Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.
Lyme disease is escalating to epidemic proportions here in
the United States. There is much controversy surrounding it. Too many people
are still being told it is all in their head. Each year thousands of people go
undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. There are many establishment doctors that still do
not believe chronic Lyme exists. There are those who still believe that only
ticks can infect a person, and those who do not believe you can get the
disease, even if you actually see an imbedded tick and get it out, within 24-36
hours.
So where does the truth lie? Well, here are some of the
things the experts on Lyme are putting forth.
Lyme can be contracted from many sources: ticks, mosquitos,
spiders, fleas, and mites, to name a few. This is probably why so few people
with Lyme recall a tick bite. There is also increasing evidence that Lyme
disease may be transmitted sexually and congenitally. That is somewhat
controversial at this point, but the evidence is mounting.
Long term antibiotics to treat Lyme disease are a
significant controversy at the moment. Generally speaking, if you know you have
been bitten by a tick and are showing some symptoms, an initial protocol of not
more than three days, with an antibiotic such as doxycycline or others may be
necessary. But those with lingering symptoms for months and years rarely show
any benefit or recover with months of long term use. Some people say they need
the antibiotics just to function. This may have some validity. The reason being
that scientists have found that as the bacteria is killed off it may leave
protein residues behind, causing long term symptoms. Another study from Tufts
University suggests bacteria can indeed survive, at least in animal studies,
and that this weakened bacteria might still cause problems. There are no
studies that show long term (as in months to years) of antibiotic use is of any
value to healing a person.
The other problem with long term antibiotics is that it
leaves an already immune compromised body open to a myriad of co-infections
with fungus, parasites, viral, and other bacterial infections. Because
antibiotics reduce all bacteria, good and bad, it wreaks havoc on one of your
immune systems primary defenses, your gut bacteria. They say that 80 percent of
your immune response occurs in the gut. If you kill off the good bacteria with
long term antibiotics…you get the point.
Another new theory of Borrelia infection is that it is very
much like the syphilis spirochete. Both can take different forms in your body
depending on what conditions are present. They have a cystic form, granular
form, and cell wall deficient form, and they invade different tissues from
nerve cells to brain cells to joint fluids of the body, and even white blood
cells.
Dr. Alan MacDonald, MD., has been studying the similarities
between Lyme and syphilis for thirty years. He found the DNA of Borrelia in
seven of ten brain specimens from people who died of Alzheimer’s. The DNA of
Borrelia was fused with human DNA, in one molecule! Syphilis does the exact same
thing to the nervous system, causing the psychiatric form of syphilis.
Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, and expert on Lyme, says he has
never had a single patient that was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, ALS,
Parkinson’s, or MS who tested negative for Borrelia. Could Lyme disease be a
common link?