Lyme disease - treatment and options

luc

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Hi everyone,

I didn't find a dedicated thread for Lyme disease, so I thought I'd post a new one.

A few weeks ago, I had a tic that went unnoticed for some time (I had dozens of tics before but always noticed them quickly and pulled them out after 1 or 2 days), and I accidentally kind of smashed it before pulling it out. After a while, there was a red rash, so I saw a doctor today who told me that while it doesn't look like a textbook case (not really round, not really this typical red ring), there are signs it could be an infection because the middle (where the bite was) has become more pale. So she gave me antibiotics (doxycyclin 200) and we agreed that I'll wait another week and if it's not better/worse I'll start the protocol. The other option would have been to wait a couple of weeks and then test for the relevant antibodies, but the doctor said that this can sometimes produce a wrong negative result because it takes some time for the antibodies to develop.

From what I gathered so far, the doxycyclin seems like the right antibiotics, but some research (see this post) indicates that to fight Lyme, you need to throw a whole lot of different antibiotics at it. Not sure though if this applies only to a stadium with acute symptoms/a long-lasting infection? Or does the doxycyclin alone might do the trick if applied right after the tic bite and the rash? This post seems to indicate the latter, but not sure?

Also, it seems it's a good idea to take some Glutathione (see this post) parallel to the antibiotics to help the body fight it on its own. Iodine doesn't hurt either. And probiotics either in parallel or at least after the treatment to repair the damage in the gut.

Any advice here on how to proceed at this early stage? Thanks a lot!
 
Richard Horowitz argues in his book "Why Can't I Get Better" that you have to treat immediately and with a little more than doxicycline. He belongs to the other Lyme's disease school of thought, the one that is not prevalent in current mainstream protocols. He gives the entire protocol at the end of the book, in one of the appendixes, and it is addressed to health care providers. You could pass that on to your doctor. The protocol basically is doxy and some metronidazol. He adds serrapeptase and other basic things.
 
Sorry to hear this luc and I hope that no infection is occurring.

I don't know if this would be on any help in future situations with tics, when it isn't removed completely: I recently had a tic too and not everything was removed with that I put afterwards non-diluted iodine on it and the next day too in the hope that everything bad got killed.

Here are some topics I found about Lyme disease:

Horowitz Lyme-MSIDS questionnaire
Health & Wellness Show - Oct 23, 2015 - A Close Look at Lyme Disease
 
Hi luc. I hope everything works out for you and it's not Lyme. But nevertheless...I attended a class taught by this guy years and years ago and he talked about how tincture of teasel got rid of his lyme disease, fwiw. Have a look. _HISgoodherbs-Lyme01
 
According to the ILADS recommendations:

1- In case of tick bite with engorgement, without EM (Erythema Migrans)
- 100-200 mg doxycycline twice daily for 20 days regardless of the duration of the bite
- The administration of a single dose of doxycycline is not recommended
- seek co-infections / sensitize the patient about the risks of re-infection and help prevent new bites

2-In case of EM
Amoxicillin, cefuroxime, doxycycline are the reference antibiotics to prescribe in first intention. Azithromycin gives equivalent or better results, but only in Europe.

In the adult
- 500g of amoxicillin 3 to 4 times a day for 4 to 6 weeks
- or 500 mg 2 times daily of cefuroxime for 4 to 6 weeks
- or 100 mg of doxycycline 2 times daily for 4 to 6 weeks
- or 250 mg Azithromycin twice daily for a minimum of 21 days (for Europe only)

In children:
- 50 mg of amoxicillin per kg per day in three doses with a maximum of 1500 mg per day
- or 20 to 30 mg of cefuroxime per kg per day in 2 doses with a maximum of 1000 mg per day
- 10 mg per kg per day of azithromycin on day 1 and then 5 to 10 mg per kg per day

For children over 8 years old, an additional option is available:
- 4 mg of doxycycline per kg per day in 2 doses

Erythema chronicum migrans - Wikipedia
 
My Lyme doctor I saw when I had an infection said that the bullseye rash doesn't necessarily indicate an infection. And that it's good to do a course of antibiotics after every tick bite (impractical for outdoors people). Also I never really got a positive result, and we went on how I felt to conclude that there was some kind of infection. And there's bacteria other than Lyme that can be present.

The sooner the better. The longer you wait, the longer you'll have to take antibiotics. I think if you started doxy soon after the bite, it will have good results. Pretty sure that's what they give for dogs.

I didn't try glutathione, but colloidal silver didn't seem to help. My doctor said that really only persistent antibiotics would work. And it was before the Iodine thread so I didn't take that either. I took probiotics throughout the treatment, and Nystatin toward the end. Then some herbal detox and liver restoration powder and supplements.

So it's good you're nipping it in the bud soon, because the treatment should take weeks instead of months. It was over a year after the bite before I started treatment.

A Co-worker gets a lot of ticks and I think recently did a protocol. I will ask about what he did in particular.

FWIW, another post where I mentioned my experience:

FWIW, and this is just my experience: I was treated for a tick infection (not sure if it was Lyme and/or some co-infections) in 2013. Tindamax was used at one point along with two other antibiotics. I had been bitten about a year before starting treatment and it took about 8 months of antibiotics to clear up the symptoms. I had tried Samento drops and it didn't really help.

I took probiotics throughout the whole treatment and I still take them. I also took colloidal silver, but I'm not sure if it helped. I think the surefire way, and as stated by the Lyme doctor I was seeing, is to use antibiotics. I've used liquid stevia for years and I've been taking Iodine regularly since the thread got going.

Hang in there and best of luck! Don't forget to not receive any Reiki.
 
This doc speaks of treating himself in this interview:


He shows pics of a big red circle and used amoxicillin and CBD oil. The vid is an interview on the Reluctant Preppers channel.
 
My training is in acupuncture, herbal medicine and functional medicine, so I can speak to that a little bit.

I only have direct clinic experience with chronic Lyme so far. My patient was diagnosed with Lyme years ago and was still suffering from a range of symptoms (joint pain, headaches, fatigue, GI distress) until last fall (2017) when he started to see me. I suspected that the pathogen was long gone and that we needed to repair his body, so I recommended a basic functional medicine test, a hair tissue mineral analysis (HTMA) from TEI labs in Texas (Trace Elements... Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (Hair Mineral Analysis)). His metabolic profile suggested that his endocrine system had been damaged, either by the Lyme or the antibiotics or both, and he also had high levels of lead, cadmium, arsenic, iron and copper, which may or may not be related to the Lyme. He started feeling better about 2 weeks after going on the diet and supplement regimen I recommended for him. He's had two follow-up tests, he's "feeling great" and he told me this helped him more than anything else he's tried.

Since you have an acute case of Lyme, antibiotics are powerful and a good choice for killing Borrelia burgdorferi and co-infections. If you were my patient I would prescribe a custom complementary herbal formula to support your natural immune response and the antibiotic action of the drugs, and to protect your digestion and reduce side effects. IMO a custom herbal formula is the best way to to support your body and mitigate side effects, but glutathione, iodine and probiotics are good general tools if that's not an option. FWIW I think Saccharomyces boulardii is the best probiotic to take when on antibiotics because it is a yeast and therefore unaffected by the drugs and numerous clinical studies have demonstrated that it protects against candida and c. diff and other nasty gut pathogens. Serrapeptase is a good suggestion too, it was actually derived from a Chinese herb called Jiang Can and it is a good proteolytic enzyme that attacks biofilms and has anti-inflammatory properties.

I always recommend that my patients drink ginger tea whenever they have to take antibiotics. If possible buy fresh ginger from the store, grate it into a pan and boil it on the stove for a few minutes, then strain it into a mug and add a little sweetener if you want to. In Chinese medical language ginger is a "warm" herb that counteracts the "cold" properties of the antibiotics, in other words it helps with common side effects like nausea and diarrhea and loss of appetite.

If you can't find a good herbalist locally and you want to go that route I would recommend that you consider contacting Dr. Qingcai Zhang in New York. From his website:

http://www.zhangclinicnyc.com/drz.htm said:
Upon graduation from Shanghai Second Medical University in 1962, Dr. Qingcai Zhang worked as a physician in a teaching hospital, The Reijing Hospital of the Shanghai Second Medical University in Shanghai, China, and doing clinical and research work to integrate Chinese and Western medicine. He was an associate professor of medicine at the medical university. In 1980, he was awarded a World Health Organization scholarship, which supported his two-year fellowship in Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1984 he worked as a research fellow at the Wakai Clinic in Nagoya, Japan. A year later, he received a one-year appointment from the University of California at Davis as a visiting professor. Since 1986, Dr. Zhang has been the primary researcher at the Oriental Healing Arts Institute in Long Beach, Calif., where he conducted research on treating AIDS with Chinese medicine, designed herbal formulas for AIDS patients, and published two books on AIDS and Chinese medicine. He started his private practice in 1990, first in Cypress, California, and then moved to New York City in 1992. He is the founder of Zhang's Clinic in New York City and White Plains, New York. Since 1987, he has been focusing on treating chronic viral diseases with modern Chinese herbal medicine, such as viral hepatitis and AIDS, infectious diseases, such as Lyme Disease, and autoimmune diseases, such as inflammatory bowel diseases, psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis.

A friend and patient of mine told me about Dr. Zhang a few years ago. She was diagnosed with Lyme and antibiotics didn't work for her for some reason. She had regular phone consults with him and he sent herbs to her in the mail and after he treated her for a while (sorry I don't remember how long) she had a complete recovery from both the Lyme and the antibiotics. More from his website:

http://www.zhangclinicnyc.com/ld/treatment/Dilemma.htm said:
Most cases of acute Bb infections are treated by conventional allopathic medicine with antibiotics. Antibiotics can suppress many patients’ symptoms, but cannot completely eradicate the infectious agent, causing many cases to become chronic. Chronic LD is an extremely complex and recurrent illness that is still poorly understood. Its symptoms may include fatigue, fibromyalgia, CNS symptoms, and malaise. It is a disease involving damage to multiple body systems, including arthritis, neurological abnormalities such as aseptic meningitis and Bell’s Palsy, as well as cardiac conduction abnormalities.

The results of conventional treatment also vary widely. Antibiotics can often help ease the joint pain and the brain problems, but not always. “ Relapses following use of potent antibiotics and detection of the Lyme organism or its DNA following treatment likewise demonstrates an inability to completely eradicate the pathogen and permanently halt the pathologic process with current methods of treatment in some patients. This is a problematic situation because intensive antibiotic treatment is costly, is inconvenient, and carries associated risk for the patient. Such antibiotic usage may foster the emergence of strains of other types of bacteria resistant to the antibiotics employed and thus has public health implications. For some patients however, this may be the only presently available alternative to progressive neurologic deterioration. In view of this dilemma , the international biomedical research community must give high priority to the development of improved and /or alternate methods of treatment that can definitively cure persisting Bb infections responsible for neurologic and other manifestations of chronic Lyme disease.” (Kenneth B. Liegner et al., Lyme disease and the Clinical Spectrum of Antibiotic Responsive Chronic Meningoencephalomyelitides, Proceedings of Lyme & Other Tick-borne Disease: A 21st Century View, Nov 10,2001, p.72)

What is the cause of this dilemma? Why is conventional allopathic medicine unable to cure this seemingly simple bacteria infection? I think that the fundamental difficulty is in western medicine’s philosophy and way of thinking. It looks at an infectious disease, such as LD, only as a pathogen. Therefore its treatment is only antibiotics. The human body’s role in this complicated disease is overlooked. In reality, an infectious disease consists of two sides, the invading pathogen and the body’s reaction to the invasion. To only use anti-pathogen treatment is insufficient; adjusting the body’s reaction to the invasion of the pathogen is a more important aspect. To only rely on antibiotics to eradicate the bacteria without enhancing the body’s immunity and repairing the damaged tissue is an incomplete strategy of treatment. Therefore the conventional allopathic medical approach has only partial efficacy. The eventual eradication of the pathogens is the role of the body; antibiotics can only be a help to the body in accomplishing this task.

The antibiotics may clear it up for you since you caught it early, but if they don't or if you want to supplement with herbal medicine (numerous studies have shown that herbal formulas enhance the effects of antibiotics and mitigate side effects), you could contact his office and ask for a phone consult with him.

Another option to consider if you are in the US is Hillary Thing at Uprooting Lyme (Home - Uprooting Lyme). She is also an acupuncturist and an herbalist with a very interesting personal story about Lyme disease (Hillary Thing, LAc - Uprooting Lyme). She is well regarded by my colleagues and her website has a support forum and a protocol you can sign up for online, but I can't speak to its effectiveness.

I hope this is helpful, good luck!
 
I second Gabi’s take - you want to prevent the bug from taking up residence in your body, because if it’s there, it’s going to be a long road back to health.

Years ago I lived in a house where a girl got a funny rash - also not the typical textbook rash. She waited for about a week before seeing her GP, who put her on the standard antibiotic treatment at the time. She eventually developped chronc fatique syndrome and was hardly able to finish high school (having been a competitive sportsperson at the state level). So in case of tick bites I would also advocate taking the antibiotics straight away, if you live in an area where Lyme is endemic.

Best wishes!
 
Thanks so much for all the info. It seems that the sooner you start with the protocol, the better. And I will definetely check out all the recommendations about natural supports of the protocol.

Now my question is: do you think it's a better to start with the doxy antibiotics right away or to go back to the doctor and try to convince her to prescribe some additional Metronidazol (I ordered Horowitz' book, but it may take a few days to arrive, and it's not guaranteed that the doctor will go along with it)? To make and get an appointment could take some time too... Geez, the more I read, the more I'm scared!
 
A co-worker was stung in two days by 4 ticks, fortunately he discovered and removed them the same day, he took the doxy antibiotics for a fortnight, and that seems to have helped him ...

There is also a product called TIC TOX composed of essential oils (officinal sage reserved for pharmacists) now banned in France (not benefiting from a marketing authorization).
However, maybe you can find it in Germany, otherwise there is a similar product against winter viruses, Alternativ'aroma:
Cinnamomum camphora bio,
Melaleuca quinquinervia bio,
Trachyspermum ammi,
Laurus nobilis organic,
Origanum compactum bio,
Cinnamomum zeylanicum bio,
Eugenia caryophyllus bio,
Citrus paradisii organic,
in a vegetable oil base of Perilla frutescens bio.

Wish you can sort out all of this and find something valuable corresponding to your case.
 
Thanks so much for all the info. It seems that the sooner you start with the protocol, the better. And I will definetely check out all the recommendations about natural supports of the protocol.

Now my question is: do you think it's a better to start with the doxy antibiotics right away or to go back to the doctor and try to convince her to prescribe some additional Metronidazol (I ordered Horowitz' book, but it may take a few days to arrive, and it's not guaranteed that the doctor will go along with it)? To make and get an appointment could take some time too... Geez, the more I read, the more I'm scared!

The Horowitz' book is available for Kindle, by the way. I wouldn't make any appointments but just go to the doctor and say that it's an emergency case since you have strong suspicion of Lyme disease. You'll probably have to wait a couple of hours. As for antibiotics, personally I'd start taking them right away. By the time you'll get positive or negative diagnosis, it might be too late.
 
I started taking the antibiotics (doxy) today and will combine it with iodine, 2 probiotics recommended here and possibly something natural (need to check that out some more). I hope that since I caught the infection in its early stages, this will do the trick. Fingers crossed, because from what I read, at a later stage in the disease you may need much more brutal treatments. Thanks again.
 
I read on the Neuroptimal facebook page, that many people report very positive effect from using Neuroptimal.

As I understand it, the rebalancing of the central nervous system, can have a very beneficial effect. The same goes for fibromyalgia and whiplash among many other things.

FWIW.
 
Thanks so much for all the info. It seems that the sooner you start with the protocol, the better. And I will definetely check out all the recommendations about natural supports of the protocol.

Now my question is: do you think it's a better to start with the doxy antibiotics right away or to go back to the doctor and try to convince her to prescribe some additional Metronidazol (I ordered Horowitz' book, but it may take a few days to arrive, and it's not guaranteed that the doctor will go along with it)? To make and get an appointment could take some time too... Geez, the more I read, the more I'm scared!

I would start on the doxy straight away and then maybe try to add metronidazole.
 
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