Archive for the ‘Treatment’ Category

In vitro and in vivo Evaluation of Cephalosporins for the Treatment of Lyme Disease

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/30254421/

In vitro and in vivo evaluation of cephalosporins for the treatment of Lyme disease.

Pothineni VR, et al. Drug Des Devel Ther. 2018. doi: 10.2147/DDDT.S164966. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

Background: Lyme disease accounts for >90% of all vector-borne disease cases in the United States and affect ~300,000 persons annually in North America. Though traditional tetracycline antibiotic therapy is generally prescribed for Lyme disease, still 10%-20% of patients treated with current antibiotic therapy still show lingering symptoms.

Methods: In order to identify new drugs, we have evaluated four cephalosporins as a therapeutic alternative to commonly used antibiotics for the treatment of Lyme disease by using microdilution techniques like minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and the minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC). We have determined the MIC and MBC of four drugs for three Borrelia burgdorferi s.s strains namely CA8, JLB31 and NP40. The binding studies were performed using in silico analysis.

Results: The MIC order of the four drugs tested is cefoxitin (1.25 µM/mL) > cefamandole (2.5 µM/mL), > cefuroxime (5 µM/mL) > cefapirin (10 µM/mL). Among the drugs that are tested in this study using in vivo C3H/HeN mouse model, cefoxitin effectively kills B. burgdorferi. The in silico analysis revealed that all four cephalosporins studied binds effectively to B. burgdorferi proteins, SecA subunit penicillin-binding protein (PBP) and Outer surface protein E (OspE).

Conclusion: Based on the data obtained, cefoxitin has shown high efficacy killing B. burgdorferi at concentration of 1.25 µM/mL. In addition to it, cefoxitin cleared B. burgdorferi infection in C3H/HeN mice model at 20 mg/kg.

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For more on Dr. Lewis’ work:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/08/06/meet-the-researcher-kim-lewis-ph-d/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/10/31/news-story-on-researcher-kim-lewis-and-chronic-lyme/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/08/24/identifying-vancomycin-as-an-effective-antibiotic-for-killing-bb/

 

Category:

Lyme, research, Testing, Treatment

All His Symptoms Pointed Toward the Flu. But the Test Was Negative. RMSF in Connecticut

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/magazine/flu-symptoms-diagnosis-infection.html

All His Symptoms Pointed Toward the Flu. But the Test Was Negative.

CreditCreditIllustration by Andreas Samuelsson

By Lisa Sanders, M.D.

 

“I think I’m losing this battle,” the 58-year-old man told his wife one Saturday night nearly a year ago.

While she was at the theater — they’d bought the tickets months earlier — he had to crawl up the stairs on his hands and knees to get to bed. Terrible bone-shaking chills racked him, despite the thick layer of blankets. The chills were followed by sudden blasts of internal heat and drenching sweats that made him kick off the covers — only to haul them back up as the cycle repeated itself.

“I need to go to the E.R.,” he told his wife. He’d been there three times already. They’d give him intravenous fluids and send him home with the diagnosis of a viral syndrome. He would start to feel better soon, he was told. But he didn’t.

This all began nine days before. That first day he called in sick to his job as a physical therapist. He felt feverish and achy, as if he had the flu. He decided to drink plenty of fluids, take it easy and go back to work the next day. But the next day he felt even worse. That’s when the fever and chills really kicked in. He was alternating between acetaminophen and ibuprofen, but the fever never let up. He’d started sleeping in the guest room because his sweat was soaking the sheets, and his chills shook the bed, waking his wife.

After three days of this, he made his first visit to the Yale New Haven Hospital emergency room. He was already taking antibiotics. Several weekends earlier, he developed a red, swollen elbow and went to an urgent-care center, where he was started on one antibiotic for a presumed infection. He took it for 10 days, but his elbow was still killing him. He went back to urgent care, where he was started on a broader-spectrum drug, which he had nearly finished. Now his elbow was fine. It was the rest of his body that ached as if he had the flu.

But at the hospital, his flu swab was negative. So was his chest X-ray. It was probably just a virus, he was told. He should take it easy until it passed. And come back if he got any worse.

The next day his fever spiked above 105. He went again to the E.R. It was a mob scene — crowded with people who, like him, appeared to have the flu. It would be hours before he could be seen, he was told, because they already knew he didn’t have it. Discouraged, he went home to bed. He went back the next morning after a nurse called to say the E.R. was more manageable.

He might not have the flu, he thought, but he was sure he had something. But the E.R. doctor didn’t know what. He didn’t have chest pain or shortness of breath. No cough, no headache, no rash, no abdominal pain, no urinary symptoms. He felt weak but no longer achy. His heart was beating hard and fast, but otherwise his exam was fine. His white count was low — which was a little strange. White blood cells are expected to increase with an acute infection. Still, a virus can cause white counts to drop. His platelets — the tiny blood fragments that form clots — were also low. That can also be seen in viral infections, but it was less common.

The E.R. staff sent the abnormal blood results to the patient’s primary-care provider and told the patient to follow up with him. He’d been trying get in to see him for days, but the doctor’s schedule was full. When he called again, he was told that the soonest he could be seen was the following week.

The patient asked the doctor to order blood tests to look for an infection in his blood. And could they also test him for tick-borne infections? This was Connecticut, after all. He dragged himself to the lab and then waited for his doctor to call with the results. The call never came. In his mind, he fired his doctor. He’d been sick for over a week, and the doctor’s office couldn’t arrange an appointment, and they couldn’t even call him with the lab results for the test he had to ask for in the first place.

That Sunday morning after the man’s wife had been to the theater, he went once more to the emergency room. It was brought to the attention of the physician assistant on duty that the man had been there several times before and had lab abnormalities. She ordered a bunch of blood tests — looking for everything from H.I.V. to mono. She ordered another chest X-ray and started him on broad-spectrum antibiotics, as well as doxycycline, an antibiotic often used for tick-borne infections. He was given Tylenol for his fever and admitted to the hospital. As he was preparing to leave the emergency department, a new flu test came back positive. He was pretty sure he didn’t have it; he’d never heard of a flu being this bad for this long. But if he could stay in the hospital, where someone could monitor him, he was happy to take Tamiflu.

The lab called again the next day to say that the test had been read incorrectly; he did not have the flu. By then other results started to come in. It wasn’t an infection in his elbow. He didn’t have H.I.V.; he didn’t have mono or Lyme; he didn’t have any of the other respiratory viruses that, along with the worse influenza outbreak in years, had filled up so much of the hospital.

CreditIllustration by Andreas Samuelsson

Yet after a couple of days, the patient began to feel better. His fever came down. The shaking chills disappeared. His white count and platelets edged up. It was clear he was recovering, but from what? More blood tests were ordered, and an infectious-disease specialist consulted.

Gabriel Vilchez, the infectious-disease specialist in training, reviewed the chart and examined the patient. He thought that the patient most likely had a tick-borne infection. The hospital had sent off blood to test for the usual suspects in the Northeast: Lyme, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis and anaplasmosis. Except for the Lyme test, which was negative, none of the results had come back yet. Vilchez considered that given the patient’s symptoms — and his response to the doxycycline — it would turn out that he’d have one of them.

And yet, the results for tick-borne infections were negative. Vilchez thought about other tick-borne diseases that are not on the usual panel. The most likely was Rocky Mountain spotted fever (R.M.S.F.). The name is a misnomer: R.M.S.F. is much more common in the Smoky Mountains than the Rocky Mountains, and the spotted-fever part, the rash, is not seen in all cases. It’s unusual to acquire the infection in Connecticut but not unheard-of. Vilchez sent off blood to be tested for R.M.S.F. The following day, the patient felt well enough to go home. A couple of days later, he got a call. He had Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

Why did the diagnosis take so long? The patient had an unusual infection. But perhaps the bigger issue was that he was one of many patients in the emergency room with flulike symptoms in the midst of a flu epidemic. Under those circumstances, the question for the staff simply becomes: Does he have the flu? When the answer is no, doctors tend to move on to the next very sick patient in line. It’s hard to get back to the question of what the nonflu patient does have.

For the patient, recovery has been tough. Though the antibiotic helped with the acute symptoms, it took months before he had the stamina to resume his usual patient load at work. He feels that the illness brought him as close to dying as he had ever been. Indeed, Rocky Mountain spotted fever is one of the most dangerous of all the tick-borne infections, with a mortality rate as high as 5 percent even with current antibiotics.

One thing he was certain about, however: He needed a new primary-care doctor. And he got one.

Lisa Sanders, M.D., is a contributing writer for the magazine and the author of “Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis.” If you have a solved case to share with Dr. Sanders, write her at Lisa.Sandersmd@gmail.com.

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**Comment**

This is playing out all over the world.  He was one of the lucky ones to finally get an accurate diagnosis.

It is interesting; however, that they are quick to state he doesn’t have the other tick-borne infections when the testing for all of them misses over half of all cases.  Once they gave him doxy, they should have retested him.  This is called a “provocation test” and is used by many LLMD’s (Lyme literate doctors) as they’ve learned this often finally shows an active infection(s) due to the ability of the body to NOW see the pathogens in the blood stream allowing antibodies to be made and picked up by the tests.

RMSF is a nasty beast on it’s own; however, this man should be monitored over time.  If symptoms come back or new ones show up, TBI’s should be suspected.

It’s also a mind boggler how in Connecticut of all places, TBI’s wouldn’t be the FIRST thing medical practitioners think of.  It’s literally ground zero.  

Please know RMSF IS IN WISCONSIN and is on the move:   https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/07/10/first-rmsf-death-in-wisconsin/

More on RMSF:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/09/14/rocky-mountain-spotted-fever-rmsf/

It’s also been found to be spread by the common brown dog tick:

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/08/16/new-tick-causes-epidemic-of-rmsf/  It’s usually spread by the American dog tick and the closely related Rocky Mountain wood tick. But in recent years the bacterial infection has also been spread by the brown dog tick — a completely different species…The researchers were investigating an epidemic of the infection that broke out in the border town of Mexicali starting in 2008. It’s already sickened at least 4,000 people, according to Mexican government estimates. Several hundred have died, and at least four people have died in the U.S. after crossing the border, according to this report and others.

“I was absolutely startled,” Foley said in an interview.

The people who had been sickened in Mexicali had a heavy load of the infectious agent in their blood — something that had not been seen in past outbreaks.
The epidemic is worrisome because the brown dog tick is more likely to bite people and it adapts easily to living in a house, as opposed to living on wild animals, the researchers said.

“The Rocky Mountain spotted fever epidemic in Mexicali has not been contained and may be spreading to other parts of Baja California and into the United States,” the team wrote.

And now it’s possible that for some reason, the infection the brown dog tick transmits is more virulent, Foley said.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/06/10/two-deaths-from-rmsf-indiana-has-tbis/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2015/08/13/severe-case-of-rmsf-had-to-remove-patients-arms-and-legs/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/21/mom-got-rocky-mountain-spotted-fever-while-picking-pumpkins/  “When you go to these pumpkin patches and petting zoos and all those fun fall activities, wear pants, long socks and shoes!”
“Make sure you check for tics! This was me 2 years ago after being bit by a tick and contracting Rocky Mountain spotted fever at a pumpkin patch,” she continued. “I couldn’t walk, my whole body was in pain, my hair fell out, and I almost died.”

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/06/12/georgia-mom-warns-others-after-son-contracts-rocky-mountain-spotted-fever-after-tick-bite/  “This has been a horribly scary experience for our family. I’m thankful that I did my own research and brought it to my doctors attention. So don’t EVER be afraid to be an advocate for your child or yourself when it comes to things like this!” McNair continued, adding that “doctors are humans and have to figure out the puzzle just like the rest of us do!”

Wiser words were never spoken.

P.s. Regarding the red, swollen elbow…..

My journey was similar with the same issue in both my elbow and knee in the middle of January in Wisconsin.  I was told, and I promise I didn’t make this up, that I had “Washer Woman’s Knee,” and “Barstool elbow.”  

I kid you not.

Now, first, I use a mop and rarely get on my knees.  Second, I assure you, I’m not sitting at the bar and have NO reason to have a red, swollen, excruciatingly painful elbow.

Effective tick borne illness treatment completely ameliorated both conditions once I was finally diagnosed with Lyme/MSIDS.  For that exciting journey, that continues to this day, go here:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/02/24/pcos-lyme-my-story/

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

Please remember, Lyme is the rock star we all know by name.  There are many, many other players involved and people are often coinfected.  Mainstream medicine has yet to accept and deal with this very real fact.

 

 

 

 

 

Category:

Activism, Anaplasmosis, Babesia, Lyme, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Testing, Treatment, Viruses

“Super responders” Are Key to Personalized Lyme Disease Treatment

https://www.lymedisease.org/personalized-lyme-disease-treatment/

By Lorraine Johnson

LYMEPOLICYWONK: “Super responders” are key to personalized Lyme disease treatment

Lyme disease super responders

I’m excited to report that the first study using information from MyLymeData has just been published in the medical journal Healthcare.

Using patient-reported outcome data from 3,900 people enrolled in MyLymeData, we looked at how individual patients vary in their response to treatment. Finding out who responds well to which treatments—and then learning more about those people—is an important step towards developing personalized Lyme disease treatment.

Treatment studies of patients with late/chronic Lyme disease usually take an average of how people have responded to treatment. But guess what? The average Lyme patient isn’t average! Some people improve a lot with treatment, some improve a little bit, and some people don’t improve at all. A few may even get worse.

Super responders

However, if we can identify the “super responders”—the ones who did particularly well—and take a closer look at them, we may be able to learn things that can help other patients in a similar situation. This can help drive the development of personalized Lyme disease treatment.

For lots of diseases, such as tuberculosis, pulmonary disease, and cancer, scientists are now identifying high treatment responders, but our study is the first to use this approach in Lyme disease.

The reason it hasn’t been done before in Lyme disease is because identifying how different groups of patients respond to treatment requires large samples. The largest trial funded by the National Institute of Health for patients with chronic Lyme disease enrolled just 129 people—way too small a group to look at individual treatment variation.

So instead, they lumped all of the treatment responses together—the good, the bad and the ugly—and said how patients responded “on average.” On average, there wasn’t much improvement from treatment.

But treatment averages don’t tell the whole story. A famous mathematician, Des MacHale, explains it this way: The average person has one testicle and one breast. And we all know how ridiculous that is. You can’t average a male and a female like that and get any meaningful information.

It’s the same thing when you measure patient treatment response in Lyme disease. If one person gets better and the other gets worse after treatment, you can say that on average, treatment did nothing. However, for the patient who got better, it made a world of difference. Yet, when we use an average to calculate treatment response, the favorable response of one patient is cancelled out by the negative response of another.

A better approach looks at variations in how different patients respond. Most Lyme disease patients already know this. Some patients get better, others get worse, and some don’t change with treatment. Treatment response variation is lost when individual responses are averaged.

In our study, we included close to 4,000 patients, a large enough sample to look at variations in treatment response. Here’s what we found. Most patients (52%) responded positively to antibiotic treatment and some—roughly a third—responded very well to treatment. These patients said that they felt moderately to a very great deal better after taking antibiotics. Very few said that they felt worse after taking antibiotics (only 12%).

If I were a patient with chronic Lyme disease—which I was by the way–I would want to know that roughly a third of those in the sample were “high treatment responders”—meaning that they reported that after taking antibiotics their symptoms improved moderately to a very great deal. This is the type of information that patients want to know and that is why we conducted this study.

This is the first of many studies to be published using the data from MyLymeData.  So stay tuned! And if you are not enrolled in MyLymeData—I encourage you to stop what you are doing and sign up now. It is only by having patients pool their data that we will make progress in this disease.

Here is a short video I recorded explaining more about the study’s results.

Click here to read the full study.

Click here to enroll in MyLymeData.

Lorraine Johnson, JD, MBA, is the Chief Executive Officer of LymeDisease.org. You can contact her at lbjohnson@lymedisease.org. On Twitter, follow her @lymepolicywonk. If you have not signed up for our patient-centered big data project, MyLymeData, please register now.

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**Comment**

If you haven’t enrolled in this Bigdata research, please do.

The more people who do this, the more information we will have to look at.

Since the largest NIH study was done in 2008, EIGHT YEARS AGO, you’d think researchers & doctors would be a bit open-minded.  Can you imagine basing cancer or AIDS treatments on EIGHT YEAR OLD STUDIES?  https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/chronic-lyme-disease.  Another, done in 2003 (15 years ago) only looked at 28 days of IV antibiotic compared to placebo in 55 patients, hardly a representative sample, and what’s 28 days of IV abx going to do with a persistent pathogen typically coupled with other pathogens making cases extremely complex?

No, The Cabal has run the research in a biased and skewed manner for over 40 years.  Time for a change.

Interestingly, an IDSA founder disagreed with their stance and used high powered antibiotics quite successfully:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/07/09/idsa-founder-used-potent-iv-antibiotics-for-chronic-lyme/ 51 difficult cases are represented.

 

 

 

 

 

Category:

Activism, Lyme, research, Treatment

Removing the Mask of Average Treatment Effects in Chronic Lyme Disease Research Using Big Data & Subgroup Analysis

https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/6/4/124

Healthcare 2018, 6(4), 124; https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare6040124

Removing the Mask of Average Treatment Effects in Chronic Lyme Disease Research Using Big Data and Subgroup Analysis

Lorraine Johnson 1,* , Mira Shapiro 2and Jennifer Mankoff 3

1MyLymeData, Chico, CA 95927, USA
2Analytic Designers LLC., Bethesda, MD 20817, USA
3Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 4 September 2018 / Revised: 9 October 2018 / Accepted: 9 October 2018 / Published: 12 October 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lyme Disease: The Role of Big Data, Companion Diagnostics and Precision Medicine)
Full-Text   |   PDF [1495 KB, uploaded 12 October 2018]

Abstract

Lyme disease is caused by the bacteria borrelia burgdorferi and is spread primarily through the bite of a tick. There is considerable uncertainty in the medical community regarding the best approach to treating patients with Lyme disease who do not respond fully to short-term antibiotic therapy. These patients have persistent Lyme disease symptoms resulting from lack of treatment, under-treatment, or lack of response to their antibiotic treatment protocol. In the past, treatment trials have used small restrictive samples and relied on average treatment effects as their measure of success and produced conflicting results. To provide individualized care, clinicians need information that reflects their patient population. Today, we have the ability to analyze large data bases, including patient registries, that reflect the broader range of patients more typically seen in clinical practice. This allows us to examine treatment variation within the sample and identify groups of patients that are most responsive to treatment. Using patient-reported outcome data from the MyLymeData online patient registry, we show that sub-group analysis techniques can unmask valuable information that is hidden if averages alone are used. In our analysis, this approach revealed treatment effectiveness for up to a third of patients with Lyme disease. This study is important because it can help open the door to more individualized patient care using patient-centered outcomes and real-world evidence. View Full-Text

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**Comment**
Great work here.  We need to start the coinfection discussion; however, as Lyme is just one beast of many and the involvement of other pathogens muddies the water considerably and needs addressing.  Many, many patients WILL NOT improve on a Lyme only treatment.

 

 

 

 

Category:

Lyme, research, Treatment

Ehrlichiosis Masquerading as Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia Purpura

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/30279260/

Ehrlichiosis masquerading as thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura.

Chen D, et al. BMJ Case Rep. 2018.

Abstract

Ehrlichiosis is a rare tickborne illness that can manifest from an asymptomatic, self-limiting disease to a severe presentation with encephalopathy and renal failure. Ehrlichiosis is diagnosed largely based on patient history with confirmatory tests including peripheral blood smear, serology and PCR. Empiric treatment is warranted in patients with suspected tick bites as a delay in treatment can result in multiorgan failure. We discuss a case of ehrlichiosis that presented with the classic pentad of thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP). A history of a tick bite was elicited and intravenous doxycycline 100 mg two times a day was initiated. Tick panel results revealed a positive Ehrlichia chaffeensis IgG and IgM titres, consistent with human monocytic ehrlichiosis. Autoimmune workup and antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi were negative, and ADAMTS13 activity assay results were inconsistent with TTP. The patient completed 14 days of intravenous doxycycline and had an uneventful recovery.

PMID

30279260 [ – in process]

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**Comment**
Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (TTP) causes tiny blood clots throughout your body.  This can block blood vessels and impede blood flow.  The clots can use up too many platelets which in turn can inhibit clot formation when you need it.
Symptoms include:
  • Purplish bruises (purpura) from no obvious cause
  • tiny red or purple spots that look like a rash
  • skin may turn yellowish (jaundice)
  • skin may look pale
  • fever
  • fatigue
  • confusion
  • weakness
  • headache
  • In very serious cases, a stroke, major internal bleeding, or a coma can occur
Warning!
In May 2017, an article in the CDC “Emerging Infectious Diseases” Journal, warns that ehrlichiosis infections are being “grossly underreported” in the U.S. with as many as 97-99% of infections going unrecognized. They are projecting that the actual number of annual cases could go as high as 1/2 the number of Lyme disease cases—which would mean we may already have over 150,000 cases of ehrlichiosis annually. (3)
Rickettsiae and Ehrlichia belong to a broad group of bacteria that can be spread by a tick bite. These infections can be transmitted alone or at the same time as Lyme disease and are commonly known as co-infections.

 

The Ehrlichia (E) group includes: (5, 6, 7, 8,)

  • chaffeensis: the cause of human monocytic ehrlichiosis (HME)
  • ewingii
  • muris-like (EML)

Symptoms
While some cases of ehrlichiosis are mild, the disease can be severe or fatal if not treated correctly, even in previously healthy people. Severe symptoms of ehrlichiosis may include difficulty breathing, respiratory failure, bleeding disorders, kidney or heart failure.

Because Ehrlichia infect white blood cells (the cells that fight infection), and mitochondria (the powerhouse of the human cell) the consequences of untreated infection may have long-lasting effects.(9) I often wonder if undiagnosed Ehrlichiosis isn’t responsible for some portion of the millions of people with the mysterious illness known as “Myalgic Encephalomyelitis” or “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome”.

Other symptoms of ehrlichiosis can include:

  • Fever/chills and headache (majority of cases)
  • Fatigue/malaise (over two-thirds of cases)
  • Muscle/joint pain (25% – 50%)
  • Nausea, vomiting and/or diarrhea (25% – 50%)
  • Cough (25% – 50%)
  • Confusion or brain fog (50% of children, less common in adults)
  • Lymphadenopathy (47% – 56% of children, less common in adults)
  • Red eyes (occasionally)
  • Rash (approximately 60% of children and 30% of adults)

Diagnosis And Treatment
Like other tick-borne diseases, diagnostic blood tests will frequently be false-negative during the first weeks of illness. And like other tick-borne diseases, treatment is most effective if started early. For this reason, healthcare providers must use their best clinical judgement and treat patients based upon early symptoms alone.

According to the CDC website: “The diagnosis of ehrlichiosis must be made based on clinical signs and symptoms, and can later be confirmed using specialized confirmatory laboratory tests. Treatment should never be delayed pending the receipt of laboratory test results, or be withheld on the basis of an initial negative laboratory result.”

The CDC goes on to say: “Doxycycline is the first line treatment for adults and children of all ages and should be initiated immediately whenever ehrlichiosis is suspected.” (10)

Patients who are treated early may recover quickly on outpatient medication, while those who experience a more severe illness may require intravenous antibiotics, prolonged hospitalization or intensive care.

Category:

Ehrlichiosis, research, Treatment

Got Mold?

Upcoming Toxic Mold Summit FREE and online.  From Jan. 28-Feb 3, 2019.

Register here:  https://toxicmoldproject.com/?idev_id=10581&idev_username=betterhealthguy&utm_source=10581

Also

Dr. Neil Nathan’s New Book:  Toxic:  Heal Your Body from Mold Toxicity, Lyme Disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, and Chronic Environmental Illness.

Toxic book

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Podcast:  Life After Mold with Dr. Lauren Tessier

Lauren Tessier, ND is a Naturopathic Physician licensed in the state of Vermont. She received her Bachelors in Premedical Sciences and Health Psychology from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in Boston and later became a Naturopathic Physician at Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington.

Her practice, Life After Mold, uses a patient-centered approach to help recover those that are suffering from mold-related illness.  She combines naturopathic, functional, and integrative medicine to address the entire person.  She is a Shoemaker Certified Physician specializing in the treatment of Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS) which results from exposure to water-damaged buildings.

In 2011, Hurricane Irene created an unimaginable flood in Waterbury, Vermont, and she was unprepared for what she would see next in her practice.  Patients were ill with unexplained rashes, allergies that did not respond to treatment, fatigue, breathing difficulties, neurological complaints, headaches, nausea, and immune system dysfunction.  When her normal approaches no longer worked for these patients, she dove deep into mold-related illness.

Her practice is dedicated to helping those suffering with mold, biotoxin, and mycotoxin associated illness resulting from water-damaged buildings. As time passed, she came to the belief that the environment plays a role in all chronic illness.  Environmental illness includes mold, heavy metals, glyphosate exposure, chronic infections such as Lyme disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome.  Dr. Tessier is an Executive Board Member of the International Society for Environmentally Acquired Illness (ISEAI) which aims to advance medical knowledge surrounding environmentally acquired illness.

Key Takeaways

  • What are some of the environmental factors that may predispose an environment to water-damage and the potential for mold illness?
  • What are some of the illness-creating substances that are found in a water-damaged building?
  • What are common symptoms of CIRS?
  • Are there basic screening tests that can be performed of an environment before investing in an IEP?
  • How important are the HLA haplotypes in CIRS?
  • Is there clinical value in urinary mycotoxin testing?
  • Can molds encountered in a water-damaged building lead to colonization within the body?
  • When considering binders, what is absorption vs. adsorbtion?
  • Why is bile flow important and how might it be supported?
  • What options might help reducing inflammation in those with CIRS?
  • Are there downsides of exogenous glutathione supplementation?
  • How important is eradicating MARCoNS in CIRS?
  • How might VIP and Synapsin be helpful in those with CIRS?
  • What triggers Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and how might it be addressed?
  • When someone feels significantly worse, what rescue items might help to move through a detox or Herxheimer reaction?
  • Is there a role for limbic system retraining in CIRS?

Connect:  http://lifeaftermold.com

In the same vein, here’s another Podcast titled:

Create Your Healthy Home with May Dooley, MS, MA, CMC

In this episode, you will learn about Bau Biologie, or Building Biology, and how to evaluate and improve the health of the external environment in order to improve overall health.

May Dooley, MS, MA, CMC (Council-certified Microbial Consultant) is a former middle school science teacher who loves to educate and empower people with information to improve their environment – and thus, their lives.  She has been an environmental consultant for more than 24 years helping people make their home environment healthier.

She leads her clients through the basic steps to assess and create a healthy home which includes air quality, water quality, and reduced exposure to other stressors that may impact health such as electromagnetic fields.  Her inspections are interactive, and her clients learn how to measure EMFs, reduce body voltage in their bed, use a laser particle counter to evaluate their vacuum cleaner, and to take samples to explore for mold.  She even brings along her microscope and looks at the samples in your home.  Once she has evaluated an environment using the principles of Bau Biologie, she provides an easy-to-understand series of steps to improve the environment.

Key Takeaways

  • Why might culture plate air sampling be a better option than spore trap testing?
  • What are the pros and cons of the ERMI?
  • What is the CAP ERMI?
  • What role do microbial VOCs play in the health of an environment?
  • How often can mold issues be remediated?
  • How is a microscope helpful in exploring the potential for mold?
  • When moving to a new environment, what testing should be done to validate the environment is safe?
  • What belongings can be brought from a moldy environment to a new environment?
  • What can be used to address small amounts of visible mold?
  • What vacuum cleaners are ideal?
  • What are the 5 different types of EMFs and their sources?
  • What is body voltage and how is it measured?
  • What is grounding and how should it be done?
  • Why should the bed have no metal materials?
  • What light bulbs might be best?

Connect: http://createyourhealthyhome.com
http://moldcontrolonabudget.com

Disclaimer

The content of this show is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any illness or medical condition. Nothing in today’s discussion is meant to serve as medical advice or as information to facilitate self-treatment. As always, please discuss any potential health-related decisions with your own personal medical authority.

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For more:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/05/15/watch-the-documentary-moldy-for-free-for-a-limited-time/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/03/13/are-mold-mycotoxins-compromising-your-recovery/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/11/08/house-making-you-sick-mold-lyme-msids/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/02/24/top-3-lyme-detox-myths-busted-dr-rawls/

 

Category:

Detoxing, Mold, Testing, Treatment

Babesia Found in Patient With Persistent Symptoms Following Lyme Treatment

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/30262525/

Diagnosis of a tick-borne coinfection in a patient with persistent symptoms following treatment for Lyme disease.

Hoversten K, et al. BMJ Case Rep. 2018.

Abstract

A 67-year-old woman presented with 5 days of myalgias and fevers on completion of a 21-day course of amoxicillin for Lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi infection). She was found to have profound thrombocytopenia, as well as new anaemia and leucopenia. Workup revealed Babesia microti as the causative agent of her symptoms. The patient quickly improved after appropriate antimicrobial therapy directed against babesiosis was started. This case illustrates the importance of basic microbiology, including epidemiology and common vectors, when creating a differential diagnosis. Because the Ixodes scapularis tick can harbour and transmit multiple parasites simultaneously, the possibility of coinfection should be considered in any patient not responding to appropriate initial medical therapy.

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**Comment**

Expect a lot more articles like this.  

Word is finally getting out that Lyme is just the Rock Star we all know by name but there are a lot of wanna be’s right behind him that haven’t made the news.  Research still hasn’t been done showing the synergistic effects of all of this together on the human body.  

To date, ticks can transmit 18 and counting pathogens – ALL as devastating as Lyme:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/07/01/one-tick-bite-could-put-you-at-risk-for-at-least-6-different-diseases/

Lyme alone is a formidable foe that shape shifts to avoid treatment and the immune system that persists for many despite treatment.

Throw in Babesia, Bartonella, Mycoplasma, viruses, Nematodes (parasitic worms), and stuff not even named yet and a scary but telling picture begins to emerge.

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

Please note that Dr. Horowitiz, a prominent Lyme literate doctor (LLMD) recommends 9 months to a year of solid treatment for Babesia.  He’s finding it to be particularly tenacious.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/06/08/two-cases-of-babesia/  (They typically blame “severe” cases on a compromised immune system like a missing spleen but here we see someone as healthy as a horse all of a sudden develop shock and near respiratory failure).  If you have Lyme & Babesia &/or any other coinfection, your immune system is severely compromised.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/07/02/splenic-rupture-from-babesiosis-an-emerging-concern-a-systematic-review-of-current-literature/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/02/20/babesia-and-heart-issues/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/10/06/case-of-recurrent-fever-multiple-splenic-infarcts-why-short-treatment-duration-often-doesnt-work-for-babesia/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/06/03/heart-problems-tick-borne-disease/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/05/31/widespread-babesiosis-in-canada/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/03/22/what-is-air-hunger-anyway/

Category:

Babesia, Lyme, research, Testing, Ticks, Transmission, Treatment