
  • Recall the music or games of healthier times: Memory care units for the elderly sometimes use music therapy to help prompt long-term memory. People struggling with short-term memory are often able to recall and sing entire songs from their youth. In the midst of convalescence, I played an old card game, “Scrooge.” This elaborate version of double solitaire requires memory, quick thinking, and strategy. These were not functions that I could generally execute well in those darkest days of illness, but while playing that card game, I suddenly could. When I won handily, my opponent quipped, “There’s nothing wrong with that brain of yours!”
  • Limit stimulation: I quickly learned that loud noises, crowded rooms, and flashing screens would stimulate my brain to the point of shut down, and then brain fog would settle in. By limiting the amount of time I spent on screens, and avoiding particularly fast-paced shows, I was able to keep my brain calm so I could engage in other activities like writing and reading.
  • Accept that there will be setbacks: Healing from tick-borne illness is not linear. You will regain some cognitive function, and then have periods of brain fog, and then start improving again. Eventually, if you follow your doctor’s protocol and stick to some of these tips, you should start to see more good days than bad. I still sometimes struggle with cognitive issues, but they are slight now. When I was at my sickest, I couldn’t read or watch TV. I mixed up my words. My head ached. Now, I can write, teach, read and watch TV in short segments, and generally carry on with good cognitive functioning, so long as I work to maintain my health.
Writer

Jennifer Crystal

Writer

Opinions expressed by contributors are their own. Jennifer Crystal is a writer and educator in Boston. Her memoir about her medical journey is forthcoming. Contact her using her email.

Email: lymewarriorjennifercrystal@gmail.com

Contain and Eliminate: The American Medical Association’s Conspiracy To Destroy Chiropractic

Lyme/MSIDS patients often benefit from Chiropractic care.  Chiropractors need to be educated on tick-borne illnesses as they are often the first health practitioners sought after as many patients will not attribute their joint pain & other physical ailments to tick-borne illness.

This case report  demonstrates this as a patient seeing a chiropractor with joint popping with each articulation and a continual joint subluxation issue, was found to be infected with two strains of Bartonella.  I also had these symptoms in my knee.

Many are unaware that the first two years of chiropractic education is exactly the same as medical doctor education.
Many are also unaware of the history of collusion within the American Medical Association in attempting to destroy the chiropractic profession.

This is important history to know as the AMA is an extremely powerful organization with a ongoing history of vilifying anything considered competition (compounding pharmacies, naturopaths, homeopathy, herbalists, etc).  The saying, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” comes to mind.  

https://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/webcasts/20210218/archive_20210218.mp4  Webinar Here

https://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/o2.php?f_id=34  Book info here & to purchase

Finally – the Whole Truth about the AMA’s campaign to Contain and Eliminate Chiropractic
Contain and EliminateIn 1975, a whistleblower, who called himself “Sore Throat,” fed information about how the AMA’s Committee on Quackery was aiming to “contain and eliminate” a competing profession, chiropractic.
The new book, “Contain and Eliminate: The American Medical Association’s Conspiracy To Destroy Chiropractic,” answers previously unanswered questions about conspiracies within conspiracies involving the Church of Scientology v. the AMA and the AMA v. chiropractors in one of the longest antitrust cases in U.S. history.
 
This story has never been told in its entirety.

Louis Sportelli“CONTAIN AND ELIMINATE is a story that needs to be told not for revenge but for restoration and rehabilitation to the image of chiropractic which was disparaged and destroyed resulting in millions of patients who would never seek the services of a doctor of chiropractic because the image of the profession was so tarnished by the ACTIVITIES of the American Medical Association.” Who should get a copy of the book CONTAIN AND ELIMINATE? Everyone who has been either positively or negatively impacted by the decades of illegal activity of the American Medical Association.
From your interested patients, to your medical physician friends to your attorney and especially your library, this story needs to be shared with those who may never have understood the plight of the chiropractic profession and your struggle to survive.

Another book written by Wolinsky and worth checking out is The Serpent on the Staff: The Unhealthy Politics of the American Medical Association

6 Chiropractor-Approved Stretches to Help Relieve Upper-Back Pain

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/stretches-for-upper-back-pain

6 Chiropractor-Approved Stretches To Help Relieve Upper-Back Pain

Fancy ergonomic chair or not, spend any length of time at your desk—or slumped on the sofa with your laptop or phone—and you’ll start to feel the effects. Tension between the shoulder blades, tightness in the upper back and shoulders, and pain radiating along the neck are all symptoms of sitting for too long. Not to mention, you may notice other side effects like bad posture, neck strain, circulation issues, and even shallow breathing. And you’re not alone: The American Chiropractic Association reports that half of all working Americans experience back pain symptoms, and as much as 80% of the population will deal with back problems at some point in their lives. Factor in our largely sedentary lifestyles, and it starts to make sense.

Here’s the good news. In addition to keeping our muscles flexible and strong, stretching can help alleviate pain and tension so you can get on with your life. We spoke with Lynelle McSweeney, D.C., a holistic chiropractor in Reno, Nevada, for her input on the value of stretching and the most effective stretches for upper-back pain. (See link for article)

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