Important questions about AP–I NEED ANSWERS!!!

[dixiegirl]

I’m seriously considering the use of antibiotics to treat my RA. I’m half-way through Scammell’s book, but I have some questions burning on my mind about antibiotics and mycoplasma.

Q1: Here’s the most important: How can APs be a cure if you will have to take them for the rest of your life? You have to take methotrexate for the rest of your life. “Arthritis Breakthrough” says that tetracycline can work like a DMARD. How do you know it is killing the mycoplasma and not just making you feel better?

Q2: Also very important to me… If you have mycoplasma in your body, will it follow (100% of the time) that you will have arthritis (or a disease like that)? If not, why do only some people have problems with mycoplasma?

Q3: A ND that I went to said my blood showed many signs of toxicity. “Arthritis Breakthrough” says that bacterial toxins pouring in the bloodstream from the body’s war on mycoplasma is what causes the pain of RA. Could these be the same “toxins” or are we purely speculating here? (in other words… what does he mean by “toxin”?)

Q4: Scammell seems adamant that there are no toxic side effects of APs. Are there any other side effects yall have noticed?

Thanks so much for helping me out in my search for a treatment for my RA.

[Maz]

@dixiegirl wrote:

I’m seriously considering the use of antibiotics to treat my RA. I’m half-way through Scammell’s book, but I have some questions burning on my mind about antibiotics and mycoplasma.

Q1: Here’s the most important: How can APs be a cure if you will have to take them for the rest of your life? You have to take methotrexate for the rest of your life. “Arthritis Breakthrough” says that tetracycline can work like a DMARD. How do you know it is killing the mycoplasma and not just making you feel better?

Q2: Also very important to me… If you have mycoplasma in your body, will it follow (100% of the time) that you will have arthritis (or a disease like that)? If not, why do only some people have problems with mycoplasma?

Q3: A ND that I went to said my blood showed many signs of toxicity. “Arthritis Breakthrough” says that bacterial toxins pouring in the bloodstream from the body’s war on mycoplasma is what causes the pain of RA. Could these be the same “toxins” or are we purely speculating here? (in other words… what does he mean by “toxin”?)

Q4: Scammell seems adamant that there are no toxic side effects of APs. Are there any other side effects yall have noticed?

Thanks so much for helping me out in my search for a treatment for my RA.

Hi DixieGirl,

I’ll take a shot at your Qs.

Q#1: AP shouldn’t be classified as a “cure,” because there currently is no cure for RA…but patients can hope for remission and Brown’s success rate with AP was pretty phenomenal, even as compared to conventionally-used DMARDs and biologics used today . Brown’s goal was to eventually get people off their abx altogether and this was usually after a good, sustained period of remission in all labs and symptoms. However, often this will depend on disease severity and duration. People with severe, longstanding disease probably won’t want to risk the return of symptoms, so once remission is acheived, maintenance therapy is perferably continued for life. The difference between taking methotrexate for life as opposed to low dose tetracycline therapy is clear…usually, mtx doses will be increased over time, increasing toxicity in the body, damaging immune function and all the other associated risks of immune-suppression. The manner is which Brown used tetras in low pulsed doses means that there would not be enough DMARD coverage, so that if it was only the disease modifying or anti-inflam props of the tetras that were working, then how can this account for people getting well again on just, say, 100mg MWF when the standard recommended dose is 100mg twice daily? Mycoplasma are very slow-growing, slow replicating bacterial forms and don’t require daily dosing. There’s quite a bit of difference between 300mg mino instead of 1400mg mino per week. At this low dose, the DMARD argument just doesn’t make sense.

Q#2: Probably every human being on the planet is carrying some strain of mycoplasma in their body. These organisms reside everywhere in nature…in the air we breathe, on the food we eat, in the soil we stand on, etc. The difference between a person who is healthy and a person with a rheumatic disease, however, is that rheumatics have developed a “bacterial allergy” to the toxins emitted by mycoplasma (or other organisms). This is kind of like how some people might be allergic to grass cuttings or cat dandruff whereas others aren’t. Why do some people develop this allergy and others don’t? This is a pretty puzzling question and Harold Clark, Brown’s right hand man and researcher wrote a book centered on this question, “Why Arthritis?” you might like to also read. They “whys” are probably a combination of factors all placing stress on one’s immune function – stress, shock, environmental toxins/pollutants, diet, genes, leaky gut, etc.

Q#3: Might be a good idea to ask your ND for their definition of “toxin,” as this could be a variety of things from heavy metal toxicity (needing chelation), to toxicity caused by leaky gut and food intolerances (needing to undertake careful dietary restrictions), to bacterial/viral/fungal toxins (needing specific treatments to lower pathogen or fungal load), to pesticides or other chemical toxins (needing specific cleansing), etc. Bacterial “toxins” are chemicals, called antigens, that are intermittantly emitted from the bacteria, which the body picks up as being foreign and to which antibodies are produced. When these bacterial antigens are left like chemtrails in sensitive rheumatic tissues, the immune system goes after them, causing an inflammatory cascade that results in tissue damage. The following video is specifically describing how this occurs with Lyme disease, but the same process applies to any organism emitting toxins to which the body tries to respond and eliminate.

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

Q.#4: Tetracyclines are fairly benign and have been used longterm in the treatment of acne for decades now with little risk of toxicity to the patient. In the doses Brown used, this reduces the risk further, as the doses prescribed for acne are usually more than 4x that given to a hypersensitive RA patient (100mg MWF instead of 100mg BID). That said, there are rare instances where people might have a tetra allergy or develop minocycline-induced lupus (which is reversible upon discontinuation of the mino and the person is able to substitute doxycycline or tetracycline in its place with no problem) or autoimmune hepatitis…all of these are pretty rare. Dr. Alan Cantwell, a dermatologist, talks about the benign nature of tetras in the following article on the main site:

Tetracycline for RA: Is It Safe?

http://roadback.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/education.display/display_id/116.html

I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to a few AP old-timers who have been on their minocycline for upwards of 20 or 30 years now with no problems, a couple of whom have cameos in the book – Pat Ganger and Diane Aronson, as well as Ethel Snooks (of http://www.rheumatic.org). Adrienne Purcell is another lady I was able to speak with who was a patient at Dr. Brown’s clinic and still uses AP today (scroll down to bottom of following link):

https://www.roadback.org/EmailBlasts/ebulletin_winter09.html

Road Back also conducted a Harris Poll of AP users you might like to read here:

https://www.roadback.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/studies.display/display_id/416.html

Hope the above helps with your questions, DixieGirl? 🙂

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