Lyme disease (LD) and Post – Lyme syndrome (PLS) are very challenging clinical conditions to treat because Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) is a highly adaptable organism that can make eradication difficult. The Bb can evade your immune system and actually change its form to make it impervious to antibiotics.
To make matters worse, ticks that transmit Bb can also simultaneously transmit other infectious diseases like Bartonella, Ehrlichia and Babesia.
Complicating matters even more, if you have been infected with Lyme disease, your immunesystem can be hypersensitive to other factors such as mold and food sensitivities.
Additionally, the stress on your immune, nervous and hormone systems from Lyme disease can contribute to other problems like thyroid dysfunction, adrenal dysfunction and autonomic nervous system dysfunction.
Other factors that challenge treatment success:
- Diagnosing Lyme disease is fraught with tests that are either overly sensitive (yielding false – positive results) or not sensitive enough (yielding false – negative results)
- Diagnosing and treating co-infections like Bartonella, Ehrlichia and Babesia is laden with uncertainty
- A single antibiotic regimen is often insufficient as the Bb can change its form to avoid sensitivity, burrow deep into your tissues to “hide” from the antibiotics and change its genes to avoid eradication
- Bb can trick your immune system by “camouflaging” itself such that your immune system cannot “see” the organism
- Bb can form colonies of organisms that create what is known as a biofilm, protecting it from your immune system and antibiotics
- Bb can take control of your plasminogen activating system, thus allowing the organism to dissolve your protective barriers and travel deeper into your tissues
- Bb can activate your immune system creating a chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS)
Any doctor (or other health professional) that tells you Lyme disease is easy to treat and only requires a short course of antibiotics is either delusional or deceitful. Lyme disease treatment requires a comprehensive approach.
At MD Wellness, we look at Lyme disease as an infectious disease, an immune system disease and a metabolic disease. Treatment includes:
- Using multiple antibiotics simultaneously such that the organisms are less able avoid eradication by changing form.
- Searching for and treating co-infections
- Addressing the chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS) by incorporating the “Shoemaker Method”
- Addressing and treating other factors (like mold exposure) that can further increase abnormal immune system responses
- Employing metabolic therapy to measure and treat perturbations of your body chemistry that can perpetuate symptoms and retard healing
- Addressing nutritional and lifestyle factors that contribute to stress and unwellness