Chronic Lyme Disease Natural Treatment

What To Expect At Your Provider’s Office

Lyme disease can be hard to diagnose because many of its symptoms look like those of other illnesses, and there is no definitive lab test for Lyme disease. About 20% of people with Lyme disease do not get a rash. Tell your doctor if you think you may have been bitten by a tick. Your doctor may order these tests:

• ELISA test, which detects antibodies to the bacteria that causes Lyme disease. This test may result in false positives.
• Western blot test, which detects antibodies to proteins of the bacteria
• Polymerase chain reaction , which detects bacteria in joint fluid and is used for people who may have Lyme arthritis.

Antimicrobial Treatments For Lyme Disease

The conventional medical approach to Lyme disease treatment in adults is a ten to 21-day course of the antibiotic doxycycline.1 However, a growing body of research shows that this treatment is insufficient, if not completely ineffective, for cases of chronic Lyme disease. Functional medicine offers a far more comprehensive approach to the antimicrobial treatment of Lyme disease. Read on to learn about the types of antimicrobial treatment options available, and how they can be combined for optimal effect.

Natural Treatment Plan For Chronic Lyme Disease Patients

When it comes to chronic tick-borne infections, the most common being Lyme disease, patients are searching for the treatment plan providing the most rapid recovery. Their treatment may be a blend of antibiotics with natural medications in a complementary fashion or natural medications alone. Chronic Lyme disease may also take a patient on a journey implementing immunotherapies, heavy metal chelation, stem cells, magnetic therapies, hyperthermia therapy , essential oils, energy medicine modalities and oxygen enhancement therapies.

As with any other chronic medical conditions, treatments will vary depending on the individual constitution, patient philosophy, access to care, cost, and ability to tolerate treatment. If there are complications along the way like symptoms flares due to treatment causing increased inflammation called Jarisch-Herxheimer response, its important to have a very diverse holistic approach to reduce the bumps on the road to recovery. These flares are usually the rule, rather than the exception with treating tick-borne infection. Its important to support the body, mind and spirit throughout the process because it can be a longer journey than anticipated.

10-Step Natural Treatment Plan for Chronic Lyme Disease

The examples given here are just a sampling of options available for treatment. They were chosen because they are the most commonly used and easiest to find in the marketplace.

1. Probiotics

2. Saccharomyces boulardii

5. Adrenal Support

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What Is The Best Medication For Lyme Disease

Treatments for Lyme disease are not universal. There is no singular treatment thats best for everyone. The range of symptoms and responses to treatment vary. A doctor can determine the best medication for Lyme disease based on an individuals symptoms, medical history, and response to treatments. Heres an overview of popular Lyme disease medications that a doctor may prescribe.

A doctor determines the best dosage based on medical conditions, response to treatment, age, and weight.

Other possible side effects exist. This is not a complete list.

Complementary And Alternative Therapies

You should never treat Lyme disease with complementary therapies alone. Anyone who has Lyme disease needs to take antibiotics to cure the disease and avoid complications. Lyme disease does affect many parts of your body, so including complementary therapies along with standard treatment may help.

Some people believe they have long-lasting complications from Lyme disease. Using CAM therapies to treat these long-lasting complications is controversial. Conventional doctors believing that CAM practitioners may be attributing too many random symptoms to Lyme disease. Make sure you see reputable doctors, whether conventional or CAM practitioners, and educate yourself so that you can be your own advocate.

Always tell all of your doctors about the herbs and supplements you are using or considering using.

Nutrition and SupplementsHerbs

The use of herbs is a time-honored approach to strengthening the body and treating disease. Herbs, however, can trigger side effects and interact with other herbs, supplements, or medications. For these reasons, you should take herbs with care, under the supervision of a health care provider. Some helpful herbs include:

Homeopathy

In some cases, such as Lyme disease, a professional homeopath may prescribe specific remedies without considering the individual’s constitutional state. Such remedies for Lyme disease include:

• Arsenicum album

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Tetracycline Plus Rifamycin Plus Disulfiram

• minocycline 100 mg 1 pill 2 times a day
• rifampin 300 mg 2 pills 1 time a day
• disulfiram 4 to 5 mg/ kg body weight. Work up to this dose slowly over 2 months then remain on the disulfiram at the peak dose for 4 months before tapering off.

Key Points:

• This minocycine and rifampin in this combination are as useful for treating a Bartonella co-infection. Co-infections are other germs passed on during a tick bite. If someone has a co-infection, when possible I choose antibiotic combinations that simultaneously treat Lyme germs and the co-infection germs.
• The disulfiram is added here to treat persister Lyme. Note disulfiram does not appear to treat Bartonella.

Lifestyle Remedies For Tick

If caught early enough, Lyme disease can typically be treated using several lifestyle remedies.

Regular exercise augments the amount of oxygen in the body and blood, which acts to destroy the Lyme bacteria in the blood.

Additionally, probiotics taken daily boosts the number of good bacteria in the gut, supplementing the immune system.

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Being Aware Is Crucial To Preventing Lyme Disease

Several factors must be taken into consideration to prevent Lyme disease:

• Knowing where you are most likely to pick up ticks
• How to keep your lawn and pets free of ticks
• Preventing a bite if a tick hitches a ride on you or your children
• Identifying the ticks that put you at most risk
• Removing the tick promptly and properly
• Knowing the symptoms of an infection
• Recognizing the flaws in testing and the rate of misdiagnosis.

That’s a lot of information to digest! Still, being aware of all of these factors is crucial in protecting your family.

What Is Lyme Disease

Lyme disease is triggered by an infection brought on by bacteria called Borrelia burgdorferi. You may start out feeling like you’ve woken up with a bad case of the flu. But, if time goes on, and the condition is left untreated, you could wind up experiencing a lot of long-term effects.

The Borrelia burgdorferi bacterial species that infects a person with Lyme is of the spirochete class. Spirochetes are flexible spirally microbes that actually dig holes in your tissue. The Lyme disease symptoms that arise are due to an inflammatory process.

Most cases of Lyme can be cured, but some people continue having symptoms even after antibiotic treatment. This is known as post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome or chronic Lyme disease.

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Patients Turning To Herbal Remedies

Because patients are currently turning to herbal remedies to fill the treatment gaps left by antibiotics, this research is a critical step in helping clinicians, as well as patients, understand which ones may offer the most potential benefit.

According to this study, carried out by Prof. Ying Zhangs group at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the seven herbal medicines that have the ability to kill B. burgdorferi in test tubes are:

• Cryptolepis sanguinolenta
• Uncaria tomentosa
• Scutellaria baicalensis

It is important to note that each of these products have the potential to produce significant side effects in patients, and should be taken only under advisement of a clinician knowledgeable of their capabilities and toxicities.

Of these products, the Cryptolepis sanguinolenta extract caused complete eradication, while doxycycline and cefuroxime and other active herbs did not. This extract has been used for the treatment of malaria as well as the tick-borne infection Babesia, a malaria-like parasite.

This study is believed to be the first time this extract has been documented to have a potential impact on B. burgdorferi, and additional laboratory and clincial studies should be conducted to investigate the potential role Cryptolepis sanguinolenta could play in the treatment of Lyme disease.

Further, Cryptolepis sanguinolenta and Polygonum cuspidatum showed strong activity against both growing B. burgdorferi and non-growing stationary phase B. burgdorferi.

Has Niaid Looked At The Potential Benefits Of Long

Yes. NIAID has funded three placebo-controlled clinical trials on the efficacy of prolonged antibiotic therapy for treating PTLDS. The published results were subjected to rigorous statistical, editorial, and scientific peer review.

These trials were designed to ensure that several key parameters were addressed:

• The susceptibility of B.burgdorferi to the antibiotics used
• The ability of the antibiotics to both cross the blood-brain barrier and access the central nervous system and to persist at effective levels throughout the course of therapy
• The ability of the antibiotics to kill bacteria living both outside and inside mammalian cells
• The safety and welfare of patients enrolled in the trials

The first clinical trial, which included two multicenter studies, provided no evidence that extended antibiotic treatment is beneficial. In those studies, physicians examined long-term antibiotic therapy in patients with a well-documented history of previous Lyme disease but who reported persistent pain, fatigue, impaired cognitive function, or unexplained numbness. Those symptoms are common among people reporting PTLDS. Patients were treated with 30 days of an intravenous antibiotic followed by 60 days of an oral antibiotic.

In 2016, a clinical trial conducted in the Netherlands also concluded that in patients with persistent symptoms attributed to Lyme disease, longer term treatment with antibiotics did not provide additional benefits compared with shorter term regimens.

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Treatment Of Lyme Disease Without Antibiotics

Many of my chronic lyme patients have come to me after they have been on repeated courses of antibiotics, with only temporary improvement. In these cases, one option for treatment is a more holistic, naturopathic approach to chronic lyme disease which involves nutritional support to regulate physiology, detoxification, more broad spectrum antimicrobials , and immune system modulation.

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Why Are Antibiotics The First Line Of Treatment For Lyme Disease

The use of antibiotics is critical for treating Lyme disease. Without antibiotic treatment, the Lyme disease causing bacteria can evade the host immune system, disseminate through the blood stream, and persist in the body. Antibiotics go into the bacteria preferentially and either stop the multiplication of the bacteria or disrupt the cell wall of the bacteria and kill the bacteria . By stopping the growth or killing the bacteria the human host immune response is given a leg up to eradicate the residual infection. Without antibiotics, the infection in Lyme disease can evade the host immune system and more readily persist.

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When Inflammation Becomes Chronic

Imagine if the acute inflammatory process was going on in tissues throughout your body and it never resolved. Thats exactly what happens with the chronic inflammation associated with chronic Lyme disease.

The driving force is bacteria invading cells. Its not an all-out invasion like you would find with an acute infection, such as pneumonia, however. Its an insidious migration of bacteria into tissues throughout the body in the brain, heart, joints, muscles, kidneys, intestines, everywhere.

When Lyme bacteria enter the bloodstream from a tick bite, WBCs gobble up the bacteria in an attempt to get rid of them. The bacteria, however, have sophisticated ways of staying alive inside the WBCs. Instead of eradicating the bacteria, the WBCs unintentionally become transport vehicles to distribute bacteria to tissues throughout the body.

On arrival, the bacteria surface and infect other cells. Its not as much a deluge of invasion as it is a random sprinkling. Tissues throughout the body become peppered with cells that have been infected with bacteria.

The Lyme bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, are intracellular, which means they infect and live inside cells. The cells provide nutrients to make new bacteria as well as protection from the immune system. Once the bacteria have used up the resources a cell has to offer, they surface and infect other cells.

Banderol And Cats Claw

“These two herbs are commonly dosed together because they work synergistically with clinically proven action against Borrelia species,” Greenspan says. “The goals with any treatment with Lyme disease spirochetes, whether chronic or acute, is to have a combination of herbs to be effective with the shape-shifting behavior of this microbe.”

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How Lyme Disease Spreads

Lyme bacteria are parasitic organisms, as many bacteria are. They need a host to live in. And because they cant make all the nutrients they need themselves, they scavenge them from their hosts. Most of what they need can be found in collagen tissues. So, once they enter the animal host, they begin breaking down collagen tissues into a kind of soup in order to feed. Its where they break down those tissues that important.

• Joints = Lyme arthritis
• Heart = Lyme carditis
• Central nervous system = neurological Lyme with associated brain fog, difficulty thinking and remembering, tremors, facial paralysis, loss of limb function and so on.

This is the secret to understanding the disease and how to treat it.

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Stevia Shown To Kill Borrelia Burgdorferi:

Recent studies have revealed evidence that whole leaf stevia extract may be effective at killing the spirochetes Borrelia Burgdorferi, the bacteria responsible for Lyme disease . The study showed that exposing the bacteria to stevia leaf extract eliminated Lyme disease, even when the bacteria was in its dormant form.

While more studies are still needed before stevia leaf extract becomes a prescribed natural cure for Lyme disease, that doesnt mean it isnt worth trying at home along with some of the many other natural remedies discussed. It is important to know that pure stevia leaf extract is different from powdered stevia in the supermarket. You can however purchase pure stevia leaf extract in supplement form.

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Immune And Digestive Support:

Bacteria associated with Lyme disease are well known for crippling the bodys natural immune system. Given that 70 80% of your immune tissue is located within your digestive system, this means that your digestive system is likely to be impacted as well. In addition to this, aggressive antibiotic therapy is typically prescribed which only further damages these sensitive systems. Digestive symptoms associated with Lyme disease often include long term nausea, irritable bowel and loss of appetite.

It is critical that following a positive Lyme disease diagnosis, proper support is put in place to naturally boost both of these systems. There are a variety of natural supplements and herbs available to provide immune and digestive support, they include:

Homeopathy Treatment For Lyme Disease #1 Holistic Treatment For Lyme Disease

Among the natural treatments for Lyme disease that has proliferated in response to the ongoing Lyme disease epidemic,homeopathic treatment for Lyme disease has a unique and valuable place.

Homeopathy is one of the natural treatments for Lyme disease that contains a therapeutic healing system that regards the mental, emotional, and physical aspects of human health as inextricably linked. The disease is seen as an expression of the imbalance of the whole, so it is necessary to consider the whole to find adequate treatment.

For patients who may not be successful or who cannot tolerate antibiotic therapy in treating Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases, homeopathic treatment for Lyme disease can be a good option.

Homeopathic medicines, commonly known as remedies, are precisely manufactured in homeopathic pharmacies. The homeopaths job is to find the remedy that best suits your makeup and the symptoms to be treated. Homeopathic treatment for Lyme disease strengthens the individuals underlying health and strengthens the response to treatment for Lyme disease.

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Who Is At Risk For Complications Of Lyme Disease

People who do not know they have been infected. So its important to check for deer ticks after outdoor activitiesespecially in the northeast or midwest parts of the country.

Ticks sometimes bite in such inconspicuous places as the hairline or back. Lyme disease is treated with antibiotics at any stage of illness to eradicate the bacterial infection. However, some people might still be at risk for lingering neurological complications if the bacteria has traveled to the tissue of the central nervous system.

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Bee Products And Venom Therapy

It may seem extreme, but one remedy that has a long history in countries like Korea, Germany, China, and Switzerland is bee venom therapy. This is the use of bee venom either applied directly through bee stings or diluted in water or saline solution.

Used as a treatment for Lyme disease, some people report improvements in symptoms like joint pain, fatigue, and cognition. Royal jelly, the milk-like secretion that is used to feed larvae in the honeycomb, is another potential bee tool for Lyme disease thanks to its high content of proteins, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and more.

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Chelation Therapy For Lyme Disease

Some people believe Lyme disease symptoms are linked to heavy metal toxicity from materials like lead or mercury. Chelation therapy is a method of removing heavy metals from the bloodstream.

Its done using a type of medication called a chelator or chelating agent. This medication binds to metals in the bloodstream, collecting them into a compound that can be processed by your kidneys and released in urine.

Chelation therapy is an effective treatment for a buildup of heavy metals. But theres no evidence that heavy metals contribute to Lyme disease, and chelation therapy wont treat the underlying infection.