by guest blogger Isaac Eliaz, MD, MS, LAc, integrative medicine pioneer
There’s a silent epidemic creeping around us, and mainstream medicine has only just begun to take a serious look. So what is this disease that experts are calling the fastest-spreading vector-borne illness in the country? Lyme disease.
It’s estimated that Lyme disease strikes between 20,000 and 30,000 people each year. Conventional treatment is first-line antibiotic therapy after infection occurs. The problem is that many people who contract Lyme disease don’t realize it until years later when symptoms begin to surface: Aches and flu-like feelings, severe pain and stiffness, rashes, fatigue, neurological problems, blood pressure spikes, and more. By then, antibiotics are practically useless.
That’s because once the infection takes hold, the bacteria that cause Lyme hide within cells and tissues where antibiotics—pharmaceutical or natural—often can’t reach. Natural treatment is difficult, and requires a multilayered and strategic protocol that takes into account factors like genetic susceptibility, which can make the condition more difficult to treat.
More Than Just a Tick Bite
Lyme disease is a stealthy intruder, but it doesn’t always act alone. While the bacterium triggers the initial flu-like symptoms, other chronic health conditions can make this degenerative disease much worse. Compounding co-factors include: chronic inflammation, immune suppression, co-infections from viruses, parasites, other bacteria, and fungi; and elevated levels of heavy metals and toxins. These factors can create a complex pathology of Lyme disease—in other words, we’re dealing with more than just B. burgdorferi. While antibiotics are a front-line approach if caught early on, alone they’re not enough. Successful treatment requires multilayered solutions involving some of the strategies I’ve outlined here.
Equally concerning, researchers are now beginning to believe that the disease is sexually transmittable and that partners can infect each other unknowingly. Updated recommendations for preventing the spread of Lyme disease, which include this new information, have not yet made it into the mainstream literature and may take years to do so until the evidence is assembled for more definitive proof. So with these new potential risks identified, it’s best to play safe.
The Role of Toxic Metals
Lead, mercury, cadmium, and other toxic metals fuel inflammation and suppress immune function. Environmental toxins and mold/fungi are also a threat. Furthermore, Lyme disease promotes chronic inflammation and hinders the body’s detoxification systems. Elevated toxic body burden, systemic inflammation, and reduced immunity create a vicious cycle of vulnerability, allowing Lyme and other infections a stronger foothold.
To halt this destructive cycle, detoxification therapies, anti-inflammatory approaches and the diagnosis and treatment of co-infections (including other tick-borne microbes such as babesia) need to be incorporated into an integrative, holistic treatment protocol.
Keys to Detox
Published clinical studies demonstrate that the supplement Modified Citrus Pectin (MCP), a highly bio-available form of pectin, safely removes toxic metals such as lead, mercury, and arsenic from the body without disrupting essential minerals. MCP also targets systemic inflammation by blocking a pro-inflammatory protein called galectin-3. Other research demonstrates that MCP activates immune cells and increases their functionality in both the innate and adaptive immune response. Alginates, derived from brown seaweed, also have detoxifying, immune-enhancing, and anti-inflammatory properties.
The Role of Genetics in Susceptibility
The real importance of detoxification in patients with Lyme disease can be seen in genetic tests. Lyme patients often demonstrate a genetic predisposition, diagnosed with specific HLA DR genetic testing. Patients with certain genes, such as HLA DRB1 15, DQ 6 and/or other HLA genes, are highly sensitive to neurotoxins like mold and fungus, by-products of babesia and other infections, toxic metals, pesticides, industrial chemicals, and more. For such patients, antibiotics don’t work as well, either. These genetic predispositions prevent people with Lyme disease from being able to eliminate the neurotoxins produced by the bacterium and other possible co-infections. In this case, MCP and alginates can help significantly by binding to these toxins and helping to eliminate them.
In my clinical practice, I use these and other targeted detoxification agents to help safely reduce toxic body burden and inflammation in my patients, support a more thorough treatment of Lyme disease over the long term, and enhance the effectiveness of other treatments.
Hiding Out
Lyme bacterium, co-infections, and their toxic by-products hide within the nervous system, including the brain, and create a special challenge to treat. So compounds that penetrate the blood-brain barrier are critical. Artemisinin, an active ingredient from Artemisia annua (wormwood) and its derivative artesunate, can achieve this.
Another place where Lyme bacterium may hide in the body is within biofilms. Biofilms are protective coatings formed by microorganism colonies like candida and Borelia. Although it’s a relatively new field of research, a growing body of data suggests that Lyme bacterium build protective biofilm matrixes in the digestive tract and elsewhere in the body to shield themselves from treatments as well as immune surveillance. The multitargeted strategy of breaking up biofilms with specific enzymes, fighting the infections with antimicrobial agents, and following with detoxification and probiotic treatment is proving to be a potential solution to numerous persistent infections.
Restoring Health
In truth, there are many integrative strategies to help strengthen immunity, detoxify the system, fight infections, and reduce inflammation. Phosphatidylcholine helps remove toxins from the nervous system, while glutathione flushes them from the body, cools inflammation, and boosts immunity. Other complementary treatments—acupuncture, full-body heat treatments, and other naturopathic IV therapies, for instance—help reduce inflammation, target infections, support neurological health, increase vital energy, and restore balance to the system.
If you have concerns about Lyme disease, it’s critical to work with an integrative health provider experienced in this area of treatment. Lyme disease is a complicated condition, but that doesn’t mean you are powerless against it. By integrating conventional treatments like antibiotics (especially in the early stages), with naturopathic approaches to boost immunity, fight infection, remove toxins, target biofilms, and fight inflammation, we can control this debilitating condition, address potential complications, and restore health and vitality over time.
For more health and wellness information, visit www.dreliaz.org.
Isaac Eliaz, MD, MS, LAc, integrates Western medicine with his extensive knowledge of traditional Chinese, Tibetan, Ayurvedic, homeopathic, and complementary medical systems. With more than 25 years of clinical experience and research, Dr. Eliaz has a unique holistic approach to the relationship between health and disease, immune enhancement, detoxification, and cancer prevention and treatment.
this is the second timely article i have read recently, published by you!
my friends sister passes away and you ran the article about your own losses. i passed it on and the family did fnd comfort in it.
now Lyme disease, as it is a hot topic here in the Quaker town area. my little dog is being treated, after being so sick, i thought he was going to pass away. My friends teenage daughter has been sick for months on end with Lyme’s .
years & years ago, when i read Rodale magazines, i was always amazed at the timeliness
of the articles. thank you for carrying on the tradition of timely articles. KRS
Thanks Kathleen. That’s nice to hear. I wish your friend’s daughter and your dog speedy recoveries. I hope that our article can help!
Thank you for your article. My 17 month old has been diagnosed with Lyme disease and his father and I feel like our hands are tied. We can’t find any doctors who are knowledgable or want to do more than prescribe two weeks of amoxicillin.
It’s a scary situation when time matters!
Pretty good article, but the numbers quoted are way off. The CDC announced recently that the number of new cases of Lyme in the US is around 300,000 annually.
Chandra, to find an experienced and tick borne disease trained physician, go to ILADS physician referral page at http://ilads.org/ilads_media/physician-referral/. Alternatively, try contacting Lymedisease.org or search out a local Lyme support group – they can be very helpful.
While we are happy that Lyme disease is addressed here, we do want to make some additional points. Although Dr. Eliaz says that Lyme disease “strikes between 20,000 and 30,000 each year,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now admits that the number of Lyme cases is roughly 10 times higher— at least 300,000 cases per year.
One reason that many people who contract Lyme don’t get therapy is because the two-tier diagnostic test is neither sensitive nor specific enough. There are too many false negatives, especially early in the illness. In addition, despite timely diagnosis and treatment, there is still a 10-20% failure rate leading to the phenomenon of Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome.
It’s critically important that we find a better diagnostic test and support further research to elucidate cause(s) and find treatments other than more antibiotics–Harriet Kotsoris, MD, Chief Scientific Officer, Lyme Research Alliance.
49 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER HAS BIOTOXIN ILLNESS AND THE WORST GENE TYPE AND TWO POSSIBLE LYME CO INFECTIONS. SN=HE IS BEING TREATED WITH COLESTYRAMINE POWDER AND SUFFERS FROM SEVERE INFLAMMATION, HEADACHES, SHORTNESS OS BREATH AND MAY HAVE TWO LYME CO INFECTIONS. WE NEED A DR. IN SO. FLORIDA WHO CAN TREAT HER FOR EVERY DAY PROBLEMS WHO ALSO IS AN INTERGRATIVE INTERNIST. ANY SUGGESTIONS ARE WELCOME. SHEHAS BEEN SICK FOR 15 YEARS AS NO ONE COULD DIAGNOSE HER
Hello…… I am reading.this page and see nothing about getting the body rid of deadly toxins…so how do we do that…well I am no doctor…but I read a lot about staying healthy and eating right….lately I’ve been reading about…Baking Soda…and its properties…people that have used it write and comment about its great healing powers…sooo I decided to give it a try….really nt expensive….(Wal-Mart)…sells it for ..under a dollar for a small box that contains ..8 ozs. A small amount (1/4) teaspoon in 8 ozs of.clean water….(not tap water)..is recommended…I’ve been on it now for about a month…and I really feel a lot better. Doing research and talking to Medical people has also helped immensely .What this does is
to get the ACIDS out of your body and to help it become less ACIDIC….infections hate an ALKALINE body……. meaning that getting your cells ACID free and ALKALINE balanced will greatly increase the strength your body needs to fight these infections Hope this helps,..Good Luck and stay healthy