What happened to mycoplasma

[richie]

Hi-For years I have always disputed the mycoplasma cause of these rheumatic diseases due to many factors- rather leaning heavily toward environmental causes –Apparently the mycoplasma theories are being discarded in favor of a lyme factor –personally this makes more sense to me than the mycoplasma theories –so can we safely assume the mycoplasma theory is dead ????? 😛
richie

[Maz]

Hi Richie,

Nah, not really, because various kinds of mycoplasma are passed by ticks, too. Myco fermentens (aka m. incognitus) is a pretty bad one and has been tied to RA, amongst others, like myco pneumoniae.

This link sort of explains more:

http://www.envita.com/sections/disease/lyme/default.aspx

Mycos are found everywhere in nature, so not too surprising they are passed by ticks, too…it's just that some are more virulant than others it seems.

Brown mentions Lyme in his book, The Road Back, and gave it a full chapter, but so much more is known today than when Brown wrote about it in the mid-80s, very shortly after this spirochetal infection was identified as being passed by ticks in the early 80s.

Peace, Maz 

[Lynne G.SD]

Hi Richie;
     One can have Lyme 2-3 decades before it ever show it's face.Since it knocks the stuffing out of one's immune system one is much more susceptible to get a micoplasma infection or any other kind
  I only found out I had it when my doctor told me it was time to stop AP and that after all these years of remission,I should not have anymore problem with SD.Since the SD wanted to come back she said that we had to find the cause and as fate would have it,it's Lyme.My doctor has a very high rate of CURES for AI diseases as she attacks the reasons for them and not the disease itself.

[mschmidt]

Mycoplasma has been around for a long time, and everybody has it in them in some form or another.  One can certainly be exposed by an environmental toxin to trigger these diseases but, Lyme pretty much shuts down the immune system, and makes all sorts of infections possible.  

I do have to say though, being as ingrained as I have been in the Lyme community the last year, it BLOWS my mind how many RA, SD, MS, CFS, Fibromyalgia, and ALS are really Lyme disease, and patients don't recover until the underlying infections are treated.  At first, I thought chronic Lyme was a bit of a stretch (even a conspiracy theory of sorts) but, as I've found out , it is very much endemic and pervasive.  Dr. Brown did talk about it, and I honestly believe that after talking with and being treated by Doctors I consider to be top AP and LLMD's, their treatment protocols are alarmingly similar. (some are just more aggressive than others, and some want to say it's just “SD” or “Lyme mimicking SD.” My answer to that is WHO CARES…just treat all my infections:D)  It isn't a coincidence that many who suffered from Gulf War Illness had a minimum of 18 months (most had to go 36 months) of rotating antibiotics to recover. (GWI is linked to mycoplasma infection…go figure) 

Lots of brain fog today so, sorry if I sound all over the place:shock:

Maria

[maz.aust]

This is interesting, however it brings me to yet another question, if the theory of lyme being the underlying culprit & not mycoplasma or whatever then how is it that we (in Oz) for instance don't have lyme (as you know it) over here that we too have many people with RA, SD, MS, CFS, Fibromyalgia etc ? 

Dec07: Diagnosed PRA, (CTD; Fibromyalgia; suspected Lyme):
Mar08: Diet to heal gut/bolster immune system (no gluten, dairy, sulphites or sugar)

Jan 2018: ABX Mon/Wed/Fri (started AP 2008)
1/2 x 150mg Roxithromycin(Biasig), 1/2 x 150mg Clarithromycin (Klacid),
1/2 x Fungillin, 1 x 250mg Cephalexin (Keflex)

All off days Probiotics

[jane]

well i am really discouraged becuz if this is all cuz of lyme i don't have a hope in the world of ever getting tested for it with my doc or even in this part of canada so then i guess i should just quit my antibiotic therapy and give up cuz if i have lyme i will never be able to find out …i am already strecthed financially to the max just to travel for ap therapy …i am officially discouraged then   jane

[Maz]

[user=1474]jane[/user] wrote:

well i am really discouraged becuz if this is all cuz of lyme i don't have a hope in the world of ever getting tested for it with my doc or even in this part of canada so then i guess i should just quit my antibiotic therapy and give up cuz if i have lyme i will never be able to find out …i am already strecthed financially to the max just to travel for ap therapy …i am officially discouraged then   jane

Please don't be discouraged, Jane, because I don't think anyone is saying Lyme is the sole cause of all rheumatic diseases, just that Lyme is quite prevalent and can mimic or trigger rheumatic and other types of diseases. Lots of other infections have been implicated in rheumatic diseases, too. This link refers to many of these infections: 

http://www.drmirkin.com/joints/J159.htm

How are you doing on your AP, Jane?

Peace, Maz

[maz.aust]

Did it again, duplicated post, can one of the mod's delete this one please & let me know how this happens.

Maz – Aust 

Dec07: Diagnosed PRA, (CTD; Fibromyalgia; suspected Lyme):
Mar08: Diet to heal gut/bolster immune system (no gluten, dairy, sulphites or sugar)

Jan 2018: ABX Mon/Wed/Fri (started AP 2008)
1/2 x 150mg Roxithromycin(Biasig), 1/2 x 150mg Clarithromycin (Klacid),
1/2 x Fungillin, 1 x 250mg Cephalexin (Keflex)

All off days Probiotics

[maz.aust]

Jane, please don't be discouraged .. this is only us patients bantering about yet another theory !  I for one believe in AP therapy to treat these diseases, my thoughts are, as a patient I really don't care how I got the disease it's what I am going to do about it that's important, I am not researching the cause.  For my money the latest theory elluding that these diseases have so many similarities to Lyme that we can't ignore them can't be right because as an example Oz has never had one reported/confirmed case of Lyme, yet there are people who suffer from these very same diseases & I am sure there are populations of other countries in the same boat. 

[align=justify]There are some major differences between Australia and the endemic areas of the northern hemisphere with respect to the natural history of LD: [/align]
[align=justify]No ticks of the I. persulcatus complex, the principal vectors to humans in the northern hemisphere, occur in Australia. In eastern Australia, the logical candidate vector would be I. holocyclus which has a wide host range and is the most common tick biting humans. It was unable to transmit a North American strain of B.burgdorferi.  (However an undiscovered Australian spirochaete can not be excluded.)   None of the mammal species identified as reservoir hosts in the northern hemisphere are present in Australia. There are reports of spirochaetes in Australian native animals, and a local mammal could be a reservoir host for an indigenous spirochaete that occasionally infects humans through a tick vector and produces a clinical syndrome similar to LD; however, no spirochaete was detected in the 12,000 ticks or animals processed.   The existence of LD in Australia will remain controversial until an organism is isolated from a local patient and fully characterised, or until a tick-borne organism can be shown to be responsible for the human infection. [/align]I am just like everyone else trying to kill the bacteria that created this disease & if that means using AP that's what I will continue to do .. the alternative in my view is far worse.

Dec07: Diagnosed PRA, (CTD; Fibromyalgia; suspected Lyme):
Mar08: Diet to heal gut/bolster immune system (no gluten, dairy, sulphites or sugar)

Jan 2018: ABX Mon/Wed/Fri (started AP 2008)
1/2 x 150mg Roxithromycin(Biasig), 1/2 x 150mg Clarithromycin (Klacid),
1/2 x Fungillin, 1 x 250mg Cephalexin (Keflex)

All off days Probiotics

[lynnie_sydney]

It is all very confusing. And yes, that is the official line at present for Australia. However, this is a quote from an Aussie Lyme site:

My meeting with professor roberts from newcastle uni went well, he has beleived
for years that rickettsia/ chlymidiae borrelia is the root of chronic fatigue/
me and other diseases.he looked at my bloods and said that i also have anaplasma phagocytophila + common rickettsia he said this should only be in states but then concluded it is obviously here so he is setting some new tests up now also he is going to start pcr tests for borrelia in newcastle uni so he needs
ticks now!

This may well be the same researcher that Dr D (in Victoria) is in touch with – I know she is in contact with a researcher from Newcastle University. And Rickettsia is something that has come up several times in my consults with her – she has said it is here but a much less virulent strain than is found in Africa, for instance. Lynnie 

Be well! Lynnie

Palindromic RA 30 yrs (Chronic Lyme?)
Mino 2003-2008 100mg MWF - can no longer tolerate any tetracyclines
rotating abx protocol now. From Sep 2018 MWF - a.m. Augmentin Duo 440mg + 150mg Biaxsig (roxithromycin). p.m. Cefaclor (375mg) + Klacid 125mg + LDN 3mg + Annual Clindy IV's
Diet: no gluten, dairy, sulphites, low salicylates
Supps: 600mg N-AC BID, 1000mg Vit C, P5P 40mg, zinc picolinate 60mg, Lithium orotate 20mg, Magnesium Oil, Bio-identical hormones (DHEA + Prog + Estrog)

[Margaret Mueller]

I'm not as experienced as the rest of you, but I came to the conclusion about ten days ago that the 'lyme' umbrella is really the SD, fibromylgia, babesia, alzheimer's, ALS, RA, etc, etc, etc. umbrella. It seems to me that what needs to happen is that new medical discipline of tick-borne infections needs to evolve, along with specialized clinics for treating patients.

If the patients of the subsets of the diseases caused by tick-borne infections banded together, it would make for a much larger group of patients with more clout to get recognition, and proper treatment.  I don't know if the patients are ready for this, but there is strength in numbers.

A movie, a video, a book, major talk shows to raise awareness…this is where this needs to go.  There is work to be done.

[Parisa]

Margaret,

The really sad thing is this should all be under the infectious disease umbrella but the ID doctors have abandoned us.

[jims]

Parisa and everyone, I just had a CD 57 HNK test done. My score was 80. My GP says that falls within the normal range. She never heard of the test before I gave her papers and told her. My readings find that score in the chronic category. I have found an Infectious disease doc in the Atlanta area who is supposed to be in the open minded camp on lyme. I have an appointment for May 7th. I have not had the Igenex western blot as of yet. Monday I am going to call and ask if I should be off the Mino until the test. This doctor was referred  by a lyme group. I really hope she is well read and believes in long term treatment. One thing I am not sure if she will treat before the WB is done. The more I read on lyme i find what a widespread disaster it is, everyone in our country needs to be Igenex western blot tested and long term treated. You folks that live in the Northeast U.S. have an advantage to getting treated, for some reason there are many more LLMD's up there? Anybody care to venture why? Thanks for any advice, jims:)

[Margaret Mueller]

Jim,

If you have the interest, get the new book, Cure Unknown by Pamela Weintraub.  It explains the history of identifying lyme in America, the evolution of treatment and the politics of treatment which continue to, literally, today.  (See Friday's post on FDA upholding their lyme protocol of four weeks of abx)

The short of it is, that the wooded areas of the NE are so heavily impacted with ticks in the leaves and yards and Bambi that there are towns and neighborhoods with clusters of sick.  Because entire families and/or their children were impacted, a few doctors figured out the cause, the treatment and the protocol for treating lyme.  One of the docs published a paper that said lyme was limited to a specific geographic area.  (That created a lot of problems, because, for example, my pediatrician told me there was no lyme in CA ten years ago.  Nonsense, in my opinion, if there are bugs that exchange blood with us, there is a likelihood of disease transmission.)  The National Institute of Health, CDC and FDA are incapable of adapting to the changing reality of lyme disease treatment, so they are stubbornly adhering to their positions on identification and treatment that do not reflect the reality and experience of lyme docs and their lyme treatment patients.  This works against anyone with lyme because only the newly exposed can get well in that short a treatment period, if they are lucky.  But considering that only 50% know they were bit by a tick (and we generally don't suspect other insects), and lyme can be dormant in your system for 20 to 30 years, early detection and treatment is hardly common.

So that is why there are more docs in the NE than anywhere else.  It's not that they're not needed other places, many docs are just not aware there are problems in their areas or they're in denial because NIH or CDC says they  don't have a problem.  That doesn't exactly encourage the medical community to decide to go into lyme treatment, so while this is patient population that seems to be larger than people might expect, it's also under-served by trained physicians.

And that is the short version. 

[linda]

Maz.aus, I also wonder about all the people that have lived thru out history and have had RA or some other AI disease. We know from records that many cultures did have people that suffered from them, before we began to pollute out atmosphere, process our food, and without the ticks needed to pass on the bacteria. It 6 of one and half a dozen for me, it doesn't matter how we get the infections, we have to treat the ones we know we have.

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