Archive for the ‘Testing’ Category

RK Protocol for Lyme/MSIDS

http://files.constantcontact.com/5a4b6d10101/ba0749f3-7b2b-4110-a8ee-ccb608e0ab8f.pdf

The Ruggiero-Klinghardt (RK) Protocol for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Conditions with Particular Focus on Lyme Disease

Dietrich Klinghardt and Marco Ruggiero

Sophia Health Institute and Klinghardt Academy, Woodinville, WA., USA

Abstract: Here we describe the Ruggiero-Klinghardt (RK) Protocol that is based on integration of Autonomic Response Testing (ART) with diagnostic ultrasonography and on application of therapeutic ultrasounds; the latter are used as a provocation tool and as an instrument to optimize drug uptake and utilization in specific areas of the body. This protocol consists of a precise sequence of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures with the ultimate goal of improving sensitivity and specificity of diagnosis at the same time evaluating and optimizing efficacy of treatments in chronic conditions including, but not limited to, persistent Lyme disease. The RK Protocol represents a paradigm shift in diagnostics and therapeutics: Thus, compartmentalized microbes, transformed cells, toxins and metabolites could be detected using a safe and non-invasive method. In addition, the RK Protocol allows optimization of efficacy of drugs and other therapeutic interventions. Although the RK Protocol was initially developed for persistent Lyme disease, it shows significant potential in conditions ranging from cancer to neurodegenerative diseases and autism. In oncology, the RK Protocol may serve to facilitate early diagnosis and to increase sensitivity of cancer cells to the killing effects of a variety of remedies ranging from conventional radio- and chemotherapy to more recent forms of immunotherapy. Thus, the 1st goal of the RK Protocol is diagnostic: That is, to make pathogens, toxins, transformed cells and cells infected by viruses that are inaccessible to conventional diagnostic and therapeutic tools, “visible” to the therapist who can detect them with laboratory methods and deal with them with appropriate interventions; and also to make them “visible” to the immune system that can fight them in a physiological manner. The 2nd goal is to optimize drug uptake and utilization in the organs and tissues studied and targeted with these procedures.

**An example was given of a patient with a history of angina who could not be causally diagnosed with classic cardiology tests.  A urine example was collected before therapeutic ultrasounds which did NOT show any pathogen presence despite a positive Bartonella presence with ART.  This patient also tested negative on the Western Blot (CDC criteria) from IgeneX lab; however, the DNA test performed on the urine sample 1 hour after therapeutic ultrasounds identified Bartonella bacilliformis, a well-known cause of endocarditis, commonly diagnosed only post-mortem.  “The patient responded rapidly and favorably to targeted biological treatment involving daily therapeutic ultrasound application and sever anti-microbial agents.”  

Category:

Lyme, research, Testing, Uncategorized

Microbiologist on Lyme Ninja Radio

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/261947658&color=ff5500“>

Best of Lyme Ninja Radio #86:  Repeat broadcast (Updates are included)

Holly Ahern, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Microbiology at SUNY Adirondack

When Holly Ahern found out that her daughter’s mysterious illness was Lyme disease, she quickly immersed herself in the subject. She soon learned about the controversies swirling around the disease and came to realize that many others were suffering like her daughter. Ahern has become an advocate for developing a broader understanding of Lyme disease – one aimed at treating the chronic symptoms commonly reported by patients who were misdiagnosed or received inadequate treatment in the disease’s early stages.
Her goal is to change the official CDC case definition of Lyme disease, which could attract more attention and funding to Lyme disease.

Topic Times:

6:30 Ahern feels the Lyme/MSIDS issue at hand is due to a perfect storm of events. She feels evidence based medicine which comes from clinical trials is part of the problem and that the experts are about half right – they are leaving out bacteria persistence.

Microbiology is ahead and medicine hasn’t caught up.

9:45 HIV, although caused by a virus, was handled similarly to how Lyme is being handled now.

11:00 Lyme Test is a 2-Tiered test – 1st Tier misses over half of all infections and the 2nd Tier is only 70% accurate.

14:00 Ahern explains the history of bacteria and how antibiotics appeared to be the miracle cure; however, it is now understood that many bacteria cannot be grown in a lab because they have stealthy strategies such as the ability to create biofilms to survive as well as the ability to go into the cell to avoid detection by the immune system. The medical implications have not followed up on these aspects. 5% of infecting cells will shut down and sit inside cells and reactivate later. These persisters keep the infection going.

20:00 Cannot kill all bacteria with antibiotics due to persisters

24:00 Persistence – clear from NIH funded research that borrelia persist. They can probably survive long-term abx. What differentiates people with persisting symptoms and those without symptoms? Probably Immune issues, other infections including viruses, etc.

Borrelia goes to collagen containing tissues and leave the blood quickly. So when a blood sample is taken, few if any borrelia will be caught in that sample. In the lab they have found reactivation of 10 month old sitting borrelia cultures.

** UPDATE on persisters: 

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/12/21/dr-zhang-on-persisters/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/10/09/mycobacterium-drugs-for-ld/ Horowitz reports that the Dapsone and PZA protocols have been the most effective treatment additions for resistant Lyme and autoimmune symptoms, with PZA being the most effective for dermatological manifestations of Bahcet’s and arthritic/granulomatous changes.  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2015/12/14/closing-in-on-the-8/

30:00 Why aren’t animals studies taken more seriously? Ahern claims the microbiologists understand this but the medical folks don’t.

**Update:

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/02/22/lyme-equivalent-of-cancer/  Dr. Spector, Director of Developmental Therapeutics at Duke Cancer Institute, suffered irreversible heart failure due to undiagnosed LD. He finds it scientifically ignorant that animals studies are nearly ignored when it comes to tick borne disease, and that if they threw out animal studies in cancer, they’d be nowhere.

31:40 Is it as hard to detect coinfections as it is for borrelia? Yes. Ahern claims borrelia is unique to most bacteria with the largest genome known. Veterinarians understand these coinfections but the tests they use are not approved for humans. Also, most coinfections are intracellular and the immune system doesn’t understand what to do with bacteria within our own cells.

** For information on how to treat.  This is for educational purposes only to be used for discussion with your health practitioner.  

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/02/13/lyme-disease-treatment/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/01/16/babesia-treatment/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/?s=Bartonella+treatment

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/02/07/mycoplasma-treatment/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/10/25/of-rabbits-and-men/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/03/08/anaplasmosis/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/02/21/powassan-virus/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/03/28/combating-viruses/

36:00 Ahern is Vice President of Lyme Action Network, a not-for-profit organization working to advance information and understanding about Tick Borne Diseases. http://www.lymeactionnetwork.org, https://www.facebook.com/LymeActionNetwork/

What is Lyme Disease?  By Lyme Action Network

At the end of the broadcast Ahern highlights some legislation that has been passed:

http://wamc.org/post/gov-cuomo-signs-lyme-bill-protecting-doctors  NY Governor Cuomo signed a bill protecting doctors from investigation by the State Office of Professional Medical Conduct for prescribing antibiotics to treat TBI’s.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/12/03/big-news-for-lyme-patients/
21st Century Cures Act was passed and establishes a Tick-Borne Diseases Working Group comprised of federal members and 7 non federal members consisting of physicians and other med providers with experience diagnosing and treating TBI’s, scientists or researchers with expertise, patients and family, and patient advocates. https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/12/02/21st-cca-bill-lyme-language/  The language of the actual bill.

Category:

Lyme, research, Testing

Potential Lyme Test Needs Our Help

https://player.vimeo.com/video/149202912“>

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/breakthrough-lyme-disease-test-next-100000152.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma

Press Release  Phoenix, Feb. 28, 2017

Globe Newswire

A new test for Lyme Disease may prove to be the most accurate tool available for the difficult-to-diagnose disease, giving hope to thousands of undiagnosed and misdiagnosed patients, if funding can be found to move it through clinical study to production. This new test, called LymeSeq, is poised to transform the speed and precision of diagnosis over current tests.  This test will detect multiple strains of Lyme bacteria, plus all major co-infections and non-Lyme causes of diseases like Influenza and Staph.

LymeSeq, developed by research scientists at Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), has been funded by Focus On Lyme.  The test may represent a breakthrough in diagnosis and testing for Lyme Disease, which are currently about 50% accurate.

The researchers are led by Dr. Paul Keim, the Executive Director of the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute and the Cowden Endowed Chair of Microbiology at Northern Arizona University (NAU), as well as Director of the Pathogen Genomics Division TGen North in Flagstaff, Ariz. Dr. Keim is an internationally recognized expert in DNA-based research methods, a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

LymeSeq works by targeting and amplifying specific regions of the Lyme bacteria’s DNA as well as specific genes in related bacteria. That amplified DNA gets sequenced, then researchers determine the bacterial species present in the sample by searching for the DNA code specific to Lyme or other bacteria, explained Dr. David Engelthaler, Director of Programs and Operations at TGen North, and Director of the Public Health and Translational Genomics Center at the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute.

“LymeSeq has the potential to transform emergency rooms and doctor’s offices world wide,” said Holly Ahern, MS, MT (ASCP) and SUNY Adirondack associate professor of microbiology, and a member of the leadership team at Focus on Lyme.

Dr. Richard Horowitz, author of “How Can I Get Better? An Action Plan for Treating Resistant Lyme and Chronic Disease,” said, “more than ever, we need an accurate test” referencing the National Science Foundation’s identification of Lyme disease as an emerging pandemic threat, siting the current “problematic two-tiered testing scheme,” for which LymeSeq shows promise of being “superior in every way.”

With exciting early signs of high accuracy, the next step is to advance the test into human trials. Crawford’s team of volunteers has raised more than $301,730 towards a goal of $500,000 to bring the test to market. BHHS Legacy Foundation recently stepped forward with an additional $100,000 in grant funding.
“With the development of any new medical advancement, the steps are long, arduous and expensive. But we’ve come so far in such a short period of time, we need your help to get us to the finish line,” Crawford said. “We are all volunteers. Every single penny we raise goes towards the research, we keep nothing back.”

For more information visit www.focusonlyme.org. To donate, visit: www.focusonlyme.org/donate.

Category:

Lyme, Mycoplasma, research, Testing

Bartonellosis Needs a One Health Approach

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28133871

Abstract

BACKGROUND:
Bartonellosis is a zoonotic infectious disease of worldwide distribution, caused by an expanding number of recently discovered Bartonella spp.
OBJECTIVES:
This review serves as an update on comparative medical aspects of this disease, including the epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical diagnosis, treatment and challenges.
RESULTS:
Of comparative medical importance, Bartonella spp. are transmitted by several arthropod vectors, including fleas, keds, lice, sand flies, ticks and, potentially, mites and spiders. Prior to 1990, there was only one named Bartonella species (B. bacilliformis), whereas there are now over 36, of which 17 have been associated with an expanding spectrum of animal and human diseases. Recent advances in diagnostic techniques have facilitated documentation of chronic bloodstream and dermatological infections with Bartonella spp. in healthy and sick animals, in human blood donors, and in immunocompetent and immunocompromised human patients. The field of Bartonella research remains in its infancy and is rich in questions, for which patient relevant answers are badly needed. Directed Bartonella research could substantially reduce a spectrum of chronic and debilitating animal and human diseases, and thereby reduce suffering throughout the world.
CONCLUSION:
A One Health approach to this emerging infectious disease is clearly needed to define disease manifestations, to establish the comparative infectious disease pathogenesis of this stealth pathogen, to validate effective treatment regimens and to prevent zoonotic disease transmission.

Category:

Bartonella, research, Testing, Ticks

CDC Denies to Downplay Lyme Epidemic

3-cdcemploysdenialtodownplaylymeepidemic-8-22-2016-j-luche-thayer

Written by Jenna Luche-Thayer, founder of Global Network on Institutional Discrimination,

Here is a basic summary, but please read the entire article for yourself and print out the pdf for your physician. We need to share this far and wide as tick borne illness is an epidemic. It’s going to take all of us working together to change the propaganda put out by the cabal.

*The CDC changes its tune about Lyme after 1991. Before 1991 they admitted it was complex, multi-symptom, highly individual, that both oral and IV antibiotics may be useful, it’s persistent, some folks never get the rash, it’s hard to diagnose, and it can cause permanent damage to joints and nervous system. After 1991 Lyme was miraculously no longer persistent – despite 700 peer reviewed articles saying otherwise. With the stroke of the pen they minimized the range and severity of symptoms.  (Please refer to Thayer’s pdf for the lengthy bibliography)

*The 1990 Lyme Disease Case Definition for Public Health Surveillance Guide states emphatically that it is for surveillance purposes only and should not be used as sole criterial for diagnosis, determining standard of care for patients, setting guidelines for quality assurance, providing standards for reimbursement, or initiating public health actions.

*The 1990 case definition of LD randomly picks the initial skin lesion is the best clinical marker, but the 1991 Symptoms and signs of LD says that some folks never get the rash, that some have arthritis type symptoms while others have nervous system problems. Thayer states that a review of studies between 1981-1991 described LD as a systemic disease with a plethora of steadily increasing symptoms and that no consensus or clinical marker was reached.

*Unlike other diseases, the Lyme Case Definition lies dead in the water for nearly three decades, whereas other diseases’ case definitions are continually revised to include new science. Thayer points out that new strains of borrelia are continually being discovered but are not being picked up by the CDC’s two-tiered testing, not to mention that thousands of patients with clear symptoms of LD continue to test negative.

*Lack of new data in Case Definition regarding vectors. Thayer shows that 95% of data from an important 2001 study on vectors was excluded.

*References to support the LD Case Definitions are from a handful of authors who cite each other. For more on the cabal, please read:

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/13/lyme-science-owned-by-good-ol-boys/
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/02/fake-science/

*Other tick borne illnesses’ case definitions have been updated with new science, but not Lyme (borrelia).

For both Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF) and Q Fever, doctors are told to consider infection even if a person cannot prove tick attachment, that lack of specific symptoms does not imply it’s benign, that early treatment with antibiotics based on suspicion will reduce the chance of severe illness and death, and to consider a similar illness in those closest to the patient, including family pets.

For Lyme……crickets.

The CDC even states that people who appear to have Lyme may not have it, so don’t even bother testing them. Thayer points out the CDC’s “wait and see” approach regarding LD that pathologist Sin Lee accuses Steer, Mead, and colleagues of taking even though delayed treatment for LD can lead to severe disease and fatality. https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/01/13/lyme-science-owned-by-good-ol-boys/
Regarding endocarditis, which both Lyme and Q-Fever can cause, they recommend early diagnosis and extended antibiotics for Q fever whereas, for Lyme endocarditis, they recommend a short course of antibiotics or no antibiotics at all should it occur after initial antibiotic treatment for Lyme. Both can be fatal.

*LD Surveillance Criteria is abominable. Hardly anyone meets the CDC’s myopic view of LD.

*CDC creates syndrome rather than change Lyme Guidelines. This is the mother load. According to the CDC, patients who have persisting symptoms despite treatment have “Post Lyme Treatment Syndrome” (PLTS) and really have a psychiatric condition that would be best served with steroids, antidepressants, and painkillers, despite the fact these things will not deal with a persistent active infection and could make matters infinitely worse.

Thayer then gives a valuable history lesson reminder on AIDS and how many feel the CDC scapegoated homosexuals, drug users, Haitians, and hemophiliacs, (aka, the 4-H club). This narrow definition kept many with AIDS from being diagnosed and treated. This finally changed due to public outcry and now the definition includes more than 60 infections.

She believes the CDC’s treatment of the Lyme epidemic is quite similar and that their policy is discriminating, stigmatizing, and scapegoating patients. This is seen best by a bevy of NIH studies misusing “Medically Unexplained Symptoms,” (MUS) to describe those with persisting symptoms. MUS is a psychiatric disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders category of Somatic Symptom Disorder. In other words, they think we are self-absorbed and preoccupied with symptoms. Anyone with MSIDS knows – you can’t make this stuff up!

Thayer points out that none of the NIH articles include original research or advance knowledge, yet Yale and the University of Pennsylvania have obtained nearly twelve million in NIH grants to discredit patients and those helping them, which ultimately undermines patients’ access to care and insurance coverage, sabotages their access with scientific, medical, and governmental communities, and discredits and marginalizes patients, advocates, and the physicians who dare to treat them.

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Testing