Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

A Blast From the Past

11_cases316x316Permission from lymestats.org

Turn the Corner Foundation: The Fight Against Lyme Disease

This short 6 minute video was uploaded in 2008 and includes excerpts from “Under Our Skin,” the best primer on Lyme Disease out there.  It’s important to see our past to understand our present.  We have far to go, but many courageous and gifted people have done so much for the Lyme community.  My favorite part is when Dr. Corson, obviously infused with life changing direction from Dr. Burrascano, announced,

“I feel like I need to educate an army.  I need to train an army because that’s what it’s gonna take to treat all of the patients that need to be cared for.”   

Eight years have come and gone with Dr. Corson’s prophetic words.  The good news is slowly more doctors are becoming trained by *ILADS to effectively treat MSIDS (multi systemic infectious disease syndrome), but she’s right, so many more are needed.

http://www.ilads.org

*International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society

ILADS is a nonprofit, international, multi-disciplinary medical society, dedicated to the diagnosis and appropriate treatment of Lyme and its associated diseases. ILADS promotes understanding of Lyme through research and education and strongly supports physicians and other health care professionals dedicated to advancing the standard of care for Lyme and its associated diseases.

Category:

Activism, Lyme, research, Uncategorized

Mice are Immune

82_mice316x316Permission by Lymestats.org

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/tech/science/environment/2014/03/22/exclusive-report-ticks-dont-harm-mice-study-finds/6761845/

I have to kinda admit – I think mice are cute.  Perhaps it’s because my brother always had some, running in their little treadmills.  It’s always been a curiosity of mine to know if they are affected as we are with MSIDS (multi systemic infectious disease syndrome or Lyme with friends).

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that researchers at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies discovered just last year that ticks do not affect the health or lifespan of mice, and what’s more, male mice seemed to have better health the more ticks they had!

“The study examined mice during the warm-weather months and tracked winter survival rates. In both cases, the number of ticks on a mouse appeared to have no impact.  Over 16 years, they had captured more than 5,500 mice, tagged them so they could be tracked, and counted the ticks on them.

‘We couldn’t detect an effect, which is really surprising,’ said Michelle Hersh, the study’s lead author, a former researcher at Cary and now a biology professor at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers.

When paired with other research that has shown mice don’t fight off diseases effectively and don’t remove ticks from their bodies, the study underscores the threat the small mammals play as wellsprings for Lyme disease, malaria-like maladies such as babesiosis and anaplasmosis, and the incurable and often deadly Powassan encephalitis.
Mice were trapped every three or four weeks, starting at the peak period of larval tick activity in late July and early August, until the end of the breeding season in November.  Each time a mouse was trapped, it was either marked with an ear tag — if it had no tag — or its tag number was recorded.

The number of larval ticks varied widely, with some mice having more than 200. On average, the mice carried about 23 ticks.“

So, now you know.

Category:

Lyme, research, Ticks, Uncategorized

IDSA Guidelines removed from NGC

 

108_bethbell316x316 All graphics used with permission from Alison of http://lymestats.org/.

https://www.lymedisease.org/idsa-guidelines-removed-ngc/

The National Guidelines Clearinghouse–a federal database that provides treatment information to health care professionals and insurance companies–has removed the IDSA Lyme disease treatment guidelines from its website recently. This means that the only Lyme disease guidelines listed on the NGC are those of ILADS, which were posted in 2014.

Last year the NGC revised its criteria for listing guidelines to conform to some of the standards adopted by the Institute of Medicine in 2011 for creating trustworthy guidelines. These standards included using a rigorous evidence review system. The ILADS guidelines, which were authored by Lorraine Johnson (LymeDisease.org), Dan Cameron (ILADS), and Betty Maloney, conformed to the high evidentiary standards of the IOM.

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Because the IDSA guidelines did not comply with the more stringent requirements, they were removed from the NGC.

The IDSA guidelines are currently undergoing revision. LymeDisease.org and the Lyme Disease Association led an effort to gather comments from close to 90 groups protesting the process—which among other things—did not include a Lyme patient as required by the Institute of Medicine.

29_rep316x316

LymeDisease.org launched a patient survey called for comments on the IDSA guidelines on March 27 and filed comments from over 6,100 patients in less than a month. After the protest regarding the failure to include a Lyme patient on the panel, in response to pressure by U.S. congressmen, the IDSA suggested that it might reconsider putting a Lyme patient on the panel. We do not know the revision schedule for the IDSA guidelines.

Kudos to the good people working hard for us.  I’d like to think of this as a boycott of the horrifically outdated IDSA guidelines for tick borne illnesses.  Keep your chins up, folks, it’s getting good.

103_cdc316x316

Category:

Activism, Educational handouts, Uncategorized

New Bartonella Species

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/22/3/15-0269-t1

“Abstract

Certain Bartonella species are known to cause afebrile bacteremia in humans and other mammals, including B. quintana, the agent of trench fever, and B. henselae, the agent of cat scratch disease. Reports have indicated that animal-associated Bartonella species may cause paucisymptomatic bacteremia and endocarditis in humans. We identified potentially zoonotic strains from 6 Bartonella species in samples from patients who had chronic, subjective symptoms and who reported tick bites. Three strains were B. henselae and 3 were from other animal-associated Bartonella spp. (B. doshiae, B. schoenbuchensis, and B. tribocorum). Genomic analysis of the isolated strains revealed differences from previously sequenced Bartonella strains. Our investigation identifed 3 novel Bartonella spp. strains with human pathogenic potential and showed that Bartonella spp. may be the cause of undifferentiated chronic illness in humans who have been bitten by ticks.”

https://www.lymedisease.org/cdc-identifies-new-species-of-bartonella/

“In summary, their ‘major finding is the isolation of zoonotic Bartonella other than B. quintana in the blood of patients with poorly qualified syndromes. These results indicate that zoonotic Bartonella spp. infection may cause undifferentiated chronic illness in humans.’ (With “poorly qualified syndromes” the authors are primarily referring to CFS-chronic fatigue syndrome. “Undifferentiated” symptoms are generalized complaints like joint or muscle pain, numbness, tingling, headache, insomnia, fatigue or “flu-like” symptoms. “Undifferentiated chronic illness” is basically an illness that we don’t have an explanation or a clear diagnosis for.)

The authors state it is crucial to determine whether Bartonella is involved ‘because treatment for chronic Bartonella bacteremia (as for B. quintana) is particularly arduous and may require six weeks of doxycycline treatment together with three weeks of gentamicin, as these are the only antimicrobial drugs known to be effective in eradication of Bartonella.’

Here’s my take away from this study: If someone with a tick bite tests negative for Lyme but continues to have chronic symptoms like those I’ve highlighted above, a weird striated rash (like the one pictured below), swollen lymph nodes, or has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and/or myalgic encephalomyelitis, it would be wise to be tested for a Bartonella infection.”

blogger-image--1725643523

Image from Lonnie Marcum’s site:  http://tenaciouspt.blogspot.com/2016/02/cdc-finds-several-new-species-of.html

Please refer to:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.wordpress.com/2016/01/03/bartonella-treatment/

There are other things besides doxy and gentamicin that are effective against Bartonella.  Don’t trust the CDC on this, trust veterinarian Dr. Breitschwerdt, who has far more expertise in this area than regular GP’s.

Category:

Bartonella, research, Treatment, Uncategorized

New Species of Lyme Found

Published on Feb 5, 2016
Dr. Bobbi Pritt, Mayo Clinic, discuss how Mayo Clinic researchers, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and health officials from Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin, have discovered a new bacterial species that causes Lyme disease in people. The new species has been provisionally named Borrelia mayonii (named after Will and Charlie Mayo who founded Mayo Clinic). Prior to this finding, the only species believed to cause Lyme disease in North America was Borrelia burgdorferi.

Category:

Lyme, research, Ticks, Uncategorized