Episode 52: Restoring Health Through a Multi-Therapeutic Approach
January 9, 2019
Cindy Kennedy, FNP, is joined by Dr. Jaban Moore, whose passion for restoring health through a multi-therapeutic approach came from watching his mother deal with health issues. His own Lyme struggle put him on a learning path to conquer this illness and now he treats and advocates for other Lyme sufferers.
Dr. Moore’s mother was diagnosed with diabetes after a three-year struggle trying to figure out what was causing her health to decline. She was diagnosed only because she was in a car accident and in the emergency room she was told that she was diabetic. Her doctors noted that the diagnosis was possibly missed for years. By this point she had gained 100 pounds, her cholesterol was out of control, she had ulcers in her stomach, depression, high blood pressure and chronic fatigue.
Growing up Dr. Moore watched his mother’s condition progress, adding new medications but never curing or making her feel better for long – just stabilizing one symptom until the next started. This eventually lead to thyroid cancer and two surgeries. Through this experience, Dr. Moore found his mission to discover the root cause of a condition so that the progression can be stopped so the next person doesn’t have to go through a story like hers.
During chiropractic school, when his own health journey began, he started to decline physically rapidly with no known cause at the age of 25. Over the next year, he searched for answers with many different doctors. He was experiencing fatigue, joint pain and low testosterone. After not finding many answers from several doctors he was at a conference of functional medicine doctors. It was there he met one who suggested the possibility of Lyme disease. After some testing and further investigation, Dr. Moore was found to be positive for Lyme. This began his journey of learning how to treat it. After consulting several doctors and trying many treatments Dr. Moore found relief and has been symptom-free for over five years now.
Dr. Moore’s professional and postdoctoral training includes True Cellular Healing, Chiropractic Plus Kinesiology, Applied Kinesiology, Clinical Kinesiology, Acupuncture, Bio-Resonance Therapy, Sacro-Occipital Technique (SOT), Nutrition, Rehabilitation, Functional Medicine, Blood Laboratory Analysis and Live Cell Microscopy.
He has taken courses on Mastering Functional Blood Chemistry, Mastering Thyroid, Mastering Brain Chemistry, and has trained with several Lyme disease and parasitology experts.
BACKGROUND Bartonella infection is the causative organism of cat-scratch disease (CSD), which typically presents with self-limited localized lymphadenopathy. In HIV-infected patients, Bartonella infection can cause systemic illnesses with significant morbidity and mortality manifesting as bacillary angiomatosis (BA), hepatic peliosis, splenitis, bacteremic febrile illness, and other organ involvement. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no reports of HIV-infected patients presenting with generalized lymphadenopathy caused by Bartonella infection. We report an unusual case of CSD presenting with generalized lymphadenopathy in an AIDS patient with advanced immunosuppression.
CASE REPORT A 44-year-old woman with AIDS, advanced immunosuppression, and intermittent adherence to antiretroviral therapy and medical care, presented with cough and increased generalized tender lymphadenopathy. A lymph node biopsy 1 year earlier was non-diagnostic for tuberculosis, fungal infection, and lymphoproliferative disorders. She remained with generalized lymphadenopathy. A repeat biopsy with the addition of Warthin-Starry silver staining suggested the diagnosis of cat-scratch lymphadenitis. She responded well to a long course of azithromycin antibiotic therapy, with the resolution of lymphadenopathy. CONCLUSIONS Cat-scratch disease may present with prolonged generalized lymphadenopathy, an unusual presentation in HIV patients with advanced immunosuppression. Awareness of the possibility of CSD in a similar clinical scenario may prompt early recognition and management of this disease.
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**Comment**
While this case study is on an HIV-infected patient, those infected with Lyme/MSIDS can have similar presentations with systemic illness, and significant morbidity and mortality due to the immunosuppressive nature of tick borne infections (TBI’s).
Notice that treatment was a “long course” of antibiotics that for some reason is acceptable for an immunosuppressed HIV patient but NOT an immunosuppressed Lyme/MSIDS patient. It’s a head scratcher for sure.
Bartonellae bacteria are associated with several re-emerging human diseases. These vector-borne pathogens have a global distribution, yet data on Bartonella prevalence and diversity in the Arabian Peninsula are limited. In this study we assessed the Bartonella infection status of the Baluchistan gerbil (Gerbillus nanus), a species associated with pastoral communities throughout the Middle East region, using a multi-gene PCR screening approach.
The results demonstrated that 94 (68.1%) of the 138 gerbils trapped on a monthly basis, over a period of one year, were PCR-positive. Sequencing of the gltA gene region confirmed the presence of four discrete Bartonella lineages (I-IV) and high levels of co-infection (33.0%). Each of the four lineages, varied in overall abundance (7.5%-47.9%) and had discernible seasonal peaks. Bartonella status was significantly correlated with ectoparasite presence, but not with sex, nor with season. Statistical analyses further revealed that co-infected individuals had a significantly higher relative body condition. Multi-locus sequence analysis (MLSA) performed with a concatenated dataset of three genetic loci (gltA, nuoG, and rpoB), 1452 nucleotides (nt) in length confirmed that lineage IV, which occurred in 24 PCR-positive animals (25.5%), is most closely related to zoonotic B. elizabethae. The remaining three lineages (I-III) formed a monophyletic clade which, on the basis of gltA was shown to contain bartonellae from diverse Gerbillinae species from the Middle East, suggestive of a gerbil-associated species complex in this region. Lineage I was identical to a Candidatus B. sanaae strain identified previously in Bushy-tailed jirds (Sekeetamys calurus) from Egypt, wherease MLSA indicate that lineages II and III are novel. The high levels of infection and co-infection, together with the presence of multiple Bartonella lineages indicate that Gerbillus nanus is likely a natural reservoir of Bartonella in the Arabian Peninsula.
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**Comment**
Bartonella is highly prevalent in Lyme/MSIDS patients, yet, mainstream medicine isn’t even looking at it. If they do look at it they make the mistake of downplaying its significance. This article is yet another example of its proliferation and presence. Ticks are also ectoparasites yet many deny its ability to transmit Bartonella. This issue needs to be resolved; however, since so many Lyme/MSIDS patients have it, it’s either transmitted directly from ticks OR the tick bite and subsequent immune suppression causes asymptomatic cases to reactivate. Either way, it is an important issue.
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/01/03/bartonella-treatment/Fifteen species of gram-negative aerobic Bartonella are known to infect humans; however Dr. Ricardo Maggi’s statement is quite telling, “This case reinforces the hypothesis that any Bartonella species can cause human infection.”
Episode #87: Wahls Protocol with Dr. Terry Wahls, MD
By Better Health Guy
Why You Should Listen:
In this episode, you will learn about the Wahls Protocol and the impact of diet and nutrition in MS and other neurological diseases.
About My Guest: My guest for this episode is Dr. Terry Wahls. Terry Wahls, MD is an Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner and a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Iowa where she conducts clinical trials. In 2018 she was awarded the Institute for Functional Medicine’s Linus Pauling Award for her contributions in research, clinical care, and patient advocacy. She is also a patient with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, which confined her to a tilt-recline wheelchair for four years. Dr. Wahls restored her health using a diet and lifestyle program she designed specifically for her brain and now pedals her bike to work each day. She is the author of “The Wahls Protocol: How I Beat Progressive MS Using Paleo Principles and Functional Medicine”, “The Wahls Protocol: A Radical New Way to Treat All Chronic Autoimmune Conditions Using Paleo Principles”, and the cookbook “The Wahls Protocol Cooking for Life: The Revolutionary Modern Paleo Plan to Treat All Chronic Autoimmune Conditions”. She conducts clinical trials that test the effect of nutrition and lifestyle interventions to treat MS and other progressive health problems. She teaches the public and medical community about the healing power of the Paleo diet and therapeutic lifestyle changes that restore health and vitality. She hosts a Wahls Protocol Seminar every August where anyone can learn how to implement the Protocol with ease and success.
Key Takeaways:
– How did Dr. Wahls go from four years in a wheelchair to riding her bike to work? – What is the 3/3/3 nutrition program?
– Why are greens, colored vegetables and fruits, and sulfur-containing foods so critical?
– How is the mitochondria and myelin supported through diet?
– Why are mushrooms and seaweed key components of the protocol?
– What protein sources are utilized?
– What is the role if intestinal hyperpermeability in autoimmune diseases?
– Are lectins a problem for those with neurological disease?
– What is the role of the microbiome in supporting health?
– Do infections play a role in MS?
– Does environmental toxicity need to be considered to maximize health potential?
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.
Farmers talk of agony from undiagnosed Lyme disease
January 02, 2019
By Lynne Kelleher
Farmers have opened up about the agony of suffering silently with Lyme disease, which is notoriously difficult to diagnose.
There are around 200 new cases of Lyme Disease every year, but the true incidence is not known, as it can often be overlooked, due to varied symptoms.
Pop star Avril Lavigne, actor Richard Gere, and former US president George W Bush are all said to have experienced the horrors of the Borrelia bacteria, which is carried by infected ticks.
‘Ear to the Ground’ presenter Ella McSweeney, left, with Charlie Harkin, who had Lyme disease, and his wife, Serena.
It can cause a range of debilitating symptoms, from fatigue and joint pain to neurological problems.
It is transmitted by tiny ticks that live outside on animals. Farmers are particularly vulnerable to the condition.
Jack Lambert, a consultant specialist in infectious disease at Dublin’s Mater Hospital, believes the disease is more common in Ireland than previously thought.
“We actually have to open up our mind up to this new disease, which is much more common than we were previously aware of,” said Dr Lambert.
“We need to resource, to educate the GPs on the frontline, who are seeing these patients, to even think about Lyme.
“We need to educate the specialists, who are seeing these patients with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue and rheumatological conditions and neurological conditions, to even consider Lyme, because it’s not on their radar screen at present.
“Not every case of rheumatoid arthritis is going to be Lyme disease, but you should at least think about it and do the test and take a history.”
In Thursday’s episode of RTÉ’s farming series Ear to the Ground, a farmer speaks of the devastation of suffering the symptoms, such as chronic fatigue and joint pain, and the failure to have his condition diagnosed.
Charlie Harkin, a part-time farmer from Inishowen, began to feel unwell on Christmas day four years ago.
He suffered with Lyme disease for two years before being diagnosed following a blood test.
“I was jumping for relief that someone was telling me what I had,” he said.
I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. It is savage. It was one of the scariest things I ever went through in my life and I never want to do it again.
Dr Lambert said the disease is very treatable.
“My belief, and my observation from treating patients, is that even if it has been in your system for five or ten years, if you do all the necessary treatment — antibiotics, immune supplements, anti-inflammatories, things to fix the immune system — it is curable,” he said.
“If you catch it early, within six months, I think, sometimes, even a three- to six-week course of antibiotics does it, or even two to three months of antibiotics does it.”
Farmers are urged to avoid tick-borne infections by wearing repellent and by checking for ticks at the end of the day, looking out for a bulls-eye rash, flu-like symptoms, and nerve pain.
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**Comment*
I’ve previously posted articles on Dr. Lambert, a Scottish doctor who is currently working as an Infectious Diseases consultant in a public hospital in Dublin, Ireland. He has been treating Lyme Borreliosis patients for 20 years in the USA and during the last 5 years in Ireland. He has also successfully treated young women who fell ill after their HPV vaccination, which seems to have stimulated a latent Lyme infection.
We are in the very primitive stages of our understanding of Lyme and co-infections. This is what I sometimes would like to do. Lyme is a bacteria, a spirochete. It gets into your body and causes all sorts of damage. Immunological damage, inflammatory damage.
“But it’s the bacteria. Dummy.”
We should not be calling it Chronic Fatigue or MUS, when we know it is caused by a bacteria. And the bacteria is hard to grow. And the immune system starts to attack the bacteria and causes all this inflammation. The immune system eventually starts to wear down. But when you treat many of these patients with all of these ‘garbage bag’ diagnoses, they get better with the antibiotics.
Antibiotics work against bacteria, anti-virals work against viruses. So when I treat someone with antibiotics and they get better, my conclusion is that this is a bacterial effect (although disbelievers say antibiotics have ‘immunological effects’).
So, I say to the disbelievers ‘It’s the bacteria, dummy’ and find better diagnostic tests to identify these bacteria. Don’t tell patients it ‘post-infectious’ when you are unable to grow the bacteria before treatment, and then can’t grow it during or after treatment.
Treat coinfections as this is typically a polymicrobial illness
Lyme/MSIDS is slow growing and persistent requiring longer treatment time
Dr. Burrascano recommends Cycling. This means that after a person has been symptom-free for 2-4 months stop treatment. If and when symptoms return, start treatment again. In his experience, 3-4 of these cycles typically allow most patients to achieve wellness, with the worst herx on the 3rd cycle.
Lyme/MSIDS wreaks havoc on the entire body requiring supplementation where imbalances occur
Inflammation requires changes and substances to reduce it
Address pain
Address insomnia
Some patients require higher doses of drugs as research has shown their blood levels aren’t high enough. Without high enough blood levels, they won’t be killing pathogens and run the risk of allowing the pathogens to mutate
Address psychological issues if present
As you can see, this is far from a “take this pill and call me in the morning.”
