Nature's Dirty Needle

Hi Everyone,

This is a great article I ran across from our friends at Lymedisease.org. 

TOUCHED BY LYME is written by Dorothy Kupcha Leland.
This is a great artricle!


Be well,
Richard

TOUCHED BY LYME: (book review) Nature's Dirty Needle

05 October, 2011

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A Lyme-literate nurse practitioner writes about chronic Lyme disease.

The image of heroin addicts sharing dirty needles is a strong one. Most people understand it’s a bad idea, an easy way to spread diseases like HIV and hepatitis.

The image of ticks as “nature’s dirty needle” is also dramatic. Ticks stick their mouth parts into mice, birds, squirrels, deer and untold other wild animals, picking up viruses, worms, protozoa and oh yes, bacterial infections like Lyme disease. By the time the tick sticks its dirty needle into you, you risk contracting a variety of different pathogens, some of them not even named yet.

In her book, “Nature’s Dirty Needle,” Lyme-literate nurse practitioner Mara Williams explores the topic of chronic Lyme disease as the end result of this toxic soup transmitted by tick saliva. The Lyme spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, is only part of the mix.

The complexity of chronic Lyme, with its myriad coinfections, is one reason it can be so confounding to diagnose and treat this disease. And why it’s essential for Lyme patients to find a knowledgeable practitioner. Williams describes symptoms, treatment and some of the politics surrounding Lyme and coinfections.

She interweaves personal anecdotes from individuals with Lyme, spelling out how difficult it was for them to get properly diagnosed, as well as the ups and downs of their experiences with treatment.

Ultimately, she sums up a bleak picture: “In the current health care system, there is no place for the millions who are ill with CLD (chronic Lyme disease) to get help when they are in need of more intensive support and care. No hospital exists that recognizes and treats these infections….Every person that I have spoken with who is ill with CLD has mentioned their frustration that there is nowhere for them to get help when they are relapsing or herxing.”

At the end of the book, Williams lays out her ideas for a healing center called Inanna House, which she would like to build in Sonoma County, CA.  It would be geared to the needs of chronic Lyme patients, a place to receive supportive therapies and start IV treatments in a safe environment. It would offer both in-patient and out-patient care, as well as workshops and classes. It would incorporate a range of healing modalities, both western and alternative.

I don’t know how far along her plans are, or what it would take to open and run such a facility. But as I read the last chapter, where she describes her vision for Inanna House, I could imagine Lyme patients everywhere giving the idea a standing ovation.

TOUCHED BY LYME is written by Dorothy Kupcha Leland, LymeDisease.org's VP for Education and Outreach. Contact her at dleland@lymedisease.org.

Phone Detective-

Hi everyone,

         This is a great resource tool in finding anyone's cell phone number or an unlisted number.There are many reasons why you might want to conduct a reverse phone search:

• Find out the source of a harassing ("prank") caller
• Research a number that appeared on your phone bill
• Locate an old friend from high school or college
• Research "missed calls" on your caller ID that you don't recognize
• Verify an address
• And more

Why don't you give this a try?

Be well,
Richard

http://b328eblj5igagzberiy6vne23y.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=PEOPLE

Ticks Aren't the Only Parasites

 Hello, everyone,

I ran across this letter the other day and I thought I would copy it to the blog. I can't help but feel the exact same way this author feels about the physicians of the CDC who continue to show their ignorance about Lyme Disease.  This was first published in Forbes magazine. It was written to Forbes as a letter to the editor by a pychiatrist named Virginia T. Sherr. I thank her for saying what needed to be said. I hope you all will agree.
I found this on a great website:
http://thehumansideoflyme.net/

Be well,

Richard

Re: Health: Lyme Inc. Forbes Magazine by David Whelan 03.12.07Ticks aren't the only parasites living off patients in borreliosis-prone areas. Dear Editor, Neuro-Lyme, (persistent, chronic, active Lyme disease) is a burgeoning epidemic. My psychiatric practice has been filled with the unfortunate but previously misdiagnosed victims of tick-borne diseases for at least the last 10 years. There are literally hundreds of high quality, peer-reviewed, easily obtained, scientific articles credibly attesting to the devastating persistence of this living spirochete-caused neurologic disease and its crippling effects on whole populations. However, instead of pursuing such research and presenting a balanced picture of the science, your reporter has cited only the Infectious Diseases Society of America, whose framing of the disease represents the most radically restrictive of all viewpoints in what is one of the more hotly-contested controversies in all of medicine. For decades, physicians holding to IDSA's view of Lyme disease have turned away desperately ill patients by telling them they must be mentally unbalanced to imagine that they or their children are physically ill. These patients show up at my psychiatric practice crippled and in great pain, barely able to function. Only after receiving appropriate long-term antibiotic and immunity-enhancing treatments, usually far exceeding the IDSA guidelines, are their lives restored. Alleged, inappropriate financial gain associated with some Lyme-treating physicians was alluded to in your reporter's poorly researched piece. IDSA authors, on the other hand, have documentable financial conflicts of interest that were never mentioned in your article. These include patents for a vaccine still under development in Europe and the US, financial interests in Lyme disease products such as test kits, and, most importantly, employment by the insurance companies that stand to lose money if the epidemic is acknowledged and paid for. The vested conflicts of interest of these authors are seldom revealed when they publish in their authoritative journals. While these few exploitative yet influential academicians violate everything Hippocrates ever stood for, rank and file physicians stand by confused. In their impotency, they unknowingly are allowing this epidemic of tick-borne infections to grow exponentially. Virginia T. Sherr, MD, DLFAPA

Brooke Landau- A Battle with Lyme

Hi  everyone,

       Please take the time to watch this video. There are a few mistakes in the recording, but it doesn't compromise the message. I found this vide on you tube and it exemplifies the struggle of those of us with Chronic Lyme. Please note the mention of intravenous antibiotics and the use of a Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber. I would love to here from anyone who has had success with the Hyperbaric oxygen. have been contemplating using this therapy, if I can figure out where I can get it.



http://youtu.be/iaAjCRBcKJs

Researchers Say Local Antibiotic Therapy Stops Lyme Disease

Hi all,

This a great article from our friends at Infectioncontrolltoday.com. This is the kind of research that is needed for us as Lyme sufferers. I am again on long term intravenous antibiotic therapy. My insurance company is trying to deny the payment of this treatment. I am appealing their decission, of course. Meanwhile, many of you know how effective intravenous antibiotic treatment can be for more than 30 days. If any of you have any experience with this treatment, I hope you would comment and let me know how you are doing. Your experience might be extremely helpful for those of us who are being treated or contemplating this kind of treatment. I started with two grams of Rocephin once a day, for 30 days. Now, I am doing one gram once a day and this has been going on for two months now. I have certainly been "herxing" and I have had some tough days,feeling really bad. However, I am feeling stronger in many ways and I feel as if I am getting a little better every day. I am being helped by my neurologist, who has had some experience with Lyme disease. I can't tell you great he has been to me. He is seriously trying to make me feel better. I have been plagued with this disease since 2001 and I have undergone many types of treatment. The only times I have really felt better is when I have intravenous antibiotic therapy. I have had a Groshong catheter inserted in my chest. It has never been a problem maintaining the catheter and keeping the area around the insertion clean. Previously, when Dr. Martz was in practice here in Colorado, he started me on the first treatment of the intravenous antibiotic protocol. I was really sick and in bed then. The therapy went on for about eight months and it got me out of bed and functioning as a human being again. I had the catheter removed and felt better for a year or so. However, that has been about six years ago and I have been struggling with flareups of the disease again. Many of you,probably, have had similar experiences, and all of us would love hearing about them. I am listening to the news right now and Colorado Springs has already received their first snow storm. It looks like winter time is on its way and we are going to skip fall. I hope not!!! I hate the cold since i have had this disease. It just makes everything hurt worse.

Be well,

Richard


Lyme disease is a dangerous disease which is transmitted by ticks. Blood-sucking ticks ingest the agents that cause the disease – bacteria of the species Borrelia burgdorferi and its relatives – during a blood meal, and subsequently transmit them to the next victim they feast on, often a person. It is estimated that, in Western Europe, up to half of all ticks carry the bacteria. Although the early symptoms of the illness are quite mild, if left untreated, it can result in serious damage to the skin, the joints, the heart and the nervous system, and effective therapy becomes very difficult.
A team of researchers led by the veterinary bacteriologist professor Reinhard Straubinger at Ludwig-Maximilians Universität (LMU) München has now shown, in an animal model, that application of a gel containing the antibiotic azithromycin to the site of the bite rapidly terminates the infection. The efficacy of this local antibiotic therapy for the treatment of borreliosis in humans is now being tested in a Phase III clinical trial. In the meantime, though, patients must still undergo antibiotic treatment for several weeks and, in many cases, the drug must be administered intravenously – which is distressing not only for children. Furthermore, treatment measures are often initiated on suspicion, because the bacteria are not detectable in the blood soon after one has been bitten by an infected tick.
"Our approach simply involves applying a transparent, self-adhesive plaster to the site of the wound," says Straubinger. "Because the plaster contains very little antibiotic, the effects are localized and side-effects are negligible."
Reference: Knauer J, et al. Evaluation of the preventive capacities of a topically applied azithromycin formulation against Lyme borreliosis in a murine model. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy online, Sept. 15, 2011.