Life After Lyme Disease

The Marshall Protocol was first developed by the biomedical researcher Trevor Marshall, Ph.D. It can be used treat chronic inflammatory and autoimmune conditions such as Lyme disease. This has been described as a ‘curative’ treatment that aims to tackle the root cause of the infection, rather than just cover up the symptoms.

Benicar is used in the Marshall Protocol Treatment Plan

Challenges Facing Sufferers

The problem with Lyme disease is that it can go undetected for a long period of time. This is because many of the symptoms are generalised and difficult to diagnose. This allows the Lyme bacteria (Borrelia burgdorferi) to spread throughout the body causing widespread infection. This bacteria has also been shown to ‘disguise’ itself and can hide in the body and evade drugs used to eradicated this form of infection. This means that chronic Lyme disease can be very resistant to standard treatments. This includes short term antibiotics which are commonly prescribed for Lyme disease and many sufferers experience months and even years of pain and discomfort whilst they try to overcome the condition

A New Approach to Treating Chronic Lyme Disease

The Marshall Protocol has been developed to tackle chronic, wide spread infections such as Lyme disease. Patients are given a type of medication known as olmesartan (also called Benicar), which boosts the immune system and increases the production of anti-microbial peptides. These peptides have been shown to be crucial in eradicating widespread pathogens and can tackle multi-infections at the same time. This is highly beneficial for Lyme disease sufferers as a large percentage have co-infections that can impede the healing process. Simultaneously to this treatment patients are also prescribed low-dose, pulsed antibiotics. This method of taking antibiotics is known to be much more effective at treating bacteria that can hide from standard treatments. These antibiotics work to weaken the bacteria by preventing them from producing the proteins they need to survive and also reproduce.

Once the bacteria start to die they release toxins into the bloodstream and this can result in a change in immunopathology, which is known as the ‘Herx’ reaction. This creates a number of symptoms in the body including a temporary hormonal imbalance and the stimulation of inflammatory cytokines. This means that the patient will see an escalation in the severity of symptoms for a few weeks or months, before their immune system can return to a more natural balance. Many patients find this increase in symptoms alarming, but the Herx reaction is very common and treatments can be adjusted to balance immunopathology. In severe cases of chronic Lyme disease it can take several years to complete the Marshall Protocol treatment. However patients will begin to see health improving gradually as the infection starts to lessen its hold on the body. In most cases a state of total remission can be achieved.

Blood sample ready for testing

Can the Marshall Protocol Work For You?

One of the easiest ways to find out if the Marshall Protocol could be used to treat your condition is to get a blood test. This will identify whether you to have an elevated level of D metabolites, which is an indicator of chronic infection. A therapeutic probe should also be carried out which will monitor the patients during the stages of treatment to see whether any changes in immunopathology result from taking the Marshall Protocol medicines.

Lyme disease is a prevalent modern disease and is difficult to treat because the symptoms can be very generalised, which can lead to problems with misdiagnose. Lyme disease is caused by the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria and this presents another set of difficulties when it comes to treatment as this is a spiral-shaped bacterium that can mutate and hide in the body, rendering traditional short-term antibiotic treatments ineffective.

Experts are continually looking into new forms of treatment for virulent infections diseases such as Lyme disease and a number of new anti-microbial therapies have been discovered which can have some beneficial effects.

Spiral-shaped Borrelia burgdorferi

Hyperthermia

Many types of bacteria such as Borrelia burgdorferi can only survive in certain temperatures. Perfect environments are provided by warm blooded mammals and this is one of the reasons why this bacterium thrives so well in the human body. Tests have revealed that using heat treatments can increase the effectiveness of short-term antibiotic treatments. Raising the body temperature using hot showers or baths for 20-30 minutes every day has been shown to weaken the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria and make it more susceptible to eradication by antibiotics. An additional benefit of raising body temperature is that it causes the peripheral circulation to dilate and this increases the absorption of drugs such as antibiotics in the body, allowing it to penetrate deep tissue and ensure that drugs can reach all the infected areas. Hyperthermia treatments are thought to increase the effectiveness of antibiotic therapy against infectious diseases such as Lyme disease by as much as 16 times.

Rife Machine

Rife machines emit different frequencies of energy that can penetrate deep into the tissues of the body and cause the spiral-shaped Borrelia bacterium to resonate. This can be so disruptive to the Borrelia that it can actually damage the integrity of the cells and weaken the bacteria so that it cannot reproduce. Rife machines can also kill harmful microbes outright and this is an effective method for eradicating problem infections such as Lyme disease that can be resistant to antibiotic treatments. Rife machines do have a very similar effect to microwaves, although the energy levels emitted are not harmful. These machines have not yet been approved by the FDA and are also quite expensive (around $1,000 each) and this is the main reason why Rife machines are not more widespread for the treatment of Lyme disease.

Beck Electrification

This is another machine that is used to disrupt the integrity of harmful microbes such as Borrelia, causing them to weaken and die. This machine emits low voltage electricity waves and as well as eradicating microbes has also been shown to improve antibiotic absorption in the body increasing the effective of this treatment to eradiate Lyme disease.

Side Effects

Although anti-microbial treatments can be successful at eradicating Lyme disease they can cause a number of side effects including the Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction (herx) reaction. This occurs several days after treatment and causes symptoms to increase significantly. This can last for as long as two weeks into the treatment regime and has to be monitored carefully to avoid any unnecessary suffering for the patient.

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Despite the fact that the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) recently, and incorrectly, reported that Lyme disease could not develop into a chronic condition, thousands of people in the USA do suffer from long term chronic symptoms following an infection from the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, B.burgdorferi, and this can mean multi-system problems from Lyme arthritis that affects the joints causing mobility difficulties through to very serious infections of the central nervous system and other major organs such as the heart.

Chronic Lyme Disease

The main problem with treating Lyme disease is that the B.burgdorferi is a cell wall deficient (CWD) form of bacteria, which means that it is able to mutate itself when exposed to threats like traditional bacterial treatments such as antibiotics, and this means that it can literally hide in body and evade eradication.  The IDSA currently do not recommend long term antibiotic treatment for Lyme disease and instead state that a few weeks of antibiotics is long enough to cure this condition, however many people can still be infected by this persistent bacteria long after the antibiotic treatment has finished and this can mean that the bacteria goes on to infiltrate many vital bodily systems such as the nervous system, heart, joints and even the brain, which can result in some serious, multi-system illnesses. The International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) has estimated that chronic Lyme disease can affect some patients to a similar degree of disability as if they has suffered from a recent heart attack, making it almost impossible for them to lead a normal life and hold down a regular job.

Different Treatment Strategies

As you will see from this video compiled by healthcare journalist Connie Strasheim many physicians do recognize chronic Lyme disease despite the recommendations from the IDSA, and one conventional treatment is to continue antibiotics for several years and this can produce some successful results. However in some cases the B.burgdorferi bacteria can still persist even after this treatment because of its ability to mutate, and this is why a multi-strategy approach to treating Lyme disease is often used by sufferers, which combines healing methods from several different medicinal practises including conventional medicine, Eastern medicine and alternative therapies.  Multi-strategy approaches can include treatments such as:

• Herbs – there are a number of powerful healing ingredients present in nature and some of these can provide potent antibacterial effects which can help to combat Lyme disease infections without damaging the delicate balance of bodily functions and causing any major side effects as conventional antibiotics can do.
• Homeopathy – this alternative healing system has shown some positive results for many Lyme disease sufferers and is designed to stimulate the body’s own healing systems so that it can fight infections and other health problems effectively.
• Salt/C – this lesser known strategy is quite straightforward and involves a taking a combined dosage of vitamin C and sea salt, which is designed to work by inducing a dehydrated state in the B.burgdorferi bacteria so that it cannot reproduce and is quickly eradicated.  This has shown some positive results for chronic Lyme disease sufferers who may have found other strategies ineffective.

The panel put in place to review the 2006 Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) guidelines which detail the treatment of Lyme disease have voted unanimously to make ‘no changes’, and to continue recommending short-term antibiotic treatment for the infectious condition Lyme disease (spread by infected tick bites), and advising against long-term antibiotic therapy for patients with ongoing problems.  This news has dismayed many doctors, patients and activists throughout America who have long campaigned for changes to be made to the 2006 IDSA Lyme treatment guidelines.

Report Findings

The ISDA stated that the controversial guidelines as published in 2006 still remained the most effective clinical protocols for the treatment of Lyme disease, despite heavy criticism from sufferers of this condition who believe that Lyme disease should be re-classed as a chronic condition that could require long-term antibiotic treatment.  The report issued by the panel on 22 April 2010 stated that “Reports purporting to show the persistence of viable B. burgdorferi organisms after treatment with recommended regimens for Lyme disease have not been conclusive or corroborated by controlled studies.” In short the panel did not believe the clinical evidence gathered on Lyme disease supported the theory that this was a chronic condition and believed that there was no “benefit to prolonging antibiotic therapy beyond one month”.

Infected ticks can spread Lyme disease

Reactions

These findings have angered the hundreds of patients around America that suffer prolonged and often debilitating symptoms following the recommended treatment schedule of short-term antibiotics for Lyme disease, and Dr Daniel Cameron (a past president of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society) has responded to this report with some resignation, stating that he was not at all surprised by the ‘no change’ verdict.  Dr Cameron is just one of the many healthcare advisers around America that have been disappointed by the failure of the ISDA to offer leadership on the difficult and growing problem of Lyme disease, and is keen to reassure patients that doctors will continue to support those that suffer from chronic Lyme related problems and offer ongoing treatment.  Dr Cameron also pointed out that the report from the panel would be just another excuse for health insurers to refuse to pay out for those patients that needed ongoing medical support for Lyme disease.

Challenges to the 2006 Guidelines

Many critics of the 2006 Lyme treatment guidelines have long raised concerns over the initial development of these guidelines, and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal challenged the society to answer the point that a number authors were said to have “undisclosed conflicts of interest” (thought to include financial stakes in Lyme disease related commercial industries), which could have influenced their findings.  The report released on 22 April 2010 sought to address some of these concerns and Blumenthal issued a statement assuring those concerned that his office was reviewing the findings in detail and would determine if the IDSA had ‘fulfilled the requirements of our settlement’.

Lyme Disease Association have reported that an estimated 15-20% of all Lyme victims will go on to develop a chronic form of the disease, and although the review panel chairwoman Dr. Carol J. Baker assured patients that the panel members had “tremendous compassion” those victims who said they had chronic cases, all of the members were concerned about the safety and cost issues of prescribing extended antibiotic therapy, and stated that “We don’t want our patients to be exposed to those kinds of risks when there was no credible medical or scientific evidence that these kinds of therapies improved their illness”.

Cat’s Claw (Uncaria tomentosa) is a type of vine that grows in the tropical jungles and rainforests of Asia and South America, and it has been considered a healing plant for many centuries and some cultures refer to it as the ‘Sacred Herb of the Rain Forest’.  This vine has a number of small thorns circling the base of the leaves which look a little like cat’s claws, and this is where it gets its name from. These thorns are used to attach the vine to trees, so that it can climb up into the forest canopy easily.

Healing Benefits

Cat’s Claw is a valuable natural healing resource and highly sought after and in many areas such as Peru it is protected.  Modern science is only just beginning to explore the potentially beneficial uses of this vine, and recent studies have been conducted to try and understand just how Cat’s Claw works.  Results from these studies have shown that the vine can have a positive effect on the body’s immune system, actively boosting natural healing mechanisms and this has some major implications for a number of conditions including cancer and HIV.  Cat’s Claw contains a number of active ingredients including several powerful phytochemicals such as alkaloids and tannins.  Alkaloids in particular have been shown to boost the immune system, and one of the major alkaloids rhynchophylline has anti-hypertensive effects, which can be helpful in reducing blood pressure and heart rate and increasing circulation.

Cat's Claw (Uncaria tomentosa)

Cat’s Claw and Lyme Disease

Cat’s Claw has been shown to have significant antimicrobial effects, and this means that it has been targeted as a key alternative treatment for Lyme disease.  Lyme disease is caused by an infection of the Borrelia burgdorferiis bacteria, which is transmitted to humans and animals by the bites of infected ticks. 

Cat’s Claw contains pentacyclic oxindole alkaloids (POA), which are thought to stimulate the immune system so that the release rate of germ killing white blood cells is increased.  Borrelia burgdorferiis is classed as a cell wall deficient (CWD) form of bacteria, and studies carried out by Australian scientist Trevor Marshall have shown that these types of bacteria can be very difficult to eradicate and can persist long after antibiotic treatment has been carried out.  Marshall discovered that the natural immune system is key to the successfully treatment of CWD bacterial infections, and he developed ‘The Marshall Protocol’, which advocates the combination of low-dose antibiotics taken alongside medication that boosts the immune system, and this treatment needs to be followed for several years in some cases to truly eradicate persistent forms of CWD bacterial infection.  You can see from this research how important immune boosting medicines are to the treatment of CWD bacterial infections such as Lyme disease, and this can be an important factor in judging the success that Cat’s Claw can have as an alternative therapy for this condition, because of its powerful natural immune boosting effects.

Natural compounds found in Cat’s Claw also include quinovic acid glycosides, and this is actually what the quinolone compound of new generation synthetic antibiotics such as Ciprofloxacin (INN) are based on, and these are used commercially to treat a number of bacterial infections.  Natural quinovic acid glycosides have been shown to be effective against bacteria and viruses such as esicular stomatitis (cold sore virus), and scientists believe they can also be effect against other bacterial infections including Borrelia burgdorferiis.

Actor, Ben Stiller

Hollywood funnyman Ben Stiller may be among one of the thousands of people around the world who have contracted the chronic condition Lyme disease. Like many other sufferers Stiller, 44, discovered he may have this potentially harmful disease after seeking treatment for another ailment, in this case an inflamed knee which never healed after he injured it whilst on a charity related trip to Mozambique. Stiller explained that "I was in Africa about three and half weeks ago and I stepped in a ditch in Mozambique", but after a few weeks his knee was still very painful and inflamed, causing Stiller to walk with a limp at times and so he sought further medical assistance. Despite numerous tests doctors could not identify the cause of the inflammation and infection and this painful condition was exacerbated by some arthritic elements that were revealed on MRI scans.

Lyme Disease Suspected

Stiller’s knee injury grew steadily worse over the following weeks and was so painful at one point he almost had to pull out of a high profile interview with one of America’s premier TV talk show hosts David Letterman, which had been scheduled for March 23. However recently a breakthrough in Stiller’s mystery knee complaint came through when one of his doctors queried whether or not he had ever had Lyme disease. Stiller had been on the East Coast during the height of the tick season the previous year (ticks are prime carriers of Lyme disease) and that at this time his son had actually contracted the disease. Lyme disease is well known for causing severe joint pain and arthritic conditions, and Stiller’s doctors finally diagnosed Lyme disease as the most likely cause of his painful knee condition. As Stiller explained to Letterman in his interview this breakthrough came just at the right time, as the next stage of his treatment would have been orthoscopic procedures followed by possible invasive surgery, and as he said “…if it is Lyme disease, I won’t have to have the procedure done, which is great", as this treatment could have seriously restricted his mobility for months and prevented him from working on any new movies or other projects.

Confirming Lyme Disease

Lyme disease is a difficult condition to properly diagnose, as it can in some cases take months or even years for the symptoms to appear, and standard testing can not always identify positively whether or not the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi, is actually present in the system. Although there are still more tests to go ahead before Stiller can be confirmed with Lyme disease, he could be among thousands of patients around the world suffering from this potentially debilitating condition who are initially misdiagnosed, and undergo months of futile tests. Lyme disease is easy to treat in the early stages with antibiotics, but if left to develop it can cause a number of painful symptoms such as inflammation and swelling of the joints, and it can also be much more difficult to treat once the bacteria has spread throughout the body’s system.

Insects that feed on animals are primary carriers of a number of unpleasant diseases, and many of these can be transmitted from animals to humans such as Lyme disease, which is caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi.

Humans have a significant impact on fragile ecosystems all around the world, and research suggests that increasing urbanization and modern forest management techniques can all have a significant impact on the spread of tick-borne disease.  We often think of dramatic environmental disruptions happening in far away places such as the rainforests or Arctic glaciers, but similar problems are occurring with ecosystems right in our own backyards, and this can result in a number of problems such as an increased risk of exposure to infected ticks carrying the bacteria which causes Lyme disease.

Urbanization spreading into wild areas

Urbanization

Ticks mostly feed on woodland mammals such as mice, rabbits and deer, and because their chosen prey is more abundant at woodland and forest edges this is also where the population densities of ticks are the most concentrated.  Spreading urbanization has put woodland and forests under threat and pushed the boundaries between residential and wild areas even closer, and this means that there are more and more people living and working in high risk areas for Lyme disease.

Forest Management

Both ticks and their prey need certain habitats in order to survive, and researchers at the Washington University’s Tyson Research Center discovered that in the Missouri Ozarks (predominantly oak and other hardwood forests) those areas which were managed by the Missouri Department of Conservation and the Nature Conservancy were actually more at risk from tick-borne diseases crossing to humans and domestic animals, as selective logging and managed burns of the woodland created much more sustainable habitats for the prey ticks fed from, in particular deer and small mammals such as rabbits which both prefer the tender fresh green growth that is abundant in newly cleared woodland areas.

Woodland management can create ideal habitats for ticks

Researchers were keen to determine exactly which species were the main feeders of infected ticks in a typical woodland enviroment, and so collected ticks from a variety of sites in the managed woodland and wilder areas, and analyzed the DNA in the blood the ticks had fed on to identify which animal the blood came from, and whether or not any pathogenic bacteria were present.  This research provided some interesting results and it was found that stable deer populations did not significantly effect the spread of tick-borne diseases, but that concentrated populations brought about by plentiful food and protected habitats caused a dramatic increase in the impact and spread of tick-borne diseases such as Lyme disease.

The Importance of Tracking Emerging Diseases

With Lyme disease and other insect-borne diseases it is important we fully understand under what conditions the carriers of these pathogens can multiply and spread, as this will help health authorities and governments to identify and track emerging patterns of these potentially harmful diseases and put measures in place quickly to minimize the impact on humans.  For example the research from the Ozarks showed that managed environments caused explosions in deer populations, which in turn led to the increased risk of Lyme disease passing to humans and other animals, and this could be a significant piece of evidence to drive measures against the spread of ticks in the future, particularly when you consider that some state agencies actually encourage deer populations by planting out food for them.  In Missouri alone it was estimated that there were over 1.4 million deer, and this seems to be a similar pattern in woodland across the US, and researchers have estimated that there could be as many as 30 million deer currently living wild in the the mid and eastern United States.  It is likely that alongside these increasing deer and rabbit populations levels of other small mammals such as squirrels, shrews and mice are also booming, which can also be key prey sources for ticks, and all of this could explain why tick-borne diseases are spreading despite many efforts to hold them in check.

The following is a list of labs across the USA that test ticks for Lyme Disease.

Analytical Services, Inc.
Williston, VT
800-723-4432, www.analyticalservices.com
PCR: $75, dead or alive. Ziplock bag, no tape, overnight it. Turn-around time: 2 weeks.

Connecticut Pathologies Laboratories, Inc.
Willimantic, CT
860-423-2775
PCR test: $49, dead or alive, Lyme Disease only. Turn-around time: 1 week.

IgeneX, Inc.
Palo Alto, CA
800-832-3200, www.igenex.com
PCR test: $55, dead or alive. Can test for 5 things @ $55/test.
Turn-around time: 10 to 12 business days; ziplock bag.

Medical Diagnostic Laboratories
Mt. Laurel, NJ
877-269-0090
PCR test: $155 plus doctor’s prescription; dead or alive

New Jersey Division of Health and Senior Services
Division of Public Health and Environmental Laboratories
Trenton, NJ
609-292-5819
$25 for Lyme disease test; $35 for both Lyme disease and rocky mountain spotted fever. (Check for new pricing.) Live ticks only. Send in film container or other hard container with moist cotton ball. No baggies.

New Jersey Laboratories
New Brunswick, NJ
732-249-0148, 877-TICK-TEST
Culture: $60, freshly dead or alive with no chemicals used to remove tick, Lyme Disease
PCR: $175, dead or alive

In a labor intensive PCR Test (Preliminary Chain Reaction), a lab technician searches for the DNA of the pathogen on dead or live ticks. Send in whole ticks. “Anytime you have a piece of an organism missing, there’s always the possibility you can miss identifying the pathogen,” is advised by Sean P. Healy an entomologist with the mosquito commission.

In an antigen test, the surface of the organism is detected. “We look specifically for the bacteria that causes Lyme Disease, Borrelia burgdorferi,” says Janine Banks, client services supervisor at Analytical Services, Inc.

If any of you know of any other labs that test ticks for Lyme disease please let me know so that I can add them to this list.