Archive for the ‘research’ Category

Bartonella Vectors

  Published on Jul 14, 2016
Dr. Tom Mather and Dr. Ed Breitschwerdt on the growing risks of tick and flea exposure from “Healthy Body, Healthy Minds” with special thanks to ITV productions.

Bartonella is a formidable coinfection for many Lyme/MSIDS patients.  Symptoms are largely associated with where blood flow is compromised:

Skin rashes (stretch-mark-like), cysts, heartburn, abdominal pain, chest pain, gastritis, duodentis, mesenteric adenitis, psychological issues (anxiety, anger, suicidal thoughts, depression, irritability), pain in the soles of the feet, skin tags and red papules, endocarditis, acute encephalopathy, seizures, visual and auditory hallucinations, ocular floaters, fatigue, partial paralysis, laryngitis, severe confusion, difficulty swallowing, muscle weakness, and vasculitis that occurs anywhere in the body which can destroy blood vessels.  For a longer list of symptoms see: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2011/09/25/the-bartonella-checklist-copyrighted-2011-james-schaller-md-version-11/

Since it exists in very low amounts in human blood, blood tests are unreliable. It also has a long division time between 22-24 hours and requires a special growth environment. There is a Triple Draw through Galaxy which collects blood over 8 days to maximize the test, stating a 90% reduction in false negatives.

http://townsendletter.com/July2015/bartonellosis0715_3.html   Vectors include fleas and flea feces, biting flies such as sand flies and horn flies, the human body louse, mosquitoes, mites, and ticks; through bites and scratches of reservoir hosts; and potentially from needles and syringes in the drug addicted. Needle stick transmission to veterinarians has been reported. There is documentation that cats have received it through blood transfusion.

Bartonella has recently been found in winged adult deer keds in Finland:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24901607/?i=4&from=/23104416/related

Moose as reservoirs, deer keds as vectors in Norway:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23104416/?i=2&from=/26967131/related

Bartonella infection in southern Finnish moose was 90.6% (inside the deer ked zone), while northern Finnish moose was 55.9% (outside the deer ked zone). At least two species of bartonellae were identified.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26967131/

Just what are deer keds?  In the fly family (6 legs), they will chuck their wings as soon as they land on a host to suck blood more easily.  http://www.tickencounter.org/tick_notes/tick_notes_deer_keds

For more on Bartonella:

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/08/09/a-bartonella-story/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/01/03/bartonella-treatment/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/02/11/bartonellosis-needs-a-one-health-approach/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/03/06/doctor-with-bartonella/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/02/16/gardasil-vasculitis-msids/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/04/24/gardasil-and-bartonella/

Category:

Bartonella, research, Ticks, Transmission

Transmission Time For Lyme/MSIDS Infection

An oft quoted dogma currently exists that states you can not get infected with Lyme or the various coinfections that typically come with it if you get the tick off within a window of  24-48 hours.

FALSE!

Transmission Time:
  • A study done on mice showed that at 24 hours every tick had transmitted borrelia to the mice; however, animal studies have proven that transmission can occur in under 16 hours and it occurs frequently in under 24 hours
  • No human studies have been done
  • No studies have determined the minimum time it takes for transmission  Source

A 2018 study by Eisen et al. found the risk of infection increases:

  • 10% after a tick has been attached for 48 hours
  • 50% after 63 – 67 hours
  • 70% by 72 hours
  • 90% for a complete feed
Partially fed ticks and spirochetes in the salivary glands

There’s also the issue of partially fed ticks transmitting more quickly:

Coinfections

It’s important to note that ticks typically carry more than just borrelia and transmission times have not been studied for many of these pathogens, let alone the combined effect:   https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/05/01/co-infection-of-ticks-the-rule-rather-than-the-exception/ and https://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-basics/co-infections/about-co-infections/

  • Several studies have shown that the Powassan virus can be transmitted within 15 minutes of tick attachment
  • Anaplasmosis and Borrelia miyamotoi can be transmitted within the first 24 hours of attachment, explains
  • Partially fed Amblyomma aureolatum (Gulf Coast ticks) have been shown to transmit Rickettsia rickettsii in as little as 10 minutes 

Transmission with more than one pathogen is associated with more severe illness and renders antibiotics less effective. Tick Borne Viruses can be transmitted in minutes.

In the following video microbiologist Holly Ahern explains how the 24-48 window myth has been inappropriately used and is keeping people from getting diagnosed and treated.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.wordpress.com/2016/12/07/igenex-presentation/? Bob Giguere of IGeneX states a case of a little girl who went outside to play about 8:30a.m. and came inside at 10:30 with an attached tick above her right eye. By 2 o’clock, she had developed the facial palsy. At the hospital she was told it couldn’t be Lyme as the tick hadn’t been attached long enough. They offered a neuro-consult…..

By 4pm she couldn’t walk or talk.

A Lyme literate doctor trained by ILADS met the family in his office on a Saturday, gave her an intramuscular injection of antibiotics and within 2 hours the palsy was gone. He continued her treatment for approximately 4 weeks.

One thing we can all agree upon is the probability of infection increases the longer the tick is attached, but to keep people from life-saving drugs that could keep them from a life-time of misery due transmission dogma is unjustifiable.

Category:

Lyme, research, Ticks, Transmission

Comparing Lyme Testing with HIV Testing

https://www.dovepress.com/application-of-bayesian-decision-making-to-laboratory-testing-for-lyme-peer-reviewed-article-IJGM  Michael J Cook, Basant K Puri

Independent Researcher, Highcliffe, Department of Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London, London, UK

Abstract: In this study, Bayes’ theorem was used to determine the probability of a patient having Lyme disease (LD), given a positive test result obtained using commercial test kits in clinically diagnosed patients. In addition, an algorithm was developed to extend the theorem to the two-tier test methodology. Using a disease prevalence of 5%–75% in samples sent for testing by clinicians, evaluated with a C6 peptide enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), the probability of infection given a positive test ranged from 26.4% when the disease was present in 5% of referrals to 95.3% when disease was present in 75%. When applied in the case of a C6 ELISA followed by a Western blot, the algorithm developed for the two-tier test demonstrated an improvement with the probability of disease given a positive test ranging between 67.2% and 96.6%. Using an algorithm to determine false-positive results, the C6 ELISA generated 73.6% false positives with 5% prevalence and 4.7% false positives with 75% prevalence. Corresponding data for a group of test kits used to diagnose HIV generated false-positive rates from 5.4% down to 0.1% indicating that the LD tests produce up to 46 times more false positives. False-negative test results can also influence patient treatment and outcomes. The probability of a false-negative test for LD with a single test for early-stage disease was high at 66.8%, increasing to 74.9% for two-tier testing. With the least sensitive HIV test used in the two-stage test, the false-negative rate was 1.3%, indicating that the LD test generates ~60 times as many false-negative results. For late-stage LD, the two-tier test generated 16.7% false negatives compared with 0.095% false negatives generated by a two-step HIV test, which is over a 170-fold difference. Using clinically representative LD test sensitivities, the two-tier test generated over 500 times more false-negative results than two-stage HIV testing.

**More on Lyme testing and test interpretation:  https://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-basics/lyme-disease/diagnosis/

Category:

Lyme, research, Testing

Hidden Invaders: Infections Can Trigger Immune Attacks on Kids’ Brains Provoking Devastating Psychiatric Disorders

http://discovermagazine.com/2017/april-2017/hidden-invaders  By Pamela Weintraub Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Hidden Invaders:  Infections can trigger immune attacks on kids’ brains, provoking devastating psychiatric disorders.

Please read Weintraub’s detailed article in link above about seven year old Paul who changed over night, due to pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome (PANS).  

“PANS is thought to be an inflammatory condition that results when an infection or some other invasive trigger spurs the body to turn on itself and attack structures in the brain. For years, scientists had focused on a single infection — group A streptococcal disease — that produced antibodies that attacked the part of the forebrain involved in forming habits, resulting in OCD. Today, the paradigm has widened into a much bigger idea that expands our understanding of psychiatric disease: A whole host of infections and other unknown triggers lead to the production of antibodies and immune cells that can cross into the brain. Depending on where these immune responses land and which brain structures they block, erode or destroy, a range of psychiatric ills can result. In one person, it could be OCD; in the next, it could be hyperactivity and inattention, anxiety, restricted eating, even hallucinations or autistic behavior.”

A prominent Wisconsin Lyme literate doctor states that 80% of his PANS children are also infected with Lyme/MSIDS.  They respond and improve with antibiotics, diet change, probiotics, and other supplements to improve immune function.  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/02/13/lyme-disease-treatment/ According to Weintraub, researchers are trying to find the right treatment that stops inflammation and immune dysfunction due to rogue antibodies that attack the brain.

Weintraub also reports that strep infections can cause neuropsychiatric symptoms.  One psychiatrist found that some patients right after a strep infection could develop OCD and eating disorders.  She also found that children with OCD from PANDAS had toxic behavior reactions to typical medications that helped those with standard OCD showing the two groups were not equal.  In studying 43 children with acute onset OCD, the infectious triggers were strep and mycoplasma.  She treated them with Azithromycin and the patients improved. https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/02/07/mycoplasma-treatment/

Untreated PANS children can be disabled by their psychiatric symptoms and have, “OCD with severe intrusive thoughts such as suicidal ideation, psychosis, deep anxieties and fears, panic, rage, and are at risk of committing violent acts, ” as well as cognitive problems such as:  “handwriting deterioration, slow processing speed and regressions so frightening that a once-normal 10-year-old might have the skills and behavior of a developmentally slow 3-year-old.”

A pediatric rheumatologist managed to find clusters of children from the same school or neighborhood who had all come down with the condition in the same month as well as other infections besides strep were involved, such as bacterial mycoplasma, influenza, sinusitis, pneumonia and others.  

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/17/lymemsids-and-psychiatric-illness/  Incredible video by Dr. Marke with written highlights and discussion on PANDAS/PANS.

Category:

Bartonella, Lyme, Mycoplasma, Psychological Aspects, research

Diagnosed with EBV Had Lyme

https://academic.oup.com/cid/article-abstract/doi/10.1093/cid/cix298/3100248/Early-Disseminated-Lyme-Disease-Causing-False?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Early Disseminated Lyme Disease Causing False Positive Serology for Primary Epstein-Barr Virus Infection – Report of 2 Cases

Adriana J. Pavletic, MD, PhD Adriana R. Marques, MD
Clin Infect Dis cix298. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/cix298
Published: 04 April 2017

Abstract
False positive serology for Lyme disease was reported in patients with acute infectious mononucleosis. Here we describe two patients with early-disseminated Lyme disease who were misdiagnosed with infectious mononucleosis based on false positive tests for primary Epstein-Barr virus infection.

Category:

Lyme, research, Viruses