Archive for the ‘Psychological Aspects’ Category

Unique Chorus Giving Voice To People With Alzheimer’s

CBS This Morning

Published on Sep 1, 2018
People diagnosed with dementia often see their worlds narrow, becoming more homebound as their condition progresses. One program is giving patients a new and joyous way to step back into life, by literally giving voice to both patients and their caregivers.
Dr. Jonathan LaPook reports.
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Giving Voice inspires and equips organizations worldwide to bring together people with Alzheimer’s and their care partners to sing in choruses that foster joy, well-being, purpose and community understanding.
http://www.kimt.com/content/news/Meet-Resounding-Voices-choir-Music-has-a-power-481488831.html  Since May, 2018, a new chorus (Resounding Voices) for people with dementia & their caregivers, is meeting in Rochester, Minnesota.
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ROCHESTER, Minn. – Tuesday mornings for Joel Dunnette means music, friends, and a lot of fun.

“Frankly this group is fun. Singing together, making music with other people is fun. So I’m not good at it but they appreciate me being here which is nice,” he said.

This is all thanks to the Resounding Voices Choir. Joel is a member of the choir along with his wife, Sandra. While fun, the choir gives more than just a good time. It gives people with memory impairment and their caregivers a place to be social and help with memory.

The choir focuses on a person’s learning ability, rather than an inability to remember.

“Music has a power that you know, I come from a scientific background and it’s like we don’t know how this is working,” he said.
But it is working.

“I’ve noticed with my wife, she’s sharper after doing it, she’s happier after doing it,” Joel said. “I will hear her singing at home and there’s an enjoyment in that…I can see some of what I married 50 years ago.”

Resounding voices also helps Joel as a caregiver because he has the opportunity to hear and learn from other caregivers going through similar experiences.

“Times get a little hard. You got to take care of yourself so that you can take care of the other person,” he said. “You can always find some good in it. Even though there are things you wish were better you got to focus on what’s good.”

He encourages everyone to join in on what he calls, ‘the joyful noise.’

“If you have some memory loss, don’t hide away…get out of your house don’t be afraid, it’s a good friendly group. It’s a real opportunity to have a nicer, fun life,” he said.

To learn more about the choir, click here.  The chorus meets weekly and performs publicly.

 

 

Category:

Activism, Alzheimer's, Psychological Aspects

Neuropsychiatric Lyme Borreliosis: An Overview With a Focus on a Specialty Psychiatrist’s Clinical Practice

http://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/6/3/104

Neuropsychiatric Lyme Borreliosis: An Overview with a Focus on a Specialty Psychiatrist’s Clinical Practice

Robert C. Bransfield
Department of Psychiatry, Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA
Received: 10 July 2018 / Revised: 22 August 2018 / Accepted: 23 August 2018 / Published: 25 August 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lyme Disease: The Role of Big Data, Companion Diagnostics and Precision Medicine)
View Full-Text   |   Download PDF [316 KB, uploaded 25 August 2018]

Abstract

There is increasing evidence and recognition that Lyme borreliosis (LB) causes mental symptoms. This article draws from databases, search engines and clinical experience to review current information on LB. LB causes immune and metabolic effects that result in a gradually developing spectrum of neuropsychiatric symptoms, usually presenting with significant comorbidity which may include:

  • developmental disorders
  • autism spectrum disorders
  • schizoaffective disorders
  • bipolar disorder, depression
  • anxiety disorders (panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, intrusive symptoms)
  • eating disorders
  • decreased libido
  • sleep disorders
  • addiction
  • opioid addiction
  • cognitive impairments
  • dementia
  • seizure disorders
  • suicide
  • violence
  • anhedonia
  • depersonalization
  • dissociative episodes
  • derealization
  • other impairments
Screening assessment followed by a thorough history, comprehensive psychiatric clinical exam, review of systems, mental status exam, neurological exam and physical exam relevant to the patient’s complaints and findings with clinical judgment, pattern recognition and knowledgeable interpretation of laboratory findings facilitates diagnosis.
Psychotropics and antibiotics may help improve functioning and prevent further disease progression. Awareness of the association between LB and neuropsychiatric impairments and studies of their prevalence in neuropsychiatric conditions can improve understanding of the causes of mental illness and violence and result in more effective prevention, diagnosis and treatment. View Full-Text
Keywords: Lyme disease; Borrelia burgdorferi; tickborne diseases; persistent infection; treatment; assessment; depression; anxiety; sleep disorders; opioid addiction
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).
Bransfield, R.C. Neuropsychiatric Lyme Borreliosis: An Overview with a Focus on a Specialty Psychiatrist’s Clinical Practice. Healthcare2018, 6, 104.
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Category:

Lyme, Psychological Aspects, research, Treatment

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Earlier today I wrote about helping my husband try to unravel his crazy dreams.  This article shows this is not an individual occurrence but that many with neuro-Lyme struggle with it.

https://globallymealliance.org/sleep-perchance-dream/

August 2, 2018

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

by Jennifer Crystal

GLA writer and Lyme Warrior, Jennifer Crystal writes about her experience with “crazy dreams” as a result of neurological Lyme disease

Last night I had a dream that a college friend and I were attending a wedding. People from all walks of my life were there. I was running around trying to take care of my cousin’s baby while figuring out how to get on a boat.

When I later described the dream to a friend, she said, “That’s crazy!”

The dream did not seem crazy to me, given how crazy my dreams had once been as a result of neurological Lyme disease. When the Lyme bacterium, called a spirochete, crosses into the brain, it can cause a host of sleep disturbances, including insomnia and hallucinogenic dreams. My Lyme doctor said it was like the spirochetes had made the needle in my brain get stuck. He meant Lyme was making it impossible for me to sleep and, when I finally did doze off, causing vividly detailed rapid fire dreams—many of which were recurring. Some came in levels (there was a dream about me telling someone else about a previous dream); some that were so “active” that I woke up with sore muscles, more exhausted than when I went to bed. Inflammation in the brain caused by tick-borne illness is the reason for these sleep disturbances.

So dreams, like the one I described to my healthy friend, may have seemed crazy to her. But for a chronic neurological Lyme patient like me, it’s about as normal as I can hope to get. The dreams involved no major trauma, which often happens in the worst nightmares. There were no levels to the dream. That is, it wasn’t a lucid dream—I didn’t have the power to change the dream while I was experiencing it, something that often happens when the spirochetes are running rampant in my brain. Nor were they occurring at a hallucinogenic, rapid fire rate. The images were fuzzy and nonsensical, as most healthy dreams are.

Nights like the latter are a blessing to me now, 21 years after getting a tick bite that gave me Lyme disease, Ehrlichia and Babesia, and 10 years after suffering a relapse that brought me to the lowest point of these sleep disturbances.

Let me give you an example of one of my vivid, detailed dreams, recorded in my journal in 2005 (edited for clarity-notes are in parentheses):

I was driving to pick up my brother (I don’t really have a brother) in a police station that looked like a warehouse. The Dave Matthews song “Warehouse” was going through my head in the dream (and still is now that I’m awake). I was watching this scene like a movie. I saw my “brother” open a window upstairs and look down to see me in my car. It was like watching a detective movie. I realized he was able to open the window because it was a very old and rundown building that didn’t have air conditioning. Then I was no longer watching the dream as an observer, but was acting in as myself. I went upstairs to my “brother’s” office. He was on the phone with a Mrs. Vance who’d said she’d sent a check that had never arrived. When my “brother” said, “we send the money directly to the families,” I thought this was some kind of funeral home. Then I saw Mrs. Vance’s check  on the desk in front of me and also an envelope from her with $750 cash. I knew that $150 had been owed and that my” brother” was pocketing the other $600. When he hung up I started to say, “I won’t tell anyone,” but thought better of it because I thought he might kill me if he realized I knew what he was up to. He looked sort of wild and had these big sunglasses on. I said I was at a wedding and had come to pick him up because we needed someone who was good at having fun and pulling pranks and we knew he’d be the right person. He got excited and said, “Let’s go.” We went down the stairs and I realized he was the only one in the building. I asked if he always worked this late (even though it was still light out) and he said, “Well last week I only worked 98 hours.” We got outside and got in my car. I started driving but I couldn’t hit the brakes very well and kept almost crashing. I turned in to a gas station and said, “See, the turning radius isn’t even very good on this car, I can’t turn in to get to the right side of the pump.” My “brother” directed me. Then I was still in the dream, but once again not acting in it but instead watching it from afar like a scene. I said, “Wait, if I were in this dream, I wouldn’t want to have that” brother” with me because he’s bad.” So I replayed it so when he was on the phone I said, “I’m just going to go bring the car around.” Then I ran out and ran down the stairs and got in the car and locked the doors. I was trying to drive away before he came downstairs.

This is a good example of a detailed dream that has levels (at times I was in it, and at times I was observing it) and also one that becomes lucid (when I decide to change the course of the dream). Like most Lyme patients, I woke up so exhausted after a night of 15-20 of these types of dreams—all as detailed as this one, sometimes with a soundtrack or narration playing over them—that I didn’t have time or energy to process them. They were just another symptom that made it impossible for me to get the rest I needed. Most days, I woke up feeling hungover, like my brain was as a pinball machine.

For me and for other Lyme patients I’ve talked to, these crazy dreams are often mixed with hallucinogenic nightmares. For me, they involved trauma I’d never experienced in real life. I’d be burned alive or shot in an elevator. I’d be raped, sodomized, or stabbed. I always survived even though I shouldn’t have. I was afraid to tell anyone the details of those nightmares; I thought people would judge me for coming up with such ideas, or shake their heads and walk away because they didn’t want to hear about such horror.

With the help of my therapist, I found meaning in some of my dreams, such as the recurring one I described in this previous post. I learned that my nightmares were symbolic, too. The trauma in them were manifestations of things that had actually happened to my body. I wasn’t literally raped or sodomized, but my body had been violated, burned, and almost killed by spirochetes. And despite all odds, I had survived.

Eventually, with a combination of medications, neurofeedback, cranial sacral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and talk therapy, I got to a point where the dreams were still intense but not quite as detailed or awful or fast, at least not every night. I still have nights with rapid fire hallucinogenic nightmares, but they are the exception now, no longer the norm. And while the nightly activity in my brain is still busier than the average person’s, it’s manageable. The other night, I even woke myself up laughing in my sleep. There is light—even joy—at the end of the endless nights.

jennifer crystalOpinions expressed by contributors are their own.

Jennifer Crystal is a writer and educator in Boston. She is working on a memoir about her journey with chronic tick-borne illness. Contact her at jennifercrystalwriter@gmail.com

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**Comment**
While I don’t remember my dreams (they pale in comparison to my husband’s) I remember feeling guilty because I seemed to spend more time with my infected husband than I did with my three teenagers whom we were homeschooling.
The reason for all this time spent talking with my husband on a daily basis was due to the crazy, hallucinogenic dreams he had which made him believe I was having an affair.  I’d get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and he’d awaken and accuse me of just coming home from somewhere – obviously having an affair. (Please understand I was a homeschool mom who pretty much was home 24/7 teaching children!  If I left the house it was for activities with the children or the grocery store.)  
The arguments and craziness that this caused in our marriage is beyond believable.  We were seriously two crazy people trying to life in a paradigm that makes nightmares look normal.  
This complex illness causes needless divorces & family upheaval due to this erratic, unbelievable behavior.  Even though both of us were infected, our symptoms were very different – with his having more psychological manifestations.  Thankfully, I dug into the literature and read about neuro-Lyme and psychiatric manifestations.  I read everything I could get my hands on by Drs. Bransfield, Marke, and Frid.  I learned that rage, hallucinations, depression, and even suicide can be a part of the Lyme/MSIDS picture.  I learned about the importance of effective treatment that kills pathogens while strengthening the immune system and properly detoxing the body from the dead debris.
Reading articles like Jennifer’s takes me back to a frightening time in my journey, but I’m happy to report those days are long gone and that effective treatment along with the hard work of discussing problems/issues as they came up worked.  (Please type “Lyme Disease treatment” into the search bar for more info)
We are still together after all these years with a new appreciation for life we never would have had without this valley.
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/02/24/pcos-lyme-my-story/  All my initial symptoms were gynecological and I believe many of these TBI’s can be transmitted sexually.

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Psychological Aspects, Transmission, Treatment

The 3 PANS Myths That Are Ruining Lives

https://thedreamingpanda.com/2018/07/11/3-myths-about-pans-ruining-lives-causing-controversy/  From The Dreaming Panda, pen name, Iris Ainsley

These 3 Myths about PANS Are Ruining Lives: A Response to Misguided Medicine

PUBLISHED ON July 11, 2018, reprinted with permission

In 2012, when I developed an extreme case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder overnight, all I wanted was to get better—not to spend the next six years fighting to get treatment for a “controversial” disease. However, when conventional therapies failed, and I rapidly declined after Strep and mono two years later, only steroids were able to help my severe psychiatric symptoms. It was then that I realized the truth wasn’t always easy to accept:

I DIDN’T HAVE A MENTAL ILLNESS—I HAD A POORLY UNDERSTOOD CONDITION CALLED PANS.

Because it’s a physical illness that attacks the brain, even though it can look identical to mental diagnoses like OCD, Tourette’s, anorexia, and even psychotic disorders, therapy and psychotropic medication aren’t enough—at best, they’re a bandaid. Yet most doctors don’t understand this, and people can spend years getting ineffective and inappropriate psychiatric care when medical treatment could’ve cured them.

Unfortunately, a recent paper published in the Journal of Pediatrics has thrown up a roadblock for the PANS community’s tireless efforts to improve a desperate situation that affects at least 1 in 200 children and teens—plus untold numbers of adults like me who grew up and slipped through the cracks. In a time when we’ve finally gained some ground with doctors treating it at the NIH, Stanford, Yale, Columbia, Georgetown, and more, it felt like a slap in the face.

The paper’s conclusions go against all of the expert-recommended treatments that have saved my life, including IVIG, steroids, and antibiotics (collectively referred to as “immunomodulation” in the publication). It perpetuates myths rather than advancing science, while underscoring the sharp divide between doctors in academia and doctors in the trenches getting people better.

Although I don’t expect to change the authors’ minds with this post, as an anonymous blogger with a mere bachelor’s degree, I feel it’s important to speak up against three particularly egregious points in the paper so that maybe other researchers will take notice and do a better job promulgating scientific inquiry…

PANS IS NOT A MILD ILLNESS.

The most troubling aspect of the article in my opinion is what the authors seem to think defines “PANDAS/PANS.” One of the most revealing quotes says:

“We recommend that clinicians do not perform the PANDAS/PANS medical diagnostic testing in otherwise healthy children with mild to moderate, nondisabling OCD or tics. In our experience, this is the majority of children referred for PANDAS or PANS.”

It’s true that some cases of PANS/PANDAS can be mild, but if the authors think most cases of PANS are mild, then I question if they’ve ever really seen it.

I’ve lived this disease myself for over eleven years, I’ve talked to dozens of families, and I can say that our PANS is not their PANS…

  • PANS is the quiet five-year-old girl who suddenly grows violent towards her fellow kindergarteners, can no longer go to school, starts wetting the bed and using diapers again, and can only wear one dress because all other clothes make her skin feel on-fire.
  • PANS is the grade-school boy who develops an eating disorder out of nowhere, can only eat small amounts of soft foods, loses 15% of his already slender body weight, has constant pain from incessant tics and twitches, and breaks down into tears and tantrums whenever his parents leave his sight.
  • PANS is the bright teenager who can no longer do basic math, whose handwriting is suddenly illegible, who spends four hours getting ready every morning, and who has to sleep with her parents because of nightmares and terrifying nighttime hallucinations.
  • And let’s not forget that PANS is also the adult who has spent most of his life in and out of psych wards and group homes, who has a dozen psychiatric and neurological diagnoses, who has tried every medication imaginable with little success, and who can’t finish school or hold a job.

PANS is debilitating, all-consuming, and, quite frankly, it’s hell on earth. It’s anything but “non-disabling OCD and tics.” And for the many with restrictive eating—one of the main diagnostic criteria for PANS—they are absolutely NOT physically healthy, either.

I’ve met all of the above people, and when no psychiatric interventions were enough, antibiotics, steroids, and IVIG—the very treatments the authors dismiss—brought them back to life.

PANS ISN’T AN EXCUSE TO AVOID PSYCHIATRIC CARE.

I’m also concerned that the authors don’t understand that many of us have already tried every traditional psychiatric treatment under the sun—and we’re still sick…

“The diagnosis of PANDAS or PANS distracts families from pursuing clinically important psychiatric and behavioral interventions and sometimes leads to inappropriate, expensive, and risky treatments.”

Personally, I tried every anti-depressant that exists plus years of therapy. True, some of it helped me to a degree, but nothing was able to save me when I truly lost my mind and fell off a cliff in 2014…

I woke up with wild involuntary movements all over my body. Rage. Panic attacks. Cognitive decline. Hallucinations. Delusions. Suicidal depression. Loss of coordination. Inability to focus. Constantly falling asleep all day long. In short, I completely lost who I was as a person, and doctors said they had nothing else to help me.

Pursuing a PANS diagnosis wasn’t a way to avoid psychological care—it was a last resort and a Hail Mary to save me from intractable symptoms. PANS families would love nothing more than for mainstream psychiatric interventions to be enough, and they’re often the first thing families have tried before moving onto the so-called “expensive and risky” medical treatments.

Why would any loving parent in their right mind subject their child to needles and IV sticks and hospitalizations for procedures like plasmapheresis, IVIG, and Rituxan? Why would your average middle-class family risk their financial security to travel hundreds of miles to go to out-of-network doctors and pay out of pocket for the multi-thousand-dollar aforementioned treatments?

The above quote from the paper seems like a gaslighting of parents who are doing everything they can to get their critically ill children better—parents who have already tried every psychiatric intervention known to humankind.

As it turns out, for me and many others, the only “distractions” are the psychiatric treatments—a few days of steroids helped me more than eight years of psychotropic medication and therapy. I took 50 mg of Prednisone for five days in 2014, and all my symptoms abated. Two IVIG procedures later made the effect more permanent.

COMPLETELY DISMISSING CLINICAL EXPERIENCE IS MISGUIDED.

“There is scant scientific evidence that the treatment of tics, OCD, presumed PANDAS or PANS with antibiotics or immunomodulation is effective… The immunotherapy guidelines are based on ‘the expert opinions and clinical experiences of the members of the PANS Research Consortium.’ Thus, none of these guidelines followed standard practices for unbiased systematic review of the evidence…

We strongly emphasize that it is essential that the treating physician be cognizant of the lack of evidence supporting treatment recommendations when considering whether or not to follow the PANS Research Consortium’s recommendations, especially regarding immunomodulation.”

This, right here, is the fundamental flaw and most appalling offense of the whole paper. The authors completely dismiss the empirical evidence for the treatments that PANS experts successfully use to get their patients better.

In all fairness, when I combed through the article, I found many compelling points about everything we don’t know about PANS. And I think members of the Consortium—the doctors who are effectively treating PANS—would be the first to admit that we’re only in the infancy of understanding the connection between the immune system and psychiatric disorders. No one denies that we desperately need more randomized, placebo-controlled studies to validate the treatments that the Consortium recommends.

However, there are thousands of people suffering today that can’t wait for enough studies to be funded and executed to rewrite the medical textbooks.

People with PANS are hurting right now, and doctors in the Consortium have put their reputations on the line to find treatments that can help. The greatest medical advancements come from clinical experience that is later corroborated through placebo-controlled studies.

If doctors must rely solely on published medical studies and can’t trust clinical experience, then a doctor on their first day in private practice who has read many journals is just as good as a doctor who has practiced for fifty years at a world-class hospital. Clearly, this can’t be the case… Or do the authors simply believe that the only clinical experience that can be trusted is their own?

A good scientist should take an unbiased approach to evaluating how best to treat PANS by stepping back and asking why the Consortium’s immunotherapy treatments have helped people. And if there are studies that contradict the testimonies of dedicated doctors and hundreds of patients, then how are people getting better? What are we doing differently in the studies versus real life? Are there any alternative explanations? Is there something we haven’t yet discovered that could explain it?

Until everyone lets go of their personal biases, science cannot progress. In the meantime, those of us with this tragically misunderstood condition are caught in the crosshairs of controversy, with no choice but to pursue newly discovered treatments when the more established therapies have failed.

If the authors are right that immunomodulation doesn’t work, and all of the improvements in people who have had it could be attributed to psychiatric interventions, then the worst that’s happening now is that families using these treatments are wasting some time and money—but the kids are still coming out the other side with their lives intact.

If, however, the authors are wrong, and PANS is a real disease that can only be cured with antibiotics and/or immune therapies, then there are thousands of people needlessly suffering from a treatable medical problem. The implications of this, with the loss of human potential, the burden on families, and the wasting of already scant mental health resources, is incalculable.

As an adult who evaded diagnosis for eight years, and who knows full well that I might not be alive without immunomodulation and antibiotics, I urge whatever scientists may read this to all work together to help us figure out this devastating disease.

My illness has no regard for medical politics and the status quo of mental healthcare—what people like me need is effective treatments and competent doctors. I challenge any clinician faced with a family seeking help for suspected PANS to listen and think critically before dismissing us. And I admonish all of you to put aside your biases and use your expertise to help those of us looking to people like you to restore our lives.

Follow me:  Facebook – The Dreaming Panda Blog:  https://www.facebook.com/The-Dreaming-Panda-Blog-1941754169186141/
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/dreamingpanda1

https://thedreamingpanda.com/whats-pandas/  A great read on what exactly PANDAS/PANS is.

https://thedreamingpanda.com/my-story/  Iris’s story.

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**Comment**

According to one prominent Wisconsin LLMD, 80% of his PANDAS/PANS patients has Lyme/MSIDS.  It’s not uncommon for patients to suffer with numerous pathogens and require numerous treatment modalities.

For more:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/12/01/guidelines-for-treating-pans-its-real/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/07/28/stories-of-pandas/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/08/misdiagnosed-how-children-with-treatable-medical-issues-are-mistakenly-labeled-as-mentally-ill/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/06/30/child-with-lymemsidspans-told-by-doctors-she-made-it-all-up/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/09/today-is-panspandas-awareness-day/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/01/panspandas-steroids-autoimmune-disease-lymemsids-the-need-for-medical-collaboration/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2015/10/06/november-dr-brown-on-msids-pandas-pans/

Category:

Activism, PANS, Psychological Aspects, research, Treatment

Risky Business: Linking T. gondii & Entrepreneurship Behaviors

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/285/1883/20180822

Risky business: linking Toxoplasma gondii infection and entrepreneurship behaviours across individuals and countries

Stefanie K. Johnson, Markus A. Fitza, Daniel A. Lerner, Dana M. Calhoun, Marissa A. Beldon, Elsa T. Chan, Pieter T. J. Johnson
Published 25 July 2018.DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2018.0822

Abstract

Disciplines such as business and economics often rely on the assumption of rationality when explaining complex human behaviours. However, growing evidence suggests that behaviour may concurrently be influenced by infectious microorganisms. The protozoan Toxoplasma gondii infects an estimated 2 billion people worldwide and has been linked to behavioural alterations in humans and other vertebrates. Here we integrate primary data from college students and business professionals with national-level information on cultural attitudes towards business to test the hypothesis that T. gondii infection influences individual- as well as societal-scale entrepreneurship activities. Using a saliva-based assay, we found that students (n = 1495) who tested IgG positive for T. gondii exposure were 1.4× more likely to major in business and 1.7× more likely to have an emphasis in ‘management and entrepreneurship’ over other business-related emphases. Among professionals attending entrepreneurship events, T. gondii-positive individuals were 1.8× more likely to have started their own business compared with other attendees (n = 197). Finally, after synthesizing and combining country-level databases on T. gondii infection from the past 25 years with the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor of entrepreneurial activity, we found that infection prevalence was a consistent, positive predictor of entrepreneurial activity and intentions at the national scale, regardless of whether previously identified economic covariates were included. Nations with higher infection also had a lower fraction of respondents citing ‘fear of failure’ in inhibiting new business ventures. While correlational, these results highlight the linkage between parasitic infection and complex human behaviours, including those relevant to business, entrepreneurship and economic productivity.

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**Comment**

I’ve always been fascinated with parasites.  Call me crazy – maybe I have them….

The take home here is that parasites can affect behavior.  This is important for Lyme/MSIDS patients to know as a tick’s gut is a literal garbage can full of bizarre and complex creatures that feast on the human body, wreaking all manner of havoc.

In Lyme circles, it won’t take long before you hear patients stating that they aren’t feeling well and then within the same breath, state it’s due to a full-moon.

For a number of reasons, Lyme/MSIDS patients can be coinfected with T. gondii.  While food, congenital, blood transfusions, and organ transplants are the common route of transmission, sexual transmission is theorized.  Also, people can get it from cleaning a cat’s litterbox and then not washing their hands well.  If you go to the following link, you will read of a case of a person with Lyme and Toxoplasmosis:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/05/21/toxoplasmosis/  This article will also reveal T. gondii is responsible for about 1/5 of schizophrenia cases.  Women carrying IgG antibodies when giving birth have a greater risk for self-harm.  The article also gives testing and treatment options.  

It’s a common parasite:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/06/20/brazil-569-confirmed-cases-of-toxoplasmosis-of-which-50-are-pregnant-women/

And lastly, I’ll never forget this information on how parasites affect human behavior by Dr. Klinghardt, which I found here:  http://www.betterhealthguy.com/a-deep-look-beyond-lyme

  • Parasite patients often express the psyche of the parasites – sticky, clingy, impossible to tolerate – but a wonderful human being is behind all of that.

  • We are all a composite of many personalities. Chronic infections outnumber our own cells by 10:1. We are 90% “other” and 10% “us”. Our consciousness is a composite of 90% microbes and 10% us.

  • Our thinking, feeling, creativity, and expression are 90% from the microbes within us. Patients often think, crave, and behave as if they are the parasite.

  • Our thinking is shaded by the microbes thinking through us. The food choices, behavioral choices, and who we like is the thinking of the microbes within us expressing themselves.

  • Patients will reject all treatments that affect the issue that requires treating.

  • Patients will not guide themselves to health when the microbes have taken over.

With this information in mind, it’s quite clear how Lyme/MSIDS is such a complex disease as many are dealing not only with Lyme but other coinfections including parasites which are either directly transmitted by a tick or activated due to a dysfunctional immune system.

This article has a lot of great info regarding parasites:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/03/removing-parasites-to-fix-lyme-chronic-illnesses-dr-jay-davidson/

as well as this one:  http://drallisonhofmann.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/TownsendLetter-Parasitosis.pdf

Please consider parasites and discuss with your medical practitioner.

Category:

Lyme, Parasites, Psychological Aspects, research, Testing, Ticks, Toxoplasmosis, Transmission, Treatment