Step considered by some doc’s to be behind SD & other Rheum.

[cavalier]

I came across this link below today – the reason this is relevant is my Lyme doc – Dr C. who was at the recent ILADS conference got a liquid solution from a doc who says this SLO it is called is for Scleroderma patients to take this doc who made it – I cant remember his name Dr C. mentioned it – feels that Scleroderma patients have still a form of strep in them that is causing this to mutate into SD. I have had strep as a teenager a bad case of it of course I took antibiotics, I remember being tired on the ABX as i was working & in school so i know I didn’t take the ABX as long as i was supposed too, but just until it cleared.

I know that the Pencillin or Bicillin LA IM injections I am giving myself are bacteriostatic for Lyme along with the Zithromax & the Plaquenil I take. I was reading that these same shots are effective for syphillis of course I dont have that but I was also reading further that another doc feels that Rheumatic diseases one being Psorasis can be caused he feels by Strep virus that someone is still carrying & he is doing a study using only Bicillin shots to see if by using this he can cure their Psorasis. I dont have Psorasis or I would enter this study as it is here in Memphis ironically!
But this doc too feels that Strep is behind this disease & others possibly not a overactive immune unless the immune follows this after long term infection. [b]Anyways he is treating what he feels is strep by Bicillin the very injections that my doc has me on – can i possibly kill 2 birds- Lyme & SD with one stone Bicillin LA? And is strep behind SD as this 1st doc thinks ? Dr C. gave me a small sample of the SLO since taking it I have had what feels like strep throat returning – I wonder if this Derm. would consider taking a small biopsy on me? /b]
What’s of interest to me is here is now 2 doc’s who are convinced that the same bug – Strep is behind 2 different Rheumatic diseases.

Here is the link – http://www.inspire.com/groups/talk-psoriasis/discussion/ciprofloxacin-1/?page=2
Excerpt is below –
“Adults with psoriasis are needed for a Memphis study of long-acting
penicillin as a possible treatment for the chronic skin disease.

But results of a small study published last year by Rosenberg and UT
Health Science Center colleagues include evidence linking psoriasis to
strep, not a misguided immune systemSuccess would suggest group A streptococcus, the bug best known for
causing strep throat, is often fueling the disease.

“We’ve been working on this thread of strep involvement that runs in
and out of the lives of people with psoriasis very frequently,” said
Dr. William Rosenberg, the University of Tennessee Health Science
Center professor who is directing the study. “We think a substantial
percentage of psoriasis is strep-associated.”

But unlike many of his colleagues, Rosenberg believes the psoriasis
outbreaks aren’t caused by an overactive immune system, but due to an
earlier strep infection. He believes psoriasis is a sign someone still
carries the germ. Most physicians believe psoriasis occurs when a
person’s disease-fighting immune system attacks skin cells, mistaking
them for the strep bug..
*The Memphis researchers reported isolating evidence of a strep
infection in the thickened, raised patches of skin that characterize
the disease.* They found the same evidence in the membrane underlying
normal skin cells. The study involved healthy patients.

The study was sparked by those results, as well as reports from
individual psoriasis patients who apparently benefited from treatment
with long-acting penicillin.

“This form of penicillin has a pretty good track record of being able
to suppress or eradicate a strep-carrier state” in patients, he added.
Rosenberg was referring to the prescription drug marketed as Bicillin
L-A (L-A stands for for long-acting). Given as an injection, the shot
costs about $65. He said that makes it much cheaper than the latest
psoriasis drugs. They work by damping the patient’s disease-fighting
immune system.

Volunteers will be assigned to receive either the medicine or an
injection of saline.
A nurse practitioner will assess treatment results.
The study is being funded by the UT dermatology department.

* Certainly BOTH SD & Psorasis have one thing in common is fibrous, as noted in the appearance of raised thickened skin perhaps there is some commonality & the good doc’s are on to something? This is where AP would have to be employed to be successful. Bicillin is bacteriostatic maybe I can kill 2 birds with one stone i have only started these injections today is only my 2nd one.
Jill SD, Lyme & Cpn

[cavalier]

Correction the Title should be STREP not STEP! And also to clarify – I need to correct the Zithromax is in addition to my injections, but it’s confusing how i wrote that – as Zith nor Plaquenil are bacteriostatic, only the Bicillin LA is! Sorry!

I wonder how many others have had Strep that they know of & have either Psorasis or SD?

Jill Lyme SD & CPn

[June3443]

I had strep throat several different times when I was a teenager. My tonsils were finally removed when I was 16. I was n the hospital about 3 different times and given shots in the hip around the clock. I was very sick for about 3 years.

[richie]

Hi–Not so sure I buy in –Everyone is their lifetime has had strep –one can also say SD comes from a latent cold –everyone has had a cold —
richie

[Anonymous]

Yeah, you have to have the Scleroderma gene in the first place. The strep turns on the gene is what I understood from Dr. S. I believe it’s a theory that he tends to believe as do I.

[cavalier]

I believe there are triggers & suspectiblity – I have the gene that could cause the SD disease as I had the suspectability.
Indeed Strep is a infection & as I just posted in another header – that some of the Rheumies at Pitts. now finally acknowledge infection as being a causation factor then certainly strep is a trigger. I think Dr S. is right as is some of the doc’s I posted about in finding this in the skin still active. He must have seen a high # of affected patients who had had strep exposure is my guess I am guessing this as the FB forum for SD i am on the #’s are very high who did indeed have strep now as Richie argued assocation does not prove cause, but the biospies of the skin this Derm. who is no longer at UT I called to find out does mean something as he said they are still carriers of strep & it is active in the skin.
This does not mean exclusion of other triggers but certainly a infection still ongoing somehow in the immune system can trip to disease – you must have the mutation suspectiblity genetically, which I have a feeling those who have SD do – that became activated by a trigger. We all carry Mutations and probably some families have more of the ones that if activated, would become SD over time.

Along with Lyme & other infections if they are considered, then why not strep?

Jill SD, Lyme & CPn

[richie]

Hi–Agreed -why not –I am beginning to feel rather strongly that SD has many many causes not a single trigger

---

I was exposed to burning gas jet fuel benzene and many other waste solvents that were dumped into a pit and put ablaze –being an Air force fireman -the job was to go through the fire for a simulated rescue –without benefit of oxygen masks this was in the early 1960’s –Sd showed up in 1999 –my best guess was gene or cell damage that made me susceptible to SD —
richie

[cavalier]

Richie I am beginning to feel the same – there is likely more than one trigger. Finding what ours is in case there is a ongoing infection still matters and also treating the SD. Most diseases are somewhat complex as to exposures & time etc. seldom is it a one size fits all but there will be commonalities for the triggers we may share. i wonder if the service has ever tracked exposures like this for health risks in it’s servicemen.

Jill SD Lyme & CPn

[cavalier]

Or both in your case Richie, benzene is some potent stuff – my Lord.

Jill

[mlouise]

I have found your discussion interesting. I have never had Strp, nor a cold, or a cough, nor any chemical exposure (that I know of). I have always never EXTREMELY healthy, trim and fit. when all my family was ill with stomach or lung infections, I was caring for them and never missed a day! I could lift two bushel crates of apples on and off trucks like it was nothing. There was no explainable reason for me to get this disease. Expect that after onste when I finally had a lyme test, it came back positive. I am thinking that that was when I was exposed or suspectable to the infection. Who knows when I had Lyme, I never had any signs or smyptoms of it. It does seem odd that all the rest of my family does the same things that I do and were exposed to the same things that I was exposed to and yet, they are healthy and I am sick. Odd. M Louise

[cavalier]

Lyme is def. a infection to me – it assualts the immune in such a way that our immune is impaired & we can no longer resist other diseases as well. I have Lyme which I got my tick bite in 05 2 of them which one caused the rash & I was really sick afterwards but my doc never believed lyme was here in Tn & told me to not worry about it nor to take any ABX. I got raynauds that same summer which came 1st i dunno the timing was so close to one another.

i was healthy til this all happened but it sure does wreck havoc. Why for me i feel i should address both in order to try to get better as this has been going on for 7 yr’s now.

I am sorry that you got lyme it’s no fun for sure.
Dr S. did reply & told me he did test me for strep when I came to him – it was negative i am not sure why since i stared the bicillin injections for the lyme my throat has been sore unless I am either getting die off bugs or fighting something, which is possible.

Merry Christmas
Jill Lyme, SD & CPn

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