Expel Pernicious Influences and Tonify the Righteous

Lyme Disease is a (mostly) tick-borne infection caused by a Borrelia spirochete, and is the most prolific, fastest growing vector disease in the US.  In fact, it is worldwide.  Other tick-borne diseases such as Bartonella and Babesia are also becoming epidemic and slowly making their way into the public consciousness.  Lyme Disease [LD] has become one of the major medical controversies of our time.  Much of the conventional medical establishment insists Lyme is easy to diagnose and treat (and if caught early, it often is).  A growing number of medical professionals treating patients suffering with Lyme Disease, have found that Lyme can be difficult to diagnose due to faulty testing, and that ordinary treatment often fails.  At the heart of the matter, one side insists there is no such thing as ‘Chronic’ Lyme and another side sees Chronic Lyme as self evident, well documented, and a most challenging adversary.  Whether you call it Post Treatment Lyme Syndrome or Chronic Lyme, no one with significant experience treating LD patients can deny that treatment failures do occur - often.

“Chronic Lyme” is a tick-borne infection that persists or recurs despite treatment with a course of antibiotics.  This is generally more of an issue with infections that a) were not treated promptly, and/or b) are further complicated by additional tick-borne diseases such as Bartonella, or Babesia, among others.  Ticks carry a plethora of pathogenic organisms, earning the moniker ‘nature’s dirty needle’.  It is not uncommon to be infected with multiple pathogens from one bite.  

Historically, it was said that a physician who understands Syphilis (also caused by a spirochete) understands all medicine.  Syphilis was dubbed the Great Imposter because it affected so many organ systems and resulted in so many widely disparate symptoms that it resembled (or caused) many other diseases.  The Lyme spirochete is much more genetically complex, and more virulent than it’s cousin, the syphilis spirochete.   It has effective strategies for surviving antibiotic treatment and for evading, and even damaging our immune system’s response.  Lyme has become the Great Imitator and, perhaps more aptly, the Great Detonator of our time.  

What's in a Name?

Chronic Lyme is a bit of a misnomer.  Patients struggling with Chronic Lyme, almost never have just Lyme alone.  They generally have other opportunistic infections, and immune dysfunction.  Dr. Horowitz, who has treated over 12,000 patients with Chronic Lyme, has proposed renaming it, Multi-Systemic Infectious Disease Syndrome [“MSIDS”] – an even more accurate name would acknowledge the Immune Dysfunction piece, as well.  However, most people still refer to it as Chronic Lyme.  Any practitioner who claims to understand Chronic Lyme Disease without studying it diligently for years is full of hubris and extremely naïve.   Likewise, any practitioner who claims to have a ‘cure’ for Chronic Lyme Disease is either selling a bill of goods (usually at a very high price), extremely naïve or integrity challenged.  There are treatments that can restore one’s health and functionality – but experience shows that many patients will relapse over time – a commitment to maintaining one’s health is necessary in any chronic condition, especially this one.

The Microbe or the Terrain .. or in this case, the Microbe Manipulates the Terrain to its Liking

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”  - Sun Tzu , The Art of War

In Chinese Medicine, the treatment principle for treating a Chronic Lyme-type of infection is to “expel pernicious influences, and tonify the righteous” – which translates roughly to: 1) kill the pathogen; and 2) strengthen the patient’s immune system and constitution.  Medical professionals may recognize this principle as predating and presciently acknowledging the age-old infectious disease theory debate between Louis Pasteur (the microbe is more significant) and Antoine Béchamp (the terrain - or the patient’s constitution - is more significant).  Chinese Medicine, wisely, insists we attend to both.  Treating such infections historically in Chinese Medicine was said to be as difficult as separating oil from flour.  The Lyme bug's ability to alter the immune response makes it an auspicious foe.

Antibiotics are, of course, the first choice treatment for an acute bacterial infection and can be curative in promptly treated, uncomplicated Borrelia (LD) infections.  Complimentary treatments, most notably the use of medicinal herbs, become critical in chronic, more complex conditions.  A sound, scientifically-based approach to using herbs in Chronic Lyme includes choosing herbs that: 1) counteract the cytokines (cytokines are inflammatory molecules triggered by the infection that make you feel sick);  2) supporting the immune system;  3) supporting affected organ systems;  and 4) utilizing herbs with antimicrobial actions.  In this way, thoughtfully chosen and properly dosed herbals make your body a less attractive host for these unwanted guests.  

The Old Guard Doesn't Want to Know (so do the research)

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”  - Max Planck, Physicist

The controversy surrounding Chronic Lyme is, in part, due to the fact that treating Chronic Lyme represents a paradigm change for medicine.  The old “one medicine for one disease” and our mastery over nature with antibiotics can no longer be relied upon.  In the history of science and medicine, new paradigms are often shouted down until the old paradigm is so old and tired that it can no longer be defended.  Willy Burgdorfer – the brilliant researcher who decades ago discovered the Borrelia spirochete that causes Lyme Disease tellingly said that Lyme (research) “is a shameful affair and (serology plus) needs to be started over from scratch.” Patients caught in the middle don’t have the luxury of waiting for the old guard to come around.  An educated patient demands and gets the best outcome.  Do your due diligence.  Be comprehensive, skeptical, and discerning.  “Expel pernicious influences and tonify the righteous”.

In health,

Tim Rhudy, MS, LAc

Got Links?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLIWSkQdCmU  - see Willy Burgdorfer, who first identified the Bb spirochete tell it like it is in 4 minutes

For the peer reviewed research inclined

HP Redmond http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Redmond+HP+and+tlr2

Baumgarth http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Baumgarth+and+borrelia

Barthold http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Barthold+and+borrelia

NIH's Martin and Marques http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Martin+and+Marques+and+tlr2 (The NIH's "Lyme and MS" Division find that OspA-ish lipopropteins shed by borrelia all the time cause humoral immunosuppression with brain inflammation)

CV Harding http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Harding+CV+and+tlr2

AE Medvedev http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Medvedev+AE+and+tlr2

RS Hotchkiss http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Hotchkiss+RS%5BAuthor%5D

Justin Radolf on what else has OspA-sorta in it: http://www.jbc.org/content/274/47/33419.long

Radolf saying OspA causes immunosuppression: http://www.jimmunol.org/cgi/content/full/167/2/910

Paul Duray http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Duray+and+borrelia

Duray, talking about EBV transformed cells in the CSF of chronic Lyme victims: http://www.actionlyme.org/Duray.htm

Duray, talking about immature immune cells in the CSF of chronic Lyme victims: http://actionlyme.org/IDSA_CLINIPATH_DURAY.htm

Ray Dattwyler, et al (SUNY-SB) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Dattwyler+and+borrelia+and+nk+c... (unresponsive) http://www.actionlyme.org/DATTWYLER_NK_SUPPRESSION.htm

Benach: Borrelia wreck your brain: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Benach+and+borrelia

Cadavid: Borrelia wreck your brain: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Cadavid+and+borrelia+and+brain

Gary Wormser on how the OspA vaccines in dogs didn't work and caused immunosuppression: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10865170

Latov on how OspA vaccination caused the same disease as chronic Lyme: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15363064

Marks on how LYMErix caused the same disease as chronic Lyme: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21673416

Mario Philipp on how Lyme and OspA causes immunosuppression with brain inflammation: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Philipp+M+and++tlr2

OspA (or borrelia-shedding OspA on blebs) causes immunosuppression http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3552145/

An NIH patent, explaining how Lyme causes LYMErix-disease:

"The invention relates to novel antigens associated with Borrelia burgdorferi which are exported (or shed) in vivo and whose detection is a means of diagnosing Lyme disease. The antigens are extracellular membrane vesicles and other bioproducts including the major extracellular protein antigen. Another object of the invention is to provide antibodies, monoclonal and/or polyclonal, labeled and/or unlabeled, that are raised against the antigens. A further object of the invention is to provide a method of diagnosing Lyme disease by detecting the antigens in a biological sample taken from a host using the antibodies in conventional immunoassay formats. Another object of the invention is to provide kits, for the diagnosis of Lyme disease, comprising the antibodies and ancillary reagents. The advantage of the antibodies used in the invention is that they react with the antigens from geographically diverse strains of Borrelia burgdorferi, but do not react with antigens from related Borrelia spirochetes."

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,217,872.PN.&OS=PN/5,217,872&RS=PN/5,217,872

Gary Wormser reports global immunosuppression from OspA/Borrelia https://crymedisease.wordpress.com/2016/03/20/gary-wormser-reports-global-immunosuppression-from-ospaborrelia/

230 Peer Reviewed Studies show evidence of persistent Lyme disease http://norvect.no/230-peer-reviewed-studies-show-evidence-of-persistent-... Peer Reviewed Evidence of Persistence of Lyme Disease SpirocheteBorrelia burgdorferi and Tick-Borne Diseases The following is a list of over 700 peer reviewed articles that support the evidence of persistence of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases. It is organized into different categories—general, psychiatric, dementia,autism and congenital transmission. http://www.ilads.org/ilads_news/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/EvidenceofPersistence-V2.pdf