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Monday, June 10, 2013

More on Lyme

I'm going to apologize in advance to my readers.  My blog has been the subject of numerous spam messages over the past few months.  Up until now, I have chosen to simply ignore them and delete them individually when I get them, but it is starting to be a real pain in the you know what.  I usually get several spam comments a day, so I have decided to add a word verification feature to require matching a word pattern manually in order to post a comment.  This will prevent the automated spam generators from infiltrating my blog site with anonymous comments.  I'm sorry for the additional inconvenience this will cause for you to post a comment, but I really want to stop the spammers from taking advantage of me.   I hope this won't discourage anyone from responding to any of my posts.

My last post on ticks and Lyme Disease triggered more than the usual amount of feedback.  Several comments were from those who went through some of the same symptoms, pains, hurdles, delays, and denials from the medical establishment that I did before they were able to get any meaningful treatment.  I think it is a disgrace and a tragedy that the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) has cowed practitioners into denial on this.  As I see it, a doctor who refuses to take the simple step to either prevent or cure a patient with a tick bite of Lyme Disease by prescribing a simple regimen of antibiotics is in violation of his Hippocratic oath, part of which reads:  "I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure."!  Hippocrates must be turning in his grave.  Come on now!

I also got some input from a couple of people with MM who had previously suffered Lyme Disease and felt that there might be a connection.  Regular readers of my blog will know that I have spent a fair amount of effort trying to find a link between Lyme and MM.  Based on CDC incidence reports of Lyme Disease and MM by region and state over the past decade or so, I tried to build a case that exposure to Lyme increased the chances of contracting MM.  I couldn't find any definitive correlation in the data that I examined, much less a causal effect.  Here is a link to my last post on this subject:  Go West Young Man.  However, I still have my suspicions based on my circumstantial evidence that an unusually high number of the MM patients I have met also had Lyme Disease at some point.  I don't think this case is closed, and I may return to this subject again some time in the future.


4 comments:

  1. Only member of our "family" that has had Lyme Disease is Mack, our "Westie" terrier. He did test positive for it first, but we were advised to wait to see if he developed symptoms before treating it. (I think the idea was that he may have recovered from it on his own, w/o treatment.) Once the symptoms appeared, the vet immediately prescribed a course of antibiotics for him and he recovered. However, now whenever they do a blood test, it continues to show the antibodies from having had Lyme. So, we continue to be watchful.

    Moral of this story: Did you get the "sick dog" treatment too? Or, do vets have more discretionary ability to treat Lyme once they've confirmed it?

    Another thought: Do they have a topical skin medicine for humans to ward off fleas and ticks like they do for dogs? Apply monthly? : )

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  3. Wow, someone in my mgus support group just directed me to your blog. Sorry to hear all that you have been through, glad you are beating this awful disease back. Are you IGA? I have a feeling that everyone who is IGA has a lyme connection with mgus/myeloma. I was infected with lyme disease in aug 2011, my son got it too but he got bullseye, I took the tick off of him with my fingerneail not knowing at the time it was a tick, just thought he had a blood blister or something--knew nothing about lyme. We had gone berry picking in long island 2 weeks in a row at same spot. When he got the bullseye in the exact spot of that thing on his leg, and flu like symtoms, I realized oh no he must have lyme diesease, he was 6 then. He took amox for 21 days and seemed ok. I didn't have a bullseye rash, but I did have at the time what I thought was poison ivy from sticking my hand in all the berry bushes and pickign for hours..i also noticed little bugs crawling on me they were tiny but didn't think anything of it..my ignorant doc when i told him story of my son, and said I should probably get tested did so, but then called me to say the test was neg, it wasn't until couple months later when I got acutely illl that i asked for copy of blot and saw I had a bunch bands just not the total 5 that cdc recognized..by that point, I knew it had passed into my tissues..took doxy for several weeks and then had bad reaction to the doxy and then went alternative route with ondamed treatements which got rid of a lot of symtoms, was tested for all co infections (tested positive for rocky mountain so did my son too) he had to take few days of doxy but he was so young, for exposure but no symptoms--the doxy I had already taken they figured was ok--the lyme doc I saw with my son, tested my immune sytem saw problem with subclass igg and had me tested at immuno that's how they found the protein and then got to oncologist. I have wondered whether the assault on my immune triggered the IGA MGUS that I have (my start was .5 spike high 700's then .85 high 800's and then back down to high 700's .5 no light chains showing after curcmin) or whether I had the iga mgus first and the lyme made it express itself when attacked. I noticed when I first got the mgus diagnosis in summer 2012 when I searched for mgus and lyme found a bunch of people coming up with this on the forums...and it reinforced the theory...what I wold like to know is if anyone who had lyme falls into the exclusive category of IGA---one of the oncolog i saw said, they know amongst themeselve that lyme can trigger mgus but since lyme is so politicized and polarized they all keep their mouths shut while people suffer. I'm lucky the lyme doc tested these things otherwise I would never know and be followed as closely as I am. Thank you for this blog, and anything more you can find out about the IGA connection. I hope you continue to do well, prayers for you.

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    1. Thank you for your thoughtful and well-written comment. I'm sorry you and your son had to suffer needlessly because of the Lyme-ignorant medical community. I would like to refer to your comment in another post of mine dealing with this question as to whether Lyme Disease and MM or MGUS have any connection.

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