Archive for the ‘Treatment’ Category

Hopeful Progress in Search of Better Tests & Treatments For Lyme Disease

https://www.lymedisease.org/focus-on-lyme-hopeful-progress/

LYME SCI: Hopeful progress in search of better tests and treatments

By Lonnie Marcum

Nov. 11, 2020

Tammy Crawford, Focus on Lyme

In 2020 fashion, the Focus On Lyme Scientific Conference went virtual this year, with featured speakers sharing their latest research in diagnostics and treatment. I really appreciated the depth of science that was presented, and how this year’s speakers were interconnected through their collaborative research.

Tammy Crawford, the founder of Focus On Lyme, and I share a common story. We both have daughters who contracted Lyme and co-infections in 2012. Our girls followed a similar painful path fraught with misdiagnosis after misdiagnosis, eventually landing with a doctor who believed in and brought healing to our homes. Like Tammy, I was willing to do anything to give my daughter her life back.

Professor Holly Ahern, the scientific adviser for Focus On Lyme and moderator of the conference shares a similar family story. Her daughter contracted Lyme  in 2002. As a professor of microbiology, member of state and federal tick-borne disease task forces, and a mother of a child with Lyme, Holly brings a deep level of knowledge and passion.

LymeX Innovation

To start things off, the Cohen Foundation’s Bennett Nemser spoke about the new $25 million-dollar “LymeX” prize challenge. LymeX is aimed at bringing next-generation diagnostics and innovative treatment solutions to patients with Lyme and tick-borne diseases. This collaboration between the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Cohan Foundation is the largest Lyme disease public-private partnership in history.

I got the feeling all of the researchers at this conference will be serious contenders for a LymeX prize.

Proof of Persistent Infection

Professor Monica Embers from Tulane University talked a great deal about how Borrelia spirochetes activate immune suppression, allowing it to evade eradication by the immune system. Her team has studied variable antibody responses among infected non-human primates and human Lyme patients. They’ve noted a pattern where an early robust immune (B-cell) response predicts better clinical outcomes, whereas more patients with chronic Lyme have indications of an impaired immune response.

Embers is working to develop a new diagnostic tool based off the body’s immune response to specific Borrelia molecules (antigens) beyond the standard tests. Specifically, her research indicates that the antigens OspA, OspC, DbpA and OppA-2 may offer distinct benefits when combined with the C6 peptide into a multi-antigen diagnostic test.

Importantly, Embers is collaborating with researchers at Duke, North Carolina State and Johns Hopkins University to develop novel treatments. She noted that doxycycline, the first-line treatment for Lyme disease, only works on active (dividing cells) Borrelia. However, when Borrelia change form and/or go dormant, they are not susceptible to the antibiotics.

One of the proposed treatments, which couples monoclonal antibodies and doxycycline, is already being tested in her lab. Embers said the team brought together by the late Dr. Neil Spector will soon publish more evidence from their collaborative research.

Identifying New Markers

Professor Mark Soloski, of Johns Hopkins University, presented about research being done at the JHU Lyme Disease Research Center. The research center has been conducting a years-long “Study of Lyme disease Immunology and Clinical Events (SLICE)” on a set of clearly defined patients diagnosed with early Lyme and treated with a standard course of antibiotics.

In the SLICE study, the group of patients who are left with chronic (six months or more) symptoms of Lyme after completing standard treatment are classified as post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS) for research purposes.

As professor Soloski explained, “human genetics are complicated.” The genes we inherit from our parents dictate how we respond to infection. The pathogen itself and our lived experiences also affect the disease process. The SLICE study looks at how the immune system (mostly T-cells) responds to Lyme disease. Over time, the SLICE study has compiled a comprehensive serum profile of two types of Lyme patients—those who get better and those who do not.

Patterns of immune response

Soloski says they still don’t know how or why T-cells vary from one patient to another, but they definitely see a pattern in the immune response of patients with PTLDS. In general, the patients with milder symptoms appear to have normal white blood cell (wbc) and liver levels, while the patients with more symptoms show low lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell,) and higher liver levels.

In addition, the JHU researchers have found a signaling protein (chemokine), specifically the T-cell chemokine known as CCL19, to remain elevated in the group of patients who do not improve following standard treatment for Lyme disease. In the 70-90% of patients who do return to normal function after treatment, the CCL19 levels began returning to normal at 3-4 weeks post-treatment. In the PTLDS patients, the CCL19 remains elevated at one year post-treatment.

Professor Soloski said the abnormal immune pattern they have seen in patients appears to be predictive of PTLDS, “like a fingerprint.” The researchers speculate that the elevated CCL19 levels are a result of an ongoing immune-driven reaction.

The SLICE study is designed to examine risk factors and immunologic biomarkers for Lyme disease. In addition, they have noted key genes associated with PTLDS that are being upregulated. Soloski is also interested in looking at how microglial cells and dendritic cells impact the disease process.

Applying Cancer Technology

Professor Tim Haystead, from Duke University, was brought into Lyme research five years ago by the late Dr. Neil Spector. Haystead said he has an added interest after his wife had Lyme while pregnant with their now-healthy 17-year-old daughter.

Like Spector, Haystead brings a deep knowledge of novel imaging techniques and developing targeted treatments for cancer. His team is currently working on identifying Borrelia burgdorferi infection using a “small molecule imaging probe.”

One of Spector’s many legacies is the formation of a targeted treatment for HER2 breast cancer. As Haystead explained, the “Hsp90” protein is found in all mammalian cells. The bacterial equivalent of Hsp90, called “HtpG” protein, is found in most bacteria.

One of Dr. Spector’s discoveries was that HER2 cancer monopolizes Hsp90 protein in a way that enables our genes to proliferate and form the basis of cancer. More recently, Spector and his team discovered that Borrelia uses the HtpG proteins in a similar manner.

Targeted therapies

Haystead described the concept of molecular targeted therapies for cancer. Targeted therapy attaches to specific proteins within the cancer cells and kills them.  It is different than chemotherapy which attacks all fast-growing cells, including cancer and healthy cells.

The thing that Haystead says he is best at is finding the molecular weak point in pathogens. In the laboratory he has identified several weak points in Borrelia that appear to be good targets for therapy.  In essence, Haystead is working to use HtpG protein inhibitors to kill Borrelia burgdorferi in the same method they were able to target Hsp90 in HER2 breast cancer.

As I described in a previous article Spector and Haystead’s team has identified two potential types of  treatment for Lyme disease. One method will use drugs to selectively target the Borrelia protein (HtpG), while avoiding normal human tissue and other healthy bacteria. The other method will use a fluorescent biomarker, which is activated by light, that can be used as a direct diagnostic tool and to selectively deliver targeted drugs.

The most promising drugs identified by Duke researchers are being sent to Johns Hopkins to be tested for effectiveness against Borrelia. The researchers at Johns Hopkins will then select the most effective drug candidates and send them to Embers’ team at Tulane, to be tested on animals. The final phase will be human trials.

Haystead ended his presentation saying, “I am happy to report that Neil’s work is going to continue.” He says they have identified three different targeted therapies and plan to start testing them in January 2021.

Biologic differences

Neal Woodbury, Ph.D. from Arizona State University is another stellar researcher bringing decades of experience in microbiology and cancer. His presentation focused on two themes 1) finding a better diagnostic, and 2) characterizing patients with what he calls “persistent symptom Lyme disease” or “PSLD.”

The antibody profiling assay they are working on is similar to an ELISA that detects the immune system’s response to infection. But it goes several steps further. Woodbury’s team has mapped multiple Borrelia burgdorferi proteins and classified them by their efficacy in predicting Lyme disease.

A surprising result of their initial blinded cohort revealed a strong gender bias in testing accuracy. They found that the antibody tests’ overall sensitivity for acute Lyme was about 80% (range 70-90%). But there was a strong difference in specificity by gender: 80% for males and only 20% for females. Woodbury says this suggests a gender-specific immune response in Lyme disease.

Woodbury’s research into patients with persistent symptoms (lasting six months or more) is using biobank samples from 200 CDC negative controls; 33 CDC-positive Lyme patients; 54 patients with symptoms that meet the Horowitz Medical Questionnaire for Lyme, but are CDC-negative; and 55 with a positive ELISA or Western blot.

Immune responses

The initial data is showing distinct differences in the immune responses of acute Lyme versus PSLD. Specifically, acute Lyme patients show Lyme specific immune responses whereas PSLD patients show more of an autoimmune response. They also found that patients with “suspected” Lyme disease have a weaker immune response than those with CDC-confirmed Lyme.

Importantly, the PSLD patient samples indicate that molecules within the nervous system “neuronal pathway” are being targeted by the immune system. Woodbury suggests this could explain the “high rate of neurological symptoms in PSLD (fatigue, pain, ‘brain fog,’ sleep disorders, and others.)”

Woodbury and his team are moving quickly with their research. He says they plan to have biomarkers available in the next couple of weeks, then go to the FDA for approval.

We’re Hopeful

Following the conference, I had the opportunity to speak with Tammy Crawford. We spoke at length about our shared journeys and our mutual excitement about the progress that is being made by these researchers. It never ceases to amaze me how much parents of children with chronic illnesses are capable of learning. You frequently see this, not just with Lyme, but also with diabetes, cancer and other rare diseases.

Tammy told me, “I’m hopeful the research will translate to an early diagnostic tool, because as we all know, early treatment is key to successful recovery. We had hoped to have something by the conference but there were delays due to COVID. We do expect to have something to present within the next few weeks.”

Tammy and I both are encouraged to see researchers from outside the Lyme world bringing fresh, new insight to the field. We both hope the collaborative efforts between these research teams will lead, not just to a test capable of detecting chronic Lyme, but also more effective treatments.

You can watch the entire Focus On Lyme Scientific Conference for free here.

LymeSci is written by Lonnie Marcum, a Licensed Physical Therapist and mother of a daughter with Lyme. In 2019-2020, she served on a subcommittee of the federal Tick-Borne Disease Working Group. Follow her on Twitter: @LonnieRhea  Email her at: lmarcum@lymedisease.org .

Related Posts:

  1. LYME SCI: Using the lessons of cancer to target Lyme disease
  2. LYME SCI: Remembering the gifts of Dr. Neil Spector
  3. Staging of Morgellons disease holds promise of better treatments
  4. How Lyme disease subverts the immune system

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For more:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/06/26/new-treatments-for-lyme-disease-on-the-horizon/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/category/lyme-disease-treatment/

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Treatment

FDA Declares Homeopathic Medicine Illegal – Help Save It

https://healthimpactnews.com/2020/fda-declares-homeopathic-medicine-illegal-advocacy-group-seeks-100000-protest-comments/

FDA Declares Homeopathic Medicine Illegal – Advocacy Group Seeks 100,000 Protest Comments

November 13, 2020

Help Us Save Homeopathy!

by Alliance for Natural Health

Help us support our allies in an effort to stop the FDA’s attack on this safe, natural form of medicine. Action Alert!

Our friends at Americans for Homeopathy Choice have submitted a Citizens Petition to the FDA requesting that the agency reverse its recent actions with regard to homeopathic medicine.

Upending decades of safe regulation, in 2018 the FDA released a draft guidance that essentially stated that all homeopathic drugs are illegal.

We cannot let this attack against this safe and effective form of medicine go unchecked.

Recall that the FDA’s guidance document, which lays out the agency’s current position on the regulation of homeopathic drugs, says:

  1. Any homeopathic drug that has not been considered “generally recognized as safe and effective” (GRAS/E) is considered a new drug;
  2. FDA has not determined that any homeopathic drugs are GRAS/E;
  3. A new drug cannot be marketed unless it goes through the FDA’s approval process;
  4. No homeopathic drugs have gone through FDA approval nor can any producer afford to take them through the approval process.

The guidance also explains that, while all homeopathic drugs are illegal, the FDA will apply a risk-based enforcement approach.

The agency has already begun to apply this doctrine; earlier this year the agency attacked manufacturers of injectable homeopathic medicines.

In our coverage of this recent attack, we pointed out that there is in fact no safety issue with homeopathic medicines, which have a sterling record of safety.

A review of the evidence of adverse events related to homeopathy, which included data from 12 European countries, the US, Mexico, India, Israel and Brazil published between 1978 and 2010, found a total of just 1,159 adverse events.

This equates to an average of just over 50 cases per annum across all 17 countries from which studies were conducted. By comparison, foodborne illness contributes to on average of 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths annually in the US alone.

Worldwide, an estimated 200 million people use homeopathy regularly, including 6 million in the United States. These data show that adverse events from homeopathic medicines occur at a very, very low rate.

So why go after homeopathic medicines?

The FDA gets a large part of its funding from drug company user fees, and for this reason sees Big Pharma as its client. Homeopathic medicines, like supplements and other natural products, compete with pharmaceutical drugs, so the FDA uses its enormous power to tilt the scales in favor of the drug companies.

And because natural products and homeopathic medicines generally cannot be patent-protected like drugs can, they can’t afford FDA-approval and so cannot make disease claims. It is one of many ways cronyism is undermining healthcare in this country.

Sign our petition below to reform American healthcare. In addition, go to Americans for Homeopathy Choice’s website to submit a comment in support of their Citizens Petition.

Action Alert! Sign our petition to reform our healthcare system that bars and undermines natural options like homeopathic medicine. Please sign our petition immediately.

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**Comment**

A little history lesson for today.  According to Eustace Mullins in his groundbreaking work, “Murder by Injection,” he recounts the American Medical Association’s dark and checkered past of monopolizing medicine.  In it we learn:

  • Homeopaths outnumbered allopaths by more than 2 to 1 in 1847.
  • Records show cholera deaths in the mid 1800’s were only 16.4% in homeopathic hospitals compared to 50% in orthodox medical hospitals.
  • Queen Elizabeth is still treated by her personal homeopathic physician.
  • Allopathy, a type of medicine that started in Germany, was dedicated to the frequent use of bleeding and heavy doses of drugs.
  • Although the AMA came into being in 1847, it wasn’t until 1899 when a so called “doctor” George Simmons came into the picture.  He had zero medical training and was a journalist.
  • The two other dominant figures in 20th century medicine, “Dr.” Fishbein and Albert Lasker were also journalists.  The two most notorious practitioners in U.S. medical history weren’t even mentioned in the exhaustive work, “The Story of Medicine in America.” The authors obviously wanted to separate these two famous quacks from medical history.
  • The AMA in 1868 formally defined quackery as “the sale or administration of drugs or treatment that are not approved by legally constituted medical authorities.”
  • Corruption quickly started under the infamous AMA “Seal of Approval” for new products.  There was ZERO testing done on products.  The seal was obtained by how much the supplicant could afford to pay.  Interestingly, many products with the seal were being seized by the FDA because they had decomposed animal substances in them. The FTA finally issued a “cease and desists” order in 1941.
  • Dr. Abbott of Abbott Laboratories didn’t have to pay a red cent for the “seal of approval” because he hired private detectives to dig up dirt on”Dr.” Simmon’s career which included details of his “so called” diplomas, records of sex charges, & medical negligence resulting in deaths.
  • A New York doctor wrote about the “crude and illegitimate” Simmons-Fishbein medical monopolizing methods and stated that, “almost every branch of the Federal Government active in the field of medicine was completely dominated by the Association.”  This same NY doctor’s discovery of the success of  vitamin E therapy for Myasthenia Gravis was deliberately concealed for more than 25 years by the AMA.
  • The AMA created the “Committee on Quackery” in 1963 to destroy the entire chiropractic profession.  Through the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals they imposed new requirements disallowing any arrangements with chiropractors and through the AMA Principles of Medical Ethics, they barred its members from all forms of exchange with chiropractors.  They forced the VA to refuse payments to veterans for chiropractic services.  It wasn’t until 1987 when several chiropractors sued the AMA of conspiracy that the tide turned after 11 YEARS of litigation. The judge wrote a 101 page opinion and issued an Order of Permanent Injunction requiring the AMA to cease and desist from the malice and obstructionism against the chiropractic profession.
  • People were arrested for giving away booklets on vitamins.   Others received fines and prison sentences.  Injury was never alleged.  Heavily armed SWAT teams, often in the dead of night, broke down doors to capture elderly women and their stocks of herbal teas.
  • A Dr. Mendelsohn called modern medicine “The Church of Death,” whose Four Holy Waters are 1) immunizations 2) fluoridated water 3) IV fluids 4) silver nitrate.

Hopefully this little lesson shows the long and concerted history of shutting down any and all medical competition.  Hopefully it also shows we need to fight hard against it.  

Those before us fought this evil and we owe it to them and ourselves to follow through.  

Category:

Activism, Treatment

Remdesivir, Hydroxycloroquine and COVID-19

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/11/remdesivir-hydroxychloroquine-and-covid-19/

Remdesivir, Hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19

12th November 2020

By Aynsley Kellow

Has there ever been a worse public policy disaster than the response of almost all governments to COVID-19?

It is now clear that COVID-19, while very infectious, is no more lethal that various influenza epidemics, with an Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of around 0.1 per cent. As I pointed out in Quadrant in March (“Logic, the First Casualty”), Stanford Professor of Epidemiology John Ioannidis correctly estimated the IFR for Covid as 0.125 per cent, this being the rate at which those infected perish. He also estimated the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) as about 1 per cent, this being the fatality rate of the cases being treated.

These estimates have proven to be accurate and comparable to those for seasonal influenza—and less than the 2 to 3 per cent CFR of the H1N1 influenza virus that caused the 2009 swine flu pandemic and less than the rate initially estimated by the WHO, which has not accepted the lower figure. While swine flu was not as infectious as Covid, governments did not close down societies and economies and trample civil liberties in response to the swine flu pandemic. Why have they with Covid?  (See link for article)

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**Comment**

One of the best articles I’ve read that travels through the entire painful COVID debacle, including the unbelievable way COVID treatments, particularly Remdesivir and HCQ have been mishandled.  Well worth the time to read.

Important excerpt:

Policy-makers are therefore more likely to double down. Cognitive dissonance will help them ignore contrary evidence and the consequences of their actions, and a generally poor media is unlikely to disabuse them of their confidence that they have not made mistakes. Meantime, we all suffer.

Our long experience with Lyme/MSIDS demonstrates this point: it is very unlikely our ‘authorities’ will ever admit they made a mistake and change their ways.  Too much is at stake – most of it related to big, lucrative deals that have been struck.

Hopefully it is clear our public ‘authorities’ do not care one iota about our health. If they did they would be educating and promoting healthier lifestyle choices and safe and effective treatments which according to doctors worldwide are working.  Notice they push the expensive drug they all have financial ties to while denigrating a cheap, safe drug that has a long, long history of efficacy and safety.  Yet, due to a complicit media, even doctors are fearful now of HCQ.

They’ve done this exact same thing with treatment for Lyme/MSIDS and have effectively scared the bejesus out of doctors who now either refuse to treat us entirely or only will treat us with a few weeks of oral antibiotics:  

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/04/26/cdc-playbook-learning-from-lyme/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/12/15/everything-about-lyme-disease-is-steeped-in-controversy-now-some-doctors-are-too-afraid-to-treat-patients/

For more on the mishandling of HCQ:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/08/26/hydroxychloroquine-a-morality-tale/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/08/11/yale-epidemiologist-dr-fauci-running-misinformation-campaign-against-hydroxychloroquine-aap-says-fda-caused-20000-deaths/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/06/30/dr-meryl-nass-discovers-hydroxychloroquine-experiments-were-designed-to-kill-covid-patients-how-many-were-murdered/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/06/01/rebuttal-on-huge-hcq-study-in-lancet/

Category:

Activism, Treatment

A Flea’s Knees: A Unique Presentation of Cat Scratch Disease

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33129648/

The flea’s knees: A unique presentation of cat scratch disease

. 2020 Oct 24;S0735-6757(20)30929-3.

doi: 10.1016/j.ajem.2020.10.033. Online ahead of print.

Jacob M Begres 1, Courtney W Mangus 2

Abstract

A 4-year-old girl presented to the emergency department with right leg pain and associated limp for one day. There was no trauma or injury; she had no fever or recent illness. Her exam was notable for tenderness and swelling to the right knee, most prominent in the popliteal region. Initial laboratory testing was unremarkable except for a mildly elevated C-reactive protein. She had normal radiographs of the right lower extremity. A soft tissue ultrasound demonstrated popliteal lymphadenopathy, a rare finding in children. Reassessment of the patient revealed cat flea bites to the leg, which prompted concern for Bartonella henselae infection causing Cat-scratch Disease (CSD). The patient was treated empirically with Azithromycin and her Bartonella titers returned two days later consistent with active infection. This is a rare clinical report describing popliteal lymphadenitis and lower extremity arthropathy caused by Bartonella henselae infection secondary to cat flea bites.

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**Comment**

I can only fathom the thousands of similar cases that have gone undiagnosed.

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

Category:

Bartonella, research, Treatment

Does Colloidal Silver Treat Lyme Disease?

https://rawlsmd.com/health-articles/can-colloidal-silver-treat-lyme-disease

Does Colloidal Silver Treat Lyme Disease?

by Dr. Bill Rawls
Posted 10/8/18

Colloidal silver has antimicrobial properties, but it’s also a toxic heavy metal. Find out if silver is a safe and effective treatment for Lyme disease.

http://

Approx. 3 Min.
 
Video Transcript

Question: Does colloidal silver treat Lyme disease?

The answer is yes, colloidal silver does have antimicrobial properties. The question is, do we want to use it on humans?

There’s no doubt that silver has antimicrobial properties that have been well-documented for a long time. But so does mercury. All heavy metals have some antimicrobial-type properties. We have people that are doing everything they can to get mercury and heavy metals out of their bodies, and yet they’re dumping silver into their bodies to try to kill Lyme disease bacteria.

It really doesn’t make that much sense to me. Silver is not as toxic as mercury, but it still does have some toxicity, and it’s really hard for your body to remove it. If you use it for a long time, you are going to accumulate silver in your tissues.

Back when I was struggling with Lyme disease, I actually tried colloidal silver. I took it for a short period of time, and compared to other things that I used — predominantly herbs — it didn’t seem to have quite the punch that the herbs did. One herb alone wasn’t enough, but when I took combinations of herbs, that seemed to be superior to the silver.

So, for me, herbs were really a much better choice. I still have some reservations about silver, and I think that when you look at the spectrum of things that you can use for Lyme disease, herbs rank right up there at the top. Silver is quite a bit further down the list.

When you look at overcoming Lyme disease, it’s not a week or day type of thing. You have to take the antimicrobial for months and years. It’s about long-term suppression, and the advantage of herbs is you can do that long-term suppression without toxicity to your body.

If you’re looking at treating Lyme disease with silver, remember, you’re not talking about days or weeks, you’re talking about months and years of using it, which could potentially increase the toxicity. I would put my money on the herbs as being the better therapy out there.

Dr. Rawls is a physician who overcame Lyme disease through natural herbal therapy. You can learn more about Lyme disease in Dr. Rawls’ new best selling book, Unlocking Lyme.

You can also learn about Dr. Rawls’ personal journey in overcoming Lyme disease and fibromyalgia in his popular blog post, My Chronic Lyme Journey.

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**Comment**

The important point is that treatment often lasts from months to years, often requiring numerous types of treatments. Be open minded because what works for one, often doesn’t work for another.

While Dr. Rawls had success with herbs, my husband and I had the best success with an overlapping antibiotic regimen.  We also did a stint of IV blood ozone under UV light (expensive, time consuming, and we never herxed), utilized herbs (never herxed), and took colloidal silver along with antibiotics for a short time (honestly didn’t notice a difference).  Hands down antibiotics were the biggest bang for the buck.  We aren’t alone:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/10/14/peer-reviewed-study-confirms-what-we-knew-all-along-longer-antibiotic-treatment-duration-is-associated-with-better-treatment-response-for-lyme-disease/

While my family has used a high potency colloidal silver spray for sore throats for a very short duration (a few days) with success, from my experience with other patients, I do not believe this is strong enough for Lyme/MSIDS nor do I think long term usage to be wise due to accumulating metal.  Dr. Rawls makes another astute point – patients often spend thousands of dollars eliminating toxic metals from the body.  Why would you purposely add more?  

Treatment is long. Treatment is painful.  Treatment is expensive.  Treatment is controversial.  

For those of you who are anti-antibiotic, please read:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/08/14/natural-is-not-always-better-for-tick-borne-illness/

Also, please see this regarding various ‘natural’ treatments including silver: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/02/22/evaluation-of-natural-botanical-medicines-for-activity-against-growing-and-non-growing-forms-of-b-burgdorferi-in-vitro/  They now say Stevia, Andrographis, Grapefruit seed extract, colloidal silver, monolaurin, and antimicrobial peptide LL37 didn’t do diddly.  Keep in mind this work is done in vitro – or in a lab, not the human body – although this follows my experience as well.  I also used EO’s without success as well:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/10/13/oregano-cinnamon-and-clove-found-to-have-high-anti-persister-activity-for-bb/

This is not to say that certain forms/combinations won’t be found to work in the future.  Research is ongoing.

I also know patients who either live in areas without Lyme literate doctors OR they can not afford to see one.  Necessity sometimes corners you to have to consider treatment options that are less than optimal.  While unfortunate, people often have to use what’s available.  I rejoice when anyone improves – on anything!  Patients have often improved on things I never would have believed worked.  The important thing is you look at all your options and work with your practitioner, honestly keeping track of symptoms and what works and what doesn’t.  

Category:

Herbs, Lyme, Treatment