Tintap, I have sent you a private message with Souvanik's email address to make a contact with him. He is expecting to hear from you and is pleased to answer your questions about his AP doctors in Calcutta.

Peace, Maz

Namaste, Tintap:

When I lived in India, I was able to buy any antibiotic I wanted over the counter.  Why do You need a doctor?

Your foods there are quite severely arthritogenic.

I had to fast to take down flares.  In Old Delhi, I went to see Sayed Hamid the founder of Hamdard Company and he gave me a prescription for some of his herbal pressings.  Could not determine whether they worked because I had OTHER problems and had to begin rounds of antibiotics for that…AHEM!!…problem.

Check out the Mercola site and begin eating his way, if possible–but this is just one portion of the issue because in the very first place You “should” be too young for RA, so if You have had any cystitis caused by Proteus mirabilis then RA is more possible but You might consider either a reactive arthritis or even AS (HLA B27 screening).

In any event there are some papers at KickAS about other possible causes of RA related to occult UTI and the potential for antibiotic plus some dietary treatment.

When I was in Bangalore, I ate at MTR–alleged birthplace of the masala dosa–and this of course is the WRONG FOOD for me (good thing I did not know it at that time…), but it was sooooo gooooood!  Great city You have there!

Blessings of HEALTH for You,
John

[user=2406]Tintap[/user] wrote:

Maz -I thought long and hard about your post. I probably don't have Lyme ( though it doesn't hurt to test and make sure).
The reason is both the onset of my disease and the flare I am on currently were triggered by childbirth. Symptoms showed up 6 weeks after the birth. This probably leads me to conclude that there might be a hormonal connection to my RA.
 I was chatting with Souvanik yesterday – he told me that he had seen a paper linking RA to hormonal changes ( specially estrogen)

Hi Tintap,

If this helps, Lyme can remain latent for decades. A person can get bitten (without their knowledge), have a mild summer flu, then feel relatively okay for a very long time. Then, an accident may occur, or an illness, a pregnancy, a surgery….and all hell breaks loose.

During pregnancy, the hormone levels are driven up to very high levels. Hormones are steroidal in nature and provide much immune suppression to prevent rejection of the fetus. In effect, it's like taking prednisone for 9 months. During this time, any underlying infection has free reign from the usual immune surveillance that keeps infections in check. After the baby is born, these hormones plummet…and with that plummet comes the loss of immune suppression. It's little wonder that chronic, latent infections that were reasonably controlled in the past, come out to play and have a field day.

It never hurts to rule in/out the possibility of Lyme, particularly if a person has visited or lived in a Lyme endemic region of the world. I live in CT and have probably had Lyme since 1997 when I had my first known tick bite. Since that time, I had a round of strange, disconnected symptoms…muscle twitches, hormonal migraines, palpitations, pin-pricking sensations, restless legs, etc. They were never all at once and I thought I was just going through premature peri-menopause in my early 40s. Then, I went to see a holistic doctor, who put me on bio-identical hormone therapy (progesterone, estradiol and testosterone). He overdosed me with estradiol and my estrogen levels (tested at my insistance after 5 months as I was putting on weight), were 4 times what they should have been! My thyroid was also knocked out of whack by the hormone therapy and I started developing thyroid nodules. I stopped the hormone therapy cold turkey. Three months later, my 2 lyme rashes appeared (I believe they were late disseminated rashes) and that is when the palindromic arthralgias and myalgias began. Within 2 months, I had all-out RA in every joint. I tested equivocal on standard tests for Lyme, but positive on IGeneX labs, started treatment for Lyme and never looked back.

The main issue for you, Tintap, is that there are no Lyme docs in India. However, you probably do have access to abx much more easily than we do in the west. Treatment for Lyme disease is not something I'd want to navigate alone, however, because the combinations and doses used are quite different from low dose monotherapy as per Brown. Thing is, if you do find you have Lyme, you may be able to get the help of an infectious diseases doctor to treat you for possible coinfections of Lyme, even if you just stuck with the basics – mino and IV clindy. Of course, this is all speculation at this point and the first step would be to get tested and then figure out details later, if needed. 😉

Just thought it important to let you know that one of the major problems in Lyme diagnosis is the fact that it can remain latent for decades and some folk never make the connection to Lyme when they become so unwell years later…with RA, dermatomyositis, polymyositis, scleroderma, lupus, multiple sclerosis, parkinson's, alzheimer's….you name it, because, like syphilis, it mimics and triggers everything under the sun, as this organism drills everywhere in the body, sets up house and wreaks havoc with immune function.

Tintap, hope you manage to work out the IVs and it will help jumpstart things for you. You may like to chat with Spacehoppa (Ruth) who just started AP after the birth of her baby boy last year. She was diagnosed with JRA after living in Georgia, in the US, as a teenager, and then moved back to UK. She only just found out it was Lyme, all along, after 20 odd years and is now having remarkable results with appropriate antibiotic therapy. I'm sure she would share a bit about her hormonal connection to her JRA with you and how she helped to manage that.

Peace, Maz

PS It's also probably no wonder in a setting like this why women going through the change of life are predisposed to rheumatic diseases, as they gradually lose that hormonal immune suppression when their hormone levels decline with age.