Lyme Disease, the Great Mimicker of All Other Diseases. Biofilms and Proper Testing.
For any chronic health issue, Lyme as an underlying, difficult to diagnose illness, should be considered.
A reader recently sent me this email, and let me share it with you
I have chronic Lyme disease and have had it for almost 20 years. This is a manmade disease. There is a movie called Under Your Skin and at least one book that does the necessary research to prove this. Nothing from the Western medical establishment will heal this disease and some of it only adds to the pain and illness. I lived in a very infested part of Pennsylvania and know others who have the disease.
Everyone ends up having to go outside the system to try to heal if they have the money. Nothing works but changing diet and lifestyle, herbs, and homeopathy. Unfortunately, by the time you get to that point you are probably no longer able to work or go to school. It will ruin your life.
I went a decade being told by all medical doctors that chronic Lyme didn’t exist and that the problems I had were just feeling icky from having had the disease. That was the word the infectious disease specialist used. I had several courses of antibiotics which drove the disease deeper.
I appreciate your newsletter and the information you are providing. Thank you.
The Movie Under Our Skin
The film is over 10 years old but still worth watching. Many doctors in the video had to stop treating Lyme patients because of the Medical Board attacks.
This movie reminds me that medical corruption has existed for a long time. Many people have woken up to it since 2020, but the deception and trying to remove doctors who help their patients from practicing medicine has been going on for ages.
Just like since 2020, with doctors speaking out, losing their licenses, spending money on legal fees, and their livelihoods destroyed, you see it in this video with the doctors practicing medicine, specifically in the treatment of chronic Lyme disease.
About an hour into the documentary, a doctor discusses his findings on brain tissue from people who have Alzheimer’s disease. He found that of the 12 examined, 9 had (undiagnosed) Lyme disease.
The video examines medical treatment (long-term antibiotic use) for Lyme. I would have liked to see some information on alternative methods.
Finally, the film discusses biofilms at the very end, which is critical to know.
You cannot target Lyme disease with any antibacterial agent until you break through the biofilm first. Biofilms are why some infections are persistent and difficult to eliminate. Candida is a perfect example of a yeast overgrowth that can permeate and fester if the biofilms are not addressed.
Much of the rest of this post is from information in Buhner's (2015) book on Lyme disease (reference at the end of the post)
Biofilms, Encysted, and A-typical Lyme Forms and Antibiotics
Lyme can alter its form to withstand antibiotics and the immune response. Antibiotics will not be 100% effective because the B. burgdorferi will create encysted (cysts) forms during the infection. It can take on a new form when confronted with adverse conditions. They create encysted forms to ensure they will survive in the host.
Antibiotics can reduce spirochetes by 90%, which sounds great. The problem is that they will also cause B. burgdorferi to double the number of atypical forms. The A-typical forms are new forms that develop from the spirochetes. The longer you have Lyme disease, the more A-typical forms you will have. Again, this is part of their survival strategy.
The longer the Lyme is in the host, the more atypical forms emerge. A healthy immune system can kill the encysted forms; a weak immune system cannot!
Many different types of bacteria and fungi have biofilms. These protective coverings provide a barrier for the bacteria that antibiotics cannot destroy.
Some herbs and supplements can destroy biofilms; however, you don’t want to destroy them aggressively because they can worsen your symptoms rapidly. Use herbs that slowly break down the biofilms, such as Andrographis and Resveratrol.
In addition to this, another reason that antibiotics are not 100% effective is because the bacteria replicate very slowly, roughly every 1 to 16 days, whereas other bacteria replicate every 20 minutes.
A Few Misconceptions About Lyme Disease That I Want to Clarify
You do not have to be bitten by a tick to get Lyme disease. It can be transmitted via intercourse, and mothers can pass it on to babies in utero or via breast milk.
You do not have to live in the Northeastern part of the U.S. to contract Lyme disease. It has been detected on every continent except Antarctica.
Chronic Lyme disease can look different from one person to the next, and the person can easily be misdiagnosed with other conditions such as Lupus, CFS, depression, or RA, to name a few. Not everyone will get the bull’s eye rash. As shown in the movie, most allopathic doctors said the person’s symptoms were imagined.
Lyme Disease Myths
Myth: The tick must be attached to you for 36 to 48 hours to be infected.
Truth: It only needs 10 minutes to burrow and infect you and up to 72 hours. Studies have shown that transmission in 16 to 24 hours is typical.
Myth: Your health doesn’t matter if you get infected.
Truth: Your immune function plays a significant role. The stronger the immune system, the slower the transmission time. The most important thing you can do is support your immune system!
Myth: Testing is an accurate and reliable way to know if you have Lyme disease.
Truth: See the section on diagnosing below.
Myth: You can only contract Lyme from ticks, not other insects.
Truth: You can get it from mosquitos, fleas, biting insects, and feces.
Why Lyme is So Difficult to Diagnose
Lyme disease can be challenging to diagnose for several reasons.
It can mimic a host of other diseases
Testing is not 100% reliable or accurate
The bacteria can lie dormant in the body for years before causing symptoms
In the first 2-4 weeks after being infected, only ½ of the population will produce measurable antibodies to Lyme.
IgM antibodies increase in the third week, peak from 4-6 weeks, and will disappear by week 8
IgG antibodies appear between 6 weeks and 3 months and can persist for years, even after a successful treatment.
Antibody levels peak 60 days after infection and then drop to low levels that current testing may not detect.
Antibiotic use can skew results and result in a false negative test result.
The only reliable diagnostic marker is the bulls-eye rash. Yet, many do not get this rash, or they may get a rash that is a bit odd and not precisely a bulls-eye, and the person may get diagnosed with some other skin disorder.
How to Test for Lyme Disease
For decades, the CDC and IDSA have relied on a two-tier blood testing strategy for diagnosing Lyme disease. The first tier is an ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) blood test, which measures levels of antibodies against Borrelia burgdorferi.
The second tier, a western blot, also tests for antibodies to B. burgdorferi but goes a step further by reporting reactivity to 10 different proteins found in the bacterium.
However, the two-tier testing strategy poses multiple problems:
The two-tier approach has a low sensitivity (the ability to correctly identify those with the disease) of 30 to 40 percent in the early stages of Lyme disease; for those of you not familiar with biostatistics, this is pretty abysmal. At all stages of Lyme disease, including the often devastating later stages, the sensitivity of the two-tier algorithm increases to only 57.6 percent. (54, 55)
The western blot does not pick up on many naturally occurring strains of Borrelia that cause disease. Because the western blot uses antigens from cultured strains of Borrelia, not clinical specimens, it does not pick up on many disease-causing strains of Borrelia that naturally occur in our environment.
The western blot is prone to methodological issues and subjectivity in interpretation. Slight variations in the western blot methodology and the highly subjective nature of western blot interpretation can lead to false negatives.
Serologic Testing
As a first step, we recommend serologic tests for Lyme disease. Serologic tests include the ELISA, the western blot, and the immunoblot, a new test that is more sensitive than the western blot and is designed to take its place. (56) Serologic Lyme tests can be done through Stony Brook University, Quest, LabCorp, or IGeneX.
Molecular Testing
If serologic tests come back negative, but Lyme disease is still strongly suspected, next-generation molecular Lyme tests can be used to supplement the serologic results. The EliSpot from ArminLabs assesses the T-cell immune response to Borrelia burgdorferi, thus reflecting current Lyme disease activity. The test becomes negative when B. burgdorferi is no longer active, making it useful for monitoring treatment.
Global Lyme Diagnostics offers the GLD test, which tests for the presence of antibodies to B. burgdorferi outer surface proteins, thereby expanding the number of species and strains that can be detected. The diversity of targets identified by the test significantly reduces false negatives.
Ceres Nanoscience, another cutting-edge company offering diagnostic solutions for Lyme, offers the Nanotrap Lyme Antigen Test. This test concentrates Lyme antigens in urine and then detects the antigens using an ELISA and western blot.
Importantly, we do not recommend testing for Lyme with PCR technology. While PCR-based tests, such as DNA Connexions, once seemed promising, they frequently produce false positives and demonstrate low sensitivity. (57)
Metabolomics: The Future of Lyme Disease Testing?
Last but not least, the field of metabolomics holds promise for future testing of Lyme disease. Metabolomics involved testing for the biosignature of Lyme disease, characterized by specific proteins and other metabolites either produced directly by the bacterium or by the body in response to the bacterium. (58)
Bottom Line: If you have a chronic health condition or a variety of symptoms that doctors are telling you “are all in your head and not real,” consider advanced Lyme testing as discussed in this article.
Two of the most critical things you can do include properly addressing biofilms and supporting your immune system.
Allopathic medicine will recognize Chronic Lyme Disease…when they have created a “vaccine” for it.
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Sources
https://rawlsmd.com/health-articles/answers-10-lyme-questions-get-asked
https://chriskresser.com/your-comprehensive-guide-to-lyme-disease/
Buhner, S. (2015) Healing Lyme 2nd Edition. Raven Press.
https://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-sexual-transmission-2/
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5029759/
https://www.bayarealyme.org/blog/lyme-disease-bullseye-rash/
Hi Karen, another post in lock step with my current experiences. Two weeks ago, I removed an engorged tick from my wife's shoulder. For anyone unfamiliar, the University of Rhode Island has a free site that will respond within 24 hours if you submit a photograph online (I received a reply in 4 hours):
https://web.uri.edu/tickencounter/tickspotters/
and this confirmed that the tick was a female red legged or deer tick, the principal carrier of Lyme as well as an estimate of how long it was attached from its size (2-3 days). From here, we submitted to one of the testing services they link to (we used https://www.tickreport.com/ ) and ship the tick to them. They have three levels of tests from $50 to $200 testing for more and more potential bacteria carried in the tick. My wife's tick tested positive for both Lyme general and Lyme specific.
While the wound site was red and inflamed and an inch in diameter to start (some of which resulted from my clumsy attempts to confirm I had fully removed it) it has continually shrunk from that time. While I used tweezers, it turns out there are inexpensive kits which can be purchased from Amazon.
She took the report to an urgent care location and was given the 21 day Doxycycline regimen with direction to return if the bullseye rash appeared (so far it has not). None of the sites we examined as part of this process spoke to any of the information you shared in your post. None of the health care people at the location were familiar with the reporting and testing sites I have shared here. The most important thing is to keep the tick (in a zip loc bag is best) for analysis. Unfortunately, the tick will simply drop off at some point when it has consumed enough blood (evidently seeking the ground to lay eggs). Thus, if I had not stumbled upon it before it dropped off we would never have known about it until, no doubt, odd symptoms occurred in the future leaving us at the mercy of a medical diagnosis.
How long should Resveratrol be taken to break down biofilm?