New discoveries...

Another rainy day on Whidbey - we've had more than our share this spring. But you know what? It's still beautiful, even when it rains. Woke up this morning to a strange hooting sound, and discovered a chubby quail sitting on the railing of our deck - first one we've seen on Whidbey. New discoveries every day....

Pain levels really low today - Hurray!!!!

Speaking of new discoveries, came across an interesting article from 2007 (see below). If you were to read many books and articles about lyme treatment you would notice that the push continues to be for antibiotics, even though long-term use is known to be counter-productive. The mainstream doesn't want to talk about alternative treatments. Meanwhile, numerous people are feeling better all the time from using alternative treatments like the Salt/C protocol and Rife machines. Could these treatments be risky? Perhaps. So far there seem to be few side effects. Are they FDA-approved? No. Is it risky to use antibiotics long-term? Absolutely!

Of course, another reason I appreciate the Salt/C protocol is that it costs very little, compared to allopathic pharmaceuticals (which make lots and lots of money for Big Pharm). I've seen so many horror stories of people spending their entire life savings trying to regain their health. I spent 10K before I decided to do my own research and take the lead on my recovery. What a blessing to have the support of a well-educated/trained doctor who respects me and treats me as a partner in healing. Much gratitude to Dr. Rabinovich!

Of course there is a lot of material out there to read and research about lyme, and each person has to form their own opinion. I try to read with an open mind, but I'm clearly biased toward what I intuitively assess to be the least harmful approaches, at least for me.... My body is pretty clear about what it does and doesn't want to do.

Besides the article below on President G.W. Bush, I also came across articles stating that Michael J. Fox was initially diagnosed with lyme disease before his later diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. The borrelia burgdorferi bacteria that characterizes lyme can also trigger other conditions like Parkinson's, meningitis, MS and more....

Be safe while hiking and in nature; wear long pants, and be sure to check yourself thoroughly (or have someone else check you) for ticks. Any tick bite should be checked out asap. Any bullseye rash should be checked out asap. I'll look for a good article that goes into more depth about prevention and early intervention. The main thing about lyme is to catch it early (like I DIDN'T). A round of antibiotics will likely clear it up if it's caught early. If not, then antibiotics become less and less useful, and alternatives may need to be considered. That's if you can find a lyme-literate doctor in your area who is trained and knows what to look for, as well as how to diagnose it.

Again, this is not about fear; it's about awareness. More soon,

Sukie


Bush Was Treated For Lyme Disease
(8/8/2007)
A Lyme Disease Warning From The CDC
(6/18/2007)
President Bush's recently revealed treatment for Lyme disease makes him part of an unfortunate trend: The tick-borne infection is on the rise, with cases more than doubling in the past 15 years. The good news is that most patients, like Bush, take antibiotics for a few weeks and are cured, especially if they were diagnosed early.

But people who aren't treated promptly can develop painful arthritis, meningitis and other serious illnesses. If they don't experience, or notice, Lyme's hallmark round, red rash, they can struggle to be diagnosed, as other early symptoms are flu-like and vague.

And a small fraction of patients report pain and fatigue that linger for months or years after treatment. Do they still have Lyme, or something else? No one knows, although desperate patients often try repeated antibiotics despite little evidence that the drugs do more good than harm.

The central problem: No test can tell when someone has active Lyme disease — when Lyme-causing bacteria are alive in the body. Today's tests instead spot infection-fighting antibodies, which can take weeks to form but then linger long after Lyme is gone.

A push is on for better Lyme tests, with parallel hunts getting started by the National Institutes of Health and, separately, by patient advocacy groups angry that modern medicine hasn't found an answer.

"The time is right to take a closer look," says Dr. Dennis M. Dixon, chief of bacteria research at the NIH's National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which plans to gather leading scientists later this year to determine the best approaches. "We would not rule out any avenue."

"We have a lot of new tools" to explore, adds Dr. Brian Fallon, who directs Columbia University's new Lyme and Tick-borne Diseases Research Center, funded by the advocacy groups Time for Lyme and the Lyme Disease Association. "Science is going to bridge the gap."

Among the research:

_A newer antibody test seems to indicate when antibiotics are working in early Lyme stages, offering the possibility of tracking treatment response.

_Hunting markers of active infection, including bits of Lyme-related protein in the blood or spinal fluid.

_Fallon is using brain imaging to try to distinguish when Lyme penetrates the nervous system.

About 20,000 new cases of Lyme disease are reported to the government every year, says a June analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC acknowledges that's a fraction of the true toll, as many cases go unreported. Experts say it may be five times higher.

Still, the figure is more than double the count in 1991, when official tracking began, and CDC says it's not due just to better awareness of Lyme. The rise is expected to continue as suburbia expands into the woodland home of black-legged tick species, commonly called deer ticks, that carry Lyme-causing "Borrelia burgdorferi" bacteria in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic, north-central states and Pacific Coast.

The only human vaccine was pulled off the market in 2002 for lack of consumer interest. It was partly protective; better, next-generation vaccines are years away.

Don't live in a high-Lyme area? Different tick species carry different threats, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Most recently discovered is STARI, or Southern tick-associated rash illness — a rash very similar to Lyme's but not yet linked to other symptoms. It's caused by a still unknown organism carried by the lone star tick.

But Lyme is the most common tick-borne infection, and overshadowing the treatment success for most patients is debate over what patient groups call "chronic Lyme" and mainstream medicine, striving for neutrality, calls "post-Lyme syndrome."

The two camps became even more polarized as two major medical associations released guidelines in the past year that found no good evidence that long-term antibiotics help lingering symptoms — but warned they can cause serious side effects and spur formation of drug-resistant super-germs.

"If there were evidence that prolonged therapy was beneficial ... I'd be the first person to jump on the bandwagon," says Dr. Eugene Shapiro, a Yale University pediatrics professor and co-author of the guidelines from the Infectious Diseases Society of America and American Academy of Neurology.

That's not to say some people aren't sick, the guidelines stress, just that it's not clear why. Among other possibilities, Lyme may over-activate some people's immune systems so that antibodies attack their own joints.

Furious patient groups say the guidelines prompted some insurers to quit paying for some patients' only relief — and that the recommendation instead should have been there's not enough data to know what works. Diane Blanchard, co-president of Time for Lyme, points insurers to still other guidelines, from the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, doctors aligned with the patient groups who back more antibiotics.

"The last thing many of us want to do is ingest an antibiotic," says Blanchard. "We are basically sitting on our hands watching this disease expand its ill effect ... and doing very little except for taking sides, and essentially that's not helping anyone."

(© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)