Archive for the ‘Ticks’ Category

Tick in Boy’s Ear Had to Be Surgically Removed

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMicm1812049?query=TOC

Tick Attached to the Tympanic Membrane

  • David Kasle, M.D.,
  • and Erik Waldman, M.D.

A 9-year-old boy presented to the pediatric otolaryngology clinic with a sensation of the presence of a foreign body in his right ear. He also reported that he had heard buzzing noises in his right ear 3 days earlier. He lived in Connecticut and had been playing outdoors at school. He had no pain, tinnitus, or loss of hearing. On physical examination, a tick was seen on the right tympanic membrane, with surrounding inflammation. Removal of the tick with guidance from an operative microscope was attempted in the office, but the tick could not be removed. The patient was subsequently transferred to the operating room for removal of the tick while he was under general anesthesia. The tick was again seen attached to the tympanic membrane; the tick’s capitulum was buried beneath the epidermal layer of the tympanic membrane. The underlying fibrous layer of the membrane remained intact. The tick was removed with a day hook, with guidance from an operative microscope. Subsequent pathological testing identified the tick as Dermacentor variabilis. After extraction of the tick, the patient had no signs or symptoms suggestive of systemic illness, and he was treated with ciprofloxacin eardrops for an abrasion of the tympanic membrane. One month later, the patient was doing well; he had no fever or rashes, and the tympanic membrane had healed well.

 

**Comment**

The American Dog tick or Wood tick transmits tularemia, RMSF, Anaplasmosis, and tick paralysis (fully engorged female).

I hope they keep following this child.

Ticks can end up in the wildest places:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/01/03/tick-bite-in-ear-gave-uk-teacher-rickettsial-typhus-infection/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/07/30/ticks-found-on-eyeball-buttocks-and-penis/

Category:

Inflammation, research, Ticks

Top 5 Myths About Lyme – Dr. Dempsey on Fox News

https://dms.licdn.com/playback/C4D05AQG-qO15mnPTZw/bcfa97f0454c4969a4be3b100a253788/feedshare-mp4_3300-captions-

Click on link for news story

Fox 61 News discusses the Top 5 Myths About Lyme Disease with Dr. Tania Dempsey of Armonk Integrative Medicine, Armonk, New York

Fantastic job Dr. Dempsey!

Then they talk about tick prevention:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/04/12/tick-prevention-2019/

Dr. Dempsey on Bartonella:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/05/07/fox-news-bartonella-is-the-new-lyme-disease/

 

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Testing, Ticks, Transmission, Treatment

Sun Prairie Woman Warns of Lyme Disease’s Lingering Effects

Woman warns of Lyme disease’s lingering effects

SUN PRAIRIE, Wis. – As Wisconsin enters peak tick season, a Sun Prairie woman is sharing her story battling Lyme disease, saying there’s more to it than you might think.

“First of all, I am a plant freak. I love them,” Alicia Cashman said. “I used to be outdoors all the time.”

Now, Cashman brings the outdoors indoors.

“Now I look at the outdoors like you were a soldier in Vietnam and there’s landmines,” she said. “Where’s the landmine? I don’t know.”

Cashman’s landmines are a bit smaller. She’s always on the lookout for ticks after she and her husband began having symptom after unexplained symptom about 12 years ago.

“Red, hot to the touch, I developed a fever. I started seeing flashing lights,” she said. “All of a sudden your life just goes to pot, and you can’t figure out why.”

Her husband developed anxiety and severe insomnia. In both cases, Cashman said it all came back to Lyme disease.

“Lyme is not what you think it is,” she said. “It’s way more complicated and complex.”

“We do know if people aren’t treated early, sometimes they go on to have lifelong symptoms,” said Susan Paskewtiz, a professor and chair of the University of Wisconsin Madison’s entomology department.

Paskewtiz said the initial infection of Lyme disease can change people’s bodies.

“Perhaps you’re forever altered as a result,” she said, adding that it can include heart issues, neurological symptoms and migrating joint pain, all things Cashman experienced. But early treatment can stop that, and that starts with early detection.

According to Paskewtiz, Wisconsin ranks among the top states for diseases transmitted by ticks.

“We have a lot of deer ticks here,” she said. “We have some places here where we’ve collected more ticks than recorded in the country, that’s very focal, a couple locations like that, but we’re high.”

Officials are already warning of ticks this year, and the city of Madison has seen the number of deer ticks rise significantly this month, according to a recent release.

Paskewitz said not everyone gets the characteristic bulls-eye type mark indicating Lyme disease, so flu-like symptoms including muscle aches and a fever can be other signs.

She said while there are usually about 3,000 to 4,000 reports of Lyme disease in the state a year, cases are likely under-reported, and she estimates the real number to be 10 times that.

Paskewtiz said there are two important things Wisconsin residents should know this year. Ticks can be as small as a freckle and found in places you might not expect.

“Usually, we recommend to people lawns are a pretty safe place,” she said, “but we’re finding them in those locations, as well.”

Cashman can still visit her plants outdoors, it just takes a bit more work. She gears up, wearing light-colored, protective clothing, and chemically treats both her clothes and yard.

“I’m doing great, but it’s taken 4 1/2 years of treatment, and I literally went from, ‘I want to die,’ to ‘I have my brain back,’” she said. “Where before, I didn’t think about it, now it never leaves my mind.”

She hopes others will keep the disease in the back of theirs.

“You can’t afford to be lazy,” she said.

Cashman now leads the Madison Area Lyme Support Group, which is presenting a free viewing of the documentary “Under Our Skin” Saturday at the East Madison Police Station May 4. She recommends those diagnosed with the disease check out the nonprofit organization the Wisconsin Lyme Network.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes patients with symptoms after the treatment of Lyme disease as having post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, and the organization writes its cause isn’t known.

The CDC said alternative treatments for Lyme disease have been associated with complications, and its best to use care and consult a physician.

________________

**Comment**

So thankful Dr. Paskewtiz filled in many of the points I wasn’t able to make. Although I shared how all my initial symptoms were gynecological and that I believe Lyme to be a STD as well as spread congenitally, they opted to leave that intel out.  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/02/24/pcos-lyme-my-story/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/06/19/33-years-of-documentation-of-maternal-child-transmission-of-lyme-disease-and-congenital-lyme-borreliosis-a-review/

Unfortunately, the statement that a tick’s gut is a literal garbage can full of pathogens of which Lyme is only one of many, also was omitted.  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/10/30/study-shows-lyme-msids-patients-infected-with-many-pathogens-and-explains-why-we-are-so-sick/

We are slowly pushing this thing up the hill.  Just a few short years ago, nothing would have been said about the “lingering symptoms,” so that’s a huge improvement, but of course there’s much, much more to be done.  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/02/25/medical-stalemate-what-causes-continuing-symptoms-after-lyme-treatment/  BTW: Ahern states it’s 60% that have lingering symptoms – so it’s a significant subset of patients.

Regarding PTLDS: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/04/05/post-treatment-lyme-disease-syndrome-a-review-of-its-origin-its-consequences-in-the-socio-economic-sphere/  Excerpt: 

It is demonstrated that the chronic symptoms of Lyme disease are a reality, referred to as: Chronic Lyme disease (CLD); or Syndrome- Post-treatment of Lyme disease (PTLDS).

As we said at the beginning, the CDC does not recognize the term Chronic Lyme Disease (CLD) because it is confusing[1].

With respect to this, we conclude that the CDC is wrong because data demonstrated that months or years after adequate treatments with antibiotics, patients can have the same or worse symptoms, which gives truth to the term: chronic Lyme disease (CLD).

I told the reporter that had I followed the advice of the CDC I’d be dead by now. The tiny but overriding statement at the end of the article about “alternative treatments for Lyme disease have been associated with complications,” is a complete “Catch-22,” because anything but essentially 21 days of doxycycline is considered alternative to the CDC and that’s a huge problem.  And by “consulting a physician,” that’s also setting people up for failure as there are only a handful of doctors in the entire state of Wisconsin who are properly trained and treat this monster appropriately. The same can be said of other states as well.

Sigh……well, there’s always next year!

 

 

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Psychological Aspects, Ticks, Treatment

Is the Sky Truly Going to Fall For Patients With the ‘Untreatable’ Form of Lyme Disease?

Is the Sky Truly Going to Fall For Patients With the ‘Untreatable’ Form of Lyme Disease?

0dd86-theskyisfalling

By Alicia Cashman MS, Lyme patient and advocate

4/29/19

Recently an article appeared in Newsweek titled,“Untreatable Form of Lyme Disease Could Hit 2 Million Americans By 2020, Scientists Warn”(1). The title of this article is misleading at best and inaccurate at worst and will mislead many to falsely believe that Lyme disease cannot be treated properly.

If you are new to the world of Lyme, please understand there is huge polarity in the medical and research communities on nearly every single aspect of it.  Disagreements on definitions, testing, diagnosis & treatment, and even on an understanding of the very organism itself abound. Thousands, possibly millions of patients are left alone to suffer in the fray with doctors too afraid to even treat them (2).

Lyme disease, around since the beginning of time, was “discovered” over 40 years ago by William Burgdorferi, but since then research has been scant and controlled by a highly vested group of individuals with patents on everything from test kits and vaccines, to other metabolomics (3). There are currently two lawsuits against the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) for the mishandling (4,5). The CDC completely ignores credible animal and foreign studies, continues to fixate on the acute phase, only supports its own research, and is run by what many call, “The Cabal.”

On the opposite end of the pendulum from the CDC and Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) is the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS), a group that despite persecution by state medical boards abiding by the antiquated and unscientific CDC criteria, dare to treat patients appropriately. While the CDC states that 21 days of doxycycline will essentially “cure” Lyme disease at every stage, yet denying that people can be chronically/persistently infected, ILADS states this disease is far more complex and requires many nuances to treatment. Recent research supports their stance.

Just last year, Garg et al. stated in their groundbreaking paper, “Our findings recognize that microbial infections in patients suffering from TBDs (tick borne diseases) do not follow the one microbe, one disease Germ Theory as 65% of the TBD patients produce immune responses to various microbes” (6). This polymicrobial aspect is completely ignored by the CDC/IDSA, yet research has shown patients that are infected with numerous pathogens have more severe disease of longer duration, not to mention the need for different medications for a longer period of time due to the stealthy nature of the pathogens but also due to immune suppression (7).

Garg et al. also highlighted the fact that borrelia is pleomorphic, which simply means that it has the ability to shape-shift when it feels threatened (6). Pleomorphism is also completely denied by the CDC. There are essentially four forms borrelia can take: spirochete, cell wall, non-cell wall (cyst or dormant form), and biofilm (a protective colony). At least two studies to date demonstrate that the CDC’s mono-therapy of doxycycline may actually push borrelia into the non-cell wall/dormant form to reemerge later when conditions are opportune (8,9). This could very well cause or exacerbate brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, dementia, ALS, Parkinson’s, and many others (10). Patients have been misdiagnosed with these diseases only to find out much later that they are in fact infected with Lyme and/or the other pathogens that come with it (11). Once they start proper antimicrobial treatment effectively dealing with all the pathogens, these symptoms disappear altogether or improve dramatically.

Drilling this home further, Pathologist Alan MacDonald found borrelia (Lyme) DNA in 7 out of 10 brain specimens in patients who died from Alzheimer’s, and Dr. Klinghardt has gone on record stating that he’s never had a single patient with Alzheimer’s, ALS, Parkinson’s, or MS who didn’t test positive for Lyme (12). 

Most of the quibbling is over patients who remain with symptoms, and despite what the CDC states, there’s a lot of them.

Recently, microbiologist Holly Ahern wrote about this issue of persistent symptoms clearly delineating that the CDC and mainstream researchers have been quoting and utilizing an inaccurate statistic about this important but neglected group (13). She states that the CDC’s usage of 10-20% of patients who remain with symptoms, whom the CDC labels Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS), only includes patients who were diagnosed and treated quickly. It does not and should not include a much larger group who are infected for weeks to years before getting a proper diagnosis and treatment. Research shows this second group to be 30-40% of patients. Simply adding the two groups, reveals that 60% of Lyme patients end up with chronic symptoms. This higher percentage more accurately reflects what I see as a patient advocate. Simple math also shows that if the CDC estimates state that there are over 400,000 new cases of Lyme disease each year (more than double that of breast cancer), that means more than 24,000 will have continuing symptoms. This is per year – mind you.

This crucial issue has been denied by the CDC, and is important not only from the standpoint that 5.8 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, and dementia deaths have doubled in the last two decades (14), both of which could be caused or exacerbated by Lyme disease and/or the various coinfections that come with it, but because only certain drugs work on the various forms of borrelia as well as these coinfections. In fact, besides potentially pushing the spirochetal form into the cyst form to reemerge later, the CDC mono-therapy of doxycycline only works on two of the four forms (8). The remaining forms necessitate different drugs and potentially a longer treatment time – far longer than days. Bizzarely, my own dog with asymptomatic Lyme disease was treated for months by our veterinarian. 

The other glaring issue is that the falsely skewed low percentages do not accurately reflect the numbers of those suffering with debilitating symptoms, which will automatically place it further down the pipeline of crucial research needing to be done. It’s the proverbial “Catch-22” with sick patients left to cope.

For the Newsweek article to state that this is an “untreatable” form of Lyme is a tad bit early since the CDC doesn’t even recognize pleomorphism, the polymicrobial nature of the disease, and that borrelia can even persist. While researchers, mainly from outside the U.S., have published studies on all these factors, the U.S. sits idly by, only doing yet again more research on the acute phase with faulty study parameters, and the continued CDC stance of using a simplistic mono-therapy that potentially could very well make patients worse-off in the long run. My own experience and that of many, many others is that we wouldn’t be alive today without treatment given by experienced practitioners utilizing judiciously applied and varied long-term antimicrobials.

I must add here that this is a far more herculean issue than it appears at first blush. Due to the CDC guidelines, doctors for decades have been persecuted by State Medical Boards for utilizing anything outside these literal mandates. My own doctor had to pay fifty-thousand dollars in legal fees to keep his practice (15). He’s far from alone. This is happening all over the U.S. as well as in other countries (2), and it’s often insurance companies turning them in.

Recently, I wrote an article about experienced and successful treatment nuances after Dr. Joseph Burrascano created a video for ILADS (16). In it, he not only lays out the sordid and politically motivated details of the history surrounding Lyme disease, but explains his in house studies performed with other health professionals to determine antibiotic efficacy utilizing microscopy. Let’s just say it’s a far cry more complex than 21 days of doxycycline which for the knottiness of Lyme disease and it’s coinfections is akin to throwing sand into the ocean.

While I’m thankful journalists are writing about this very real 21st century plague that has become a true pandemic, I hope they start doing their homework and report the fact this disease has been downplayed, denied, and mishandled for decades. The author of the Newsweek article not only used yellow journalism but erroneously used a picture of an American dog tick/wood tick that while capable of transmitting numerous pathogens, to date does not even transmit Lyme disease. Few journalists are studying the contradictory science and presenting both sides. Most articles read as CDC/IDSA propaganda, and that propaganda is killing people.

With all that is coming out on the seriousness of Lyme disease, the increasingly high infection rates, and the continued suffering of so many, the CDC, NIH, IDSA, and the big-name institutions working with them blithely continue on the same short-sighted road without blinking, while patients are still unable to get a proper diagnoses and treatment (17), and are still being told, “It’s all in your head”(18,19, 20).

The sky is going to fall for those with Lyme disease if authorities continue to ignore worldwide research and fail to act on discoveries that show this plague is quite outside the box they’ve created for it. The only possible box this fits into is Pandora’s.  If you are a patient or someone with a loved one fighting this battle, there’s hope with proper treatment.

References

  1. Gander, Kashmira. “Untreatable Form of Lyme Disease Could Hit 2 Million Americans By 2020, Scientists Warn.” April 23, 2019. Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/untreatable-form-lyme-disease-could-hit-two-million-americans-2020-scientists-1403338.  Accessed April 24, 2019.
  2. Teotonio, Isabel. “Everything About Lyme Disease is Steeped in Controversy.  Now Some doctors Are Too Afraid to Treat Patients.” The Star. Dec.14, 2018. https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2018/12/14/everything-about-lyme-disease-is-steeped-in-controversy-now-some-doctors-are-too-afraid-to-treat-patients.html  Accessed April 26, 2019.
  3. Lyme Disease Association, Inc. “Conflicts of Interest in Lyme Disease: Laboratory Testing, Vaccination, and Treatment Guidelines.” April 2001. http://lyme.kaiserpapers.org/pdfs/Conflicts.pdf
  4. Sin Hang Lee, M.D., v. The United States. 18-686 C. U.S. Court of Federal Claims. (2018) https://www.dropbox.com/s/zem4v9sceg1v63d/Lee%20CDC%20Complaint%205-15-2018.pdf?dl=0
  5. Torrey et al. v. Infectious Disease Society of America et al. 5:17-cv-00190-RWS. U.S. States District Court For the Eastern District of Texas Texarkana Division. (2019)  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/c8b05-torreyamendedcomplaint3-26-19.pdf
  6. Garg et al. (2018) “Evaluating Polymicrobial Immune Responses in Patients Suffering From Tick-borne Diseases.” Scientific Reports.  doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-34393-9  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6206025/
  7. Krause et al. (1996) Concurrent Lyme Disease and Babesiosis: Evidence of Increased Severity and Duration of Illness. JAMA.  http://www.lymepa.org/c07%20Lyme%20disease%20and%20Babesiosis%20coinfection.pdf
  8. Sapi et al. (2011) “Evaluation of in-vitro antibiotic susceptibility of different morphological forms of Borrelia burgdorferi.” Dovepress. doi: https://doi.org/10.2147/IDR.S19201
  9. Caskey et al. (2019) “The Functional and Molecular Effects of Doxycycline Treatment on Borrelia Burgdorferi Phenotype.” Frontiers in Microbiology. doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2019.00690
  10. Neuroscience News. “Researchers Identify Virus and Two Types of Bacteria As Major Causes of Alzheimer’s.” March 9, 2016. https://neurosciencenews.com/microbes-alzheimers-neurology-3826/.  Accessed April 26, 2019.
  11. “Kris Kristofferson’s Memory Loss Caused by Lyme Disease.” Youtube, Uploaded by FoxNews, June 9, 2016.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW1eFC2trJE
  12. Dr. Mercola.  “Under Our Skin: The Untold Story of Lyme Disease.” mercola.com. October 13, 2012. https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/10/13/under-our-skin-documentary.aspx  Accessed April 26, 2019.
  13. Ahern, Holly. “Medical Stalemate: What Causes Continuing Symptoms After Lyme Treatment?” Feb. 19, 2019. lymedisease.org.  https://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-stalemate-ahern/  Accessed April 26, 2019. 
  14. Dr. Mercola. “Dementia Deaths Have Doubled in Two Decades.” mercola.com. March 28, 2019. https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/03/28/alzheimers-death-rate-doubled.aspx?  Accessed April 26, 2019.
  15. Zell, Fran. “Wisconsin Lyme Doctor Gets Reprieve.” Daily KOS. Jan. 29, 2012. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/01/29/1059800/-Wisconsin-Lyme-doctor-gets-reprieve. Accessed April 26, 2019.
  16. Cashman, Alicia. “Why Lyme/MSIDS Research Remains in the Dark Ages.” Feb. 22, 2019. Madison Lyme Support Group. https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/02/22/why-mainstream-lyme-msids-research-remains-in-the-dark-ages/.  Accessed April 26, 2019.
  17. Broom, Brian. “‘It’s Just Crazy’: Why Is Lyme Disease Treatment So Difficult to Find in Mississippi?” April 19, 2019. Mississippi Clarion Ledger. https://www.clarionledger.com/story/sports/outdoors/2019/04/19/lyme-disease-mississippi-treatment-symptoms-support-group-diagnosis-doctors-hard-to-find/3246908002/  Accessed April 26, 2019. 
  18. Golan, Jacquelyn. “It’s All in Your Head – Until Finally a Lyme Diagnosis.” lymedisease.org. Sept. 21, 2017.https://www.lymedisease.org/circuitous-route-lyme-diagnosis/.  Accessed April 27, 2019. 
  19. Dennis, Lori. “Lyme is ‘All in Your Head’ – A Wake-up Call to Mental Health Professionals.” madinamerica.com. March 4, 2017. https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/03/lyme-wake-up-call/.  Accessed April 27, 2019. 
  20. Bedrinana, Jessie. “Why Are Physically Sick Children Labeled As Mentally Ill?”  lymedisease.org.  June 30, 2017. https://www.lymedisease.org/jessie-bedrinana/. Accessed April 27, 2019.

Category:

Lyme, research, Ticks, Treatment, vaccines

What Does Lyme Disease Do To Your Body?

 Approx. 5 Min.

What Does Lyme Disease Do To Your Body?

Published on Apr 23, 2019
What exactly is the connection between a tick bite and lyme disease? While we’re not sure exactly where and when the disease originated, we do know a lot about how it works, its signs, its symptoms in humans and dogs, how it’s spread and its treatment.
SICK is a new series that looks at how diseases actually work inside our body. We’ll be visiting medical centers and talking to top researchers and doctors to uncover the mysteries of viruses, bacteria, fungi and our own immune system. Come back every Tuesday for a new episode and let us know in the comments which diseases you think we should cover next.
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What this video didn’t touch upon is the very real probability that Lyme/MSIDS is spread by more than the sole perp of the deer tick:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/04/02/transmission-of-lyme-disease-lida-mattman-phd/  From 2005, Dr. Lida Mattman isolated Lyme (borrelia) from:

mosquitoes, fleas, mites, semen, urine, blood, plasma and Cerebral Spinal Fluid. She discovered that this bacteria is dangerous because it can survive and spread without cell wall (L shape). Because L-forms do not possess cell wall, they are resistant to antibiotics that act upon the cell wall.

Others have found other various ways Bb is transmitted as well:

Nobody seems to want to talk about this, yet it’s important.

 

 

 

 

Category:

Heart Issues, Inflammation, Lyme, Ticks