It is possible to improve your energy and fatigue in chronic Lyme disease, tick-borne infections, mold toxicity, and other illnesses by improving the function of the cell power factories called mitochondria. For many with fatiguing illnesses, the mitochondria get injured and do not produce enough energy. However, there are effective steps that fix the damage and give energy back.
Mitochondria are the energy factories found in every cell in the body. By some estimates, there are nearly 400 per cell. In chronic Lyme disease or in toxicity issues, due to oxidative stress the mitochondria can be injured, leading to fatigue that will not improve. In oxidative stress, chemicals build up that can damage membranes and even the DNA genetic material of mitochondria.
As power factories, mitochondria create a type of cell fuel called ATP. The fuel sources for mitochondria are fat and sugar, and both need to be transported to the inside of the mitochondria. ATP is created when fat and sugar are burned through several chemical reactions called the citric acid cycle and another process called oxidative phosphorylation.
Transport of fat and sugar into mitochondria requires a healthy mitochondria membrane. Oxidative phosphorylation also requires a healthy membrane. When the membranes are injured through oxidative stress, sugar and fat fuel sources for ATP cannot reach the inside of the mitochondria. Electron transfer in oxidative phosphorylation that leads to most ATP production is also blocked. Mitochondria membrane injury leads to low cell ATP and thus, fatigue. (See link for article and video)
How to Fix Muscle Wasting in Tick-Borne Infections and Mold Toxicity
Causes of Muscle Wasting in Lyme, Tick-borne Infections, & Mold Toxicity
By Dr. Marty Ross
Muscle wasting in tick-borne infections, like Lyme disease, and mold toxicity has a number of different causes.
Increased cytokines from white blood cells fighting the infections or toxins, can lead to muscle wasting.
Decreased physical activity leading to muscle atrophy and loss of muscle mass.
Nerve injury from Lyme and Bartonella leads to muscle mass loss. In addition to sending electric signals that make muscles move, nerves also release chemicals that maintain muscle mass.
Mitochondrial energy factory dysfunction can also lead to muscle mass loss. Mitochondria are the energy factories in each cell.
Mast Cell Activation Syndrome in Infections & Mold Toxicity
Updated 1/8/24 with a new video and new information on
KPV peptide and
low dose naltrexone.
What is Mast Cell Activation Syndrome?
Are you reacting to a lot of things that you eat or take for your infections or toxicity? Are your environmental sensitivities or allergies getting worse? It could be Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS).
Mast cells are immune system cells found throughout the body. In the past, in medicine we thought they were only turned on to release histamines in allergic reactions. However we now know that they are turned on by a host of things like:
Lyme and other tick-borne infections,
Covid-19,
mold toxicity,
intestinal yeast overgrowth,
things that trigger allergies called allergens,
inflammation chemicals called cytokines,
drugs,
molds and fungae,
proteins,
toxins,
stress through an adrenal gland stimulating chemical called corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH),
Is your home making you sick? Here’s how to check for mold.
The International Society for Environmentally Acquired Illness (ISEAI) Indoor Environmental Professional (IEP) Committee has released a Mold Testing Guideto educate patients with diagnosed or probable environmentally acquired illness.
It includes five common test types, do-it-yourself and professional approaches, and how to get help to assess and improve your home’s indoor air quality.
Environmentally acquired illness (EAI) refers to chronic health problems caused by exposure to unhealthy indoor air, mold and other biotoxins, Lyme disease and other persistent infections, and toxicants found in the environment.
Understanding Mold Exposure and Your Health
Awareness about mold’s effect on human health, and indoor air quality in general, has been increasing over the past few years. Several types of illnesses may be caused by exposure to mold and other toxins in damp buildings and they can often become complex and chronic, with symptoms similar to Lyme disease and its co-infections.
Mold exposure from damp buildings may lead to chronic inflammation and can be a primary exposure factor in the clinical presentation of individuals suffering from a variety of chronic health issues due to environmental exposures.
A medically-sound indoor environmental professional is often needed to help sensitive patients, but worth it. Some patients with Lyme disease may find it more difficult to heal in an unhealthy building that is affected by mold.
Unfortunately, there are currently no US Federal or State regulated levels set for indoor mold exposures and interpretation of environmental sample data can be very subjective and vary from one professional to another.
The Mold Testing Guidecan help educate patients and physicians about this important topic.
A Healthy Indoor Environment
ISEAI feels that a healthy indoor environment is free of water damage, fungal and microbial growth, and byproducts of that growth (mycotoxins, mVOCs, fragments).
That said, there is no such thing as a truly “mold free” home, since fungal spores exist in the natural outdoor environment. A goal is to maintain an indoor environment that resembles the natural outdoor environment as much as possible, without undue elevations.
In addition to a thorough visual assessment by a professional, the results of environmental testing such as mold testing may allow sensitive patients to better understand their exposure levels, and take appropriate action if needed.
About ISEAI
ISEAI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization co-founded by 350+ clinician members to raise awareness about the environmental causes of complex chronic illness and to advance the care of patients through clinical practice, education and research. Their vision is a world where a wide range of clinicians have the knowledge and skills to diagnose and treat the root causes of debilitating complex chronic and inflammatory illnesses.
About the IEP Committee
ISEAI’s IEP Committee is a group of highly credentialed and experienced indoor environmental professionals who have specialized experience with medically-sensitive patients. The Committee reports to the ISEAI Board of Directors and provides education to clinicians and the public on topics of mold, indoor air quality and contaminants.
Additional Resources
ISEAI’s Resources Page includes other IEP Committee documents such as the Mold Remediation Factsheet and a directory of medically-sound IEPs and clinicians.
Marty Ross MD presents nine hacks for Lyme and tick borne disease. Watch this video and Powerpoint presentation to find real ways to improve your health.
This is a second recording of a video Powerpoint presentation first delivered to the Canadian Lyme Disease Research Network Virtual 2023 Awareness Event on May 23, 2023.
Watch Dr. John Aucott’s update on latest Lyme disease research
Dr. John Aucott, Director of the Johns Hopkins Lyme Disease Research Center, recently delivered an overview of Lyme and other tick-borne disease research. You can watch a replay of his presentation below.
What follows is the introduction to Dr. Aucott by Shireen Rusby, one of the founders of Maryland’s Lyme Care Resource Center.
May is Lyme disease awareness month. Like any “awareness” effort, the intent is to increase the attention to and appreciation for the subject. In the case of Lyme disease there is a particularly powerful irony to the concept of awareness. Lyme disease is an illness that is often hidden and its symptoms unrecognized, yet the patient can be so overwhelmed that there is little reprieve from the self-awareness that dominates each day.
Those of us living with Lyme disease, as well as those living with many other long-term, hidden health conditions, have experienced very similar scenarios – the body’s natural inclination toward homeostasis is challenged.
Balance becomes harder to achieve and maintain. Lyme has imbalanced us, COVID has imbalanced us, ME/CFS has imbalanced us, dysautonomia and POTS have imbalanced us. So while our bodies, minds and spirits are making constant efforts to balance and rebalance physically, mentally and emotionally, what is the impact of stressors on a system that is already experiencing overload?
Well, that’s a whole thesis in and of itself and we’re not going to cover it tonight. But there is one stressor that we can increase “awareness” of this evening. For members of the Lyme community and those of other hidden illnesses, the challenges of dysfunctional homeostasis are compounded by the emotional strain of invalidation.
What interferes with healing
When we then begin to doubt our own reality, we make efforts to normalize the abnormal state of our being and that in turn leads to an even greater maladaptive response and further interferes with healing.
In his book, Conquering Lyme Disease, Dr. Brian Fallon states: “The experience of being disbelieved and misrepresented over and over is inherently traumatizing. Some patients…have identified this atmosphere of disbelief (and the resulting social isolation and self-doubt) as the single most stressful aspect of their illness experience.”
Some of you may have seen the movie Avatar. It is a futuristic story of human beings landing on another planet and attempting to conquer the native people of that land. When greeting each other, these natives to whom we are supposedly superior, look each other in the eye and say, “I see you.”
This simple phrase encapsulates much of our ongoing struggle in the medical world. It speaks to a fundamentally necessary component of the practitioner-patient relationship that is at times absent in this journey with invisible illness.
Many medical professionals may not know where to turn when blood work looks normal and verifiable analytical tools fail to provide objective evidence. The simple truth, however, is that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That quote, often attributed to the astrophysicist Carl Sagan, can serve as an incredibly powerful guiding principle when it comes to illnesses like Lyme disease.
The art of inquiry
Our lack of comprehensive and neatly packaged scientific proof need not preclude our awareness and acknowledgement of the situation. Rather, this is an opportunity for us to practice the art of inquiry as the necessary first step on the path of healing.
And certainly, there is no one path of healing in illnesses as complex as Lyme disease, and that adds to the challenge for both the patient and the practitioner. The fractured Western paradigm of medicine, in its tendency to compartmentalize and classify health as black or white, present or absent, positive or negative often fails to recognize the holistic nature of human suffering.
But the path of healing is first paved with recognition of and respect for the imbalanced body, mind and spirit.
Our journey to regain and retain balance begins again each day. In paving this path let us remember to turn toward the light especially when it seems dark, and let us use the tools of compassion and understanding to help one another.
Fostering awareness of this hidden yet ever-growing health pandemic will increase the opportunities for healing, and will turn the tide against the history of glaring invisibility and deafening silence.
We have as our guest speaker tonight someone who has made it his mission to foster the awareness of Lyme disease. He has paved the path of healing for countless Lyme warriors with sound practices and with stellar science.
John Aucott and his amazing team at the Lyme Disease Research Center, have partnered with many, first and foremost with the patients they serve, to produce the scientific evidence necessary to authenticate many of our struggles – struggles which we have experienced for months, years or even decades, while seeking out the rare practitioner like him who looks at us and says “I see you.”
For your endless support, for your validation of what we endure, and for your ongoing efforts to find the evidence that may have once seemed absent –we offer our endless gratitude.
LCRC May 2023: Advances in Lyme Disease and Tickborne Disease Research
Dr. Aucott will be discussing research advances in Lyme Disease and Tickborne Diseases, including an update on diagnostics, potential biomarkers, advanced neuroimaging, and future treatments.
Madison Area Lyme Support Group 