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This scares me!!! What should I do if my mycoplasma test will be positive.
Maz, Richie, John M….. please explain this to me. Thanks!!! JB
http://www.mycoplasmasupport.org/Web_pages/Mycoplasma_Overview/transmission.htm
Although the researchers have not clearly established how mycoplasmas are transmitted, they have made some inferences from the data they have collected.
[align=justify]The mycoplasma organism has been found in the blood and body fluids, spinal fluid, bone marrow, urine, and in the lungs, nose and mouth. The mycoplasma is reported to be able to survive for two hours outside the body (Baseman & Tully, 1997) .[/align]
[align=justify]Some sort of chemical exposure or immune distress (i.e., auto accident, surgery, cancer) appears to pre-date the onset of illness. Of those with CFS, FMS, GWS, and RA, numerous friends and spouses have the illness, as well as close relatives (Nicolson, Nicolson & Nasralla, 1998; Nicolson, et al., 2000).[/align]
[align=justify]When examining those with GWS, it was noted that immediate family members also had similar symptoms (Nicolson, et al., 2000). Several babies have also been known to be born with a similar illness (Nicolson & Nicolson, 1997; Nicolson, Nicolson & Nasralla, 1998). In a more recent study of immediate family members of those with GWS, when the blood was examined, it was found that most family members of GWS patients that were symptomatic with signs and symptoms of CFS also had mycoplasmal infections. Of those diagnosed with GWS, 82% were infected with mycoplasma as was 77.5% of family members with symptoms of CFS. In both groups, the predominate mycoplasma species found was M. fermentans. (Nicolson, et al., 2003). Speculation as to how those with GWS contracted the mycoplasma infection has led to questioning immunization practices of military personnel and/or possible biological exposure during deployment (Nicolson, et al., 2000). Inferences made from studies of immediate family members of those GWS veterans who have mycoplasma infections, suggest that casual transmission is possible. [/align]
[align=justify]Therefore, it would appear that mycoplasma is transmitted after deployment in the military, through casual contact with one who is infected with mycoplasma, and both casual and intimate contact and from mother to fetus. This means that the organism may possibly be contracted from vaccines contaminated with mycoplasma or from contamination from biological weopons. It can be passed from person to person through sputum (coughing droplets that contain the organism), saliva, sexual secretions, blood, and urine.[/align]Hi Jenn,
Of course you can. My three daughters have FMS and one of my daughters has RA along with it. The youngest was probably infected with it prior to birth as I was very ill back then. My Allergist told me that in people that are very ill, they have a 75% chance of passing it on to their off-spring. I did not notice anything abnormal in her while I was nursing her but as soon as I quit, she was sick with one infection after another. At 5 she was diagnosed with JRA. We went to Mexico for treatment and she went into remission until her mono exposure as a junior in high school. Its been an on-going battle for her since.
Diane
[user=266]JBJBJB[/user] wrote:
This scares me!!! What should I do if my mycoplasma test will be positive.
Hi JB,
If this is any comfort, in studies that Richie mentioned a while back on the old BB, half the healthy study subjects tested positive for various strains of mycoplasma…which by inference probably means that half the world probably harbors some form of mycoplasma, too. We live in a veritable pea soup of pathogens from the moment we pass out of the protective womb and down the birth canal.
Not everyone on AP bothers to test for mycoplasma for this very reason. Dr S does testing, but I believe it is often done as a means to help get insurance coverage for IVs when there is a documented infection.
There is much information out there about “bio-terrorism” and the use of genetically engineered pathogens. Plum Island comes to mind in the context of Lyme Disease, for instance. But, rest assured, you're on the best course of treatment if you have positive mycoplasma tests or not.
Also, just because we are sick, doesn't mean our children will necessarily be affected by any pathogens we may have passed to them. Everybody's immunity is unique. It's such a complex picture of the individual pathogen load one accumulates in a lifetime, genetic predispositions (that may or may not have passed), environmental insults and toxic load, diet, etc, etc, etc…that the overall picture points to more than just mycoplasma being at the root of our conditions. Stress is a biggy and does a huge number on our bio-chemical circuits….and we sure don't need this on top of everything else. 😯
All that said, I really do understand your initial reaction to Dr N's work, because I was shocked silly when I learned about Plum Island (just off of Long Island) and what was going on there and how it may have intentionally or even inadvertantly caused the explosion in the Lyme epidemic. Lyme, however, has been around since the beginning of time. No doubt, as with any pleomorphic organism, it's going to continue to evolve and form ever more resistant, virulent strains. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if there has been some bio-weapon enginneering that has gone on in the mix to help things along, either.
But, just keep the faith….we're on the best treatment available to us now…and to know what you're dealing with is half the battle. :roll-laugh: Also, some people never test positive for mycoplasma…doesn't mean they don't have them….might just mean they are in a form that is undetectable to our current testing methods. I've seen a number of people come to the board worried that their myco tests were negative and concerned AP wouldn't work for them, as a result…..but, as good ol' Dr Brown found…invariably it works for the majority with a little tweaking here and there.
Peace, Maz
I was negative for mycoplasma every time I was tested. Of course, I was negative for everything… which isn't as wonderful as it sounds because our entire medical system demands positive test results in order to believe the patient.:headbang: Doctors like to tell you to “listen to your body” or to “trust how you're feeling”… but the minute you tell them any of that- they refer to your test results then write you a prescription for Prozac when the tests don't back you up…
Anyway, I get all freaked out thinking my kids may suffer the way I have, but I don't share utensils with them, or taste their food while cooking with the same utensil twice…. I'm really trying to be careful ever since this happened to me because it always felt like an acute infection eating me alive. It's just horrible.
Jenn
When I acquired RA I was told that I had a more or less self inflicted auto-immune disease. That implied several things. It wasn't doc's fault that he couldn't cure me, it was my fault. It isn't contagious. Nor was it related to anything else going on in my family. Later when I blundered onto Brown's antibiotic protocol I wasn't completely sold, but it had more promise than anything else I had seen I reasoned that I had to try it. 8 months after starting AP when I finally, glacially, showed incontrovertible signs of big improvement I thought next of my wife Cricket. She acquired adult onset asthma, another auto-immune disease, within a few months of my acquiring RA. I googled antibiotics and asthma and found a whole coterie of folk that were treating their asthma with zithromax. So I asked her if she would like to sample my (then) doxycycline. “Yes”, she said. So she started 200mg QOD (alternate days) and she herxed immediately and disagreeably on the off dose days, with, no, not asthma, but bilateral rheumatoid arthritis symptoms in her hands. She had never had any kind of arthritis before then. She did herx with asthma, sinus and respiratory symptoms later but not at first, and I might add that she is well past her asthma and joint symptoms now and is on the MP with me, now to kill cognitive bugs.
So looking around my little family some more, my 9 year old daughter had asthma acquired around the same time frame. I threw away her steroid inhaler and started her on (then) Minocycline. She hacked and coughed through about 6 months and now is virtually free of asthma. She is an AYSO soccer star and coaches love to use her for her ability to run and run and run.
Our oldest daughter, then 11yo, had become progressively worse with ADD, attention deficit disorder. She could spend a whole school day looking out the window and some of her teachers wondered if she could speak. I saw some hints on the MP study site in which a young sarc patient who incidentally had ADD had improvements with BOTH conditions. So I gave eldest daughter 25mg of Minocycline on a Friday evening and she slept right through Saturday. On Sunday she was the ADD animal from hell. By Monday she was back to normal. The experiment repeated like clockwork each following Friday until school was out that year and we could hammer the bugs more during summer break. At the end of the summer she was remarkably improved.
Coincidences? Sure.
So 4 of us in our little nuclear family had conditions that were idiopathic and incurable and which responded with vigorous herxing to bacteriostatic antibiotics. Tell me something isn't contagious. Only Cricket and I are treating with (MP) at this time. It is too hard to have all 4 of us herxing at once and the MP Benicar is bloody expensive for just two of us. Besides, Cricket and I are long past RA and asthma herxing, both in remission. Our problem these days on MP phase-3 is cognitive and emotional herxing. That combined with my frequent travel makes it tough to manage our dosing along with that of our daughters. So for now youngest (now 11) seems to be doing well enough without abx and eldest (now 13) is taking a classic ADD med and is having her best year ever in school. But I am sure that both girls have a CWD bacterial infection and both will benefit from some AP or MP.
Now with respect to Richie's oft repeated line that Maz quotes:
in studies that Richie mentioned a while back on the old BB, half the healthy study subjects tested positive for various strains of mycoplasma…
What on earth makes us think these people are healthy? For 10 or 15 years before I “acquired” RA I had a progression of symptoms that at the time I thought were due to aging. For example each year I had to eliminate some type of food from my diet because I could no longer tolerate it. I used to be a quick thinker, but in my 40's I found that I wasn't any longer the fastest guy in the conference room, I was leaving that to younger minds. I had a blood pressure problem that appeared out of nowhere when I was about 20 and persisted from then on. I had vicious mood swings before I ever had RA. But all these things seem to have abated together with my RA since I have been on AP and MP. I think I had been paying a big price in CWD infections for a long, long time before I had RA, and I would easily and always did describe myself as very healthy. So I ask, if you had a cut on your hand with puss dripping out BUT nothing hurt, would you describe yourself as healthy? Probably not. If you are one of the 25% of the Earth's population that is a carrier (but not symptomatic) for very much alive Mycobacteria Tuberculosis, are you healthy? I think infection is infection, a disagreeable and dangerous condition that may be tolerated if there is no other alternative, but for which now there is most happily an alternative.
I think we very much pass these microbes back and forth. That is why auto-immune diseases, asthma, ADD, autism, Lou Gherigs and Alzheimers are exploding far beyond rates justified by normal population increase.
john
edited for spelling
AMEN! I agree with John. We don't have diagnostics that are that subtle. We are always winning and losing against the microbial world. Eventually, they win, but for some people the “symptoms” are simply easier to live with or ignore. Some diseases are not as disruptive to daily living. They may even be completely missed, but deadly, like heart disease or cancer.
Is everything microbial? Well, no, maybe not, but a lot might be.
BTW, did anyone read about the poor teenager who tried to pierce his lip with a needle and got that terrible MRSA virus(okay, I am really bad with acronyms, so that is probably wrong)? Unbelievably terrible. He has had to have tons of surgeries – like on his knees and hips and even his heart! He will likely have chronic problems, but it looks like he will live. All from a little needle. Wow – boggles the mind!
[user=3]John McDonald[/user] wrote:
When I acquired RA I was told that I had a more or less self inflicted auto-immune disease.
I think we very much pass these microbes back and forth. That is why auto-immune diseases, asthma, ADD, autism Lou Gherigs and Alzheimers are exploding far beyond rates justified by normal population increase.
Hi John….what sort of a doctor would tell you that your RA was self-inflicted? 😯 I'm really gobsmacked that a physician would have the gall to say something as ignorant as that to a patient…even if by implication. It almost doesn't bear thinking about….
As always you've articulated so well all the things that have gone through my mind…and I'm sure the minds of many others. What you have described is not so unlike what is currently going on with Lyme Disease where the majority of those infected “get well again” with short term abx (questionable), but there are always going to be those who go on to develop chronic immunologic problems, interpreted by the mainstream to mean the person must have some “other” idiopathic disease state (not forgetting those who have been told they have some form of mental illness, because nothing can be found to be wrong). It wasn't long ago that gastric ulcer patients or heart patients were told to stop stressing out as this was the cause of their problems.
It's true…we do live in this pathogen pea soup existence and we are passing microbes back and forth to one another all the time…but there really isn't an awful lot any of us can do about this on the micro or macro level. Nor can we really do much about the state of our govt's or any other govt's nefarious growing arsenal of bio-weapony. It is what it is…a state of fear creating more fear.
So, what do we as individuals do, as JB was originally asking? When I've contemplated this fear of passing along my disease to my family, the fear and guilt can be gut-wrenching. I certainly don't want my beloved children to haev to go through what I have faced. This fear, though, can become a form of inner terrorism. We certainly can choose to live in fear and dread of mycoplasma, an invisible enemy, but this isn't really living or doing anything to improve our current disease state. Seems far kinder to ourselves to just educate ourselves, maintain a level of balanced awareness and do what we can to continue living each day to the full, focusing instead on getting ourselves well.
As you say above, “there is most happily an alternative,” and we can count ourselves to be amongst the fortunate ones that we've found AP! 🙂
Peace, Maz
I kind of feel like I did this to myself. I was in a stressful situation and I think the stress (that I embraced for a brief amount of time) is what caused this to be triggered..”on”. If I had let go of the grief and anger, maybe I would have been ok??? No one told me I did this to myself, but I believe that's what happened. My situation caused my first panic attacks, too. I think stress can cause disease. (thank God the panic attacks stopped, though.)
John,
Just to echo what you wrote about your family. It made me think hard.
My son was dx with type 1 diabetes at the age of 3 after a serious bronchitis/pneumonia like infection (Coxsackieviruses infection). He is 14 1/2 now and on insulin pump. He also has allergy problem. I guess in the midwest, a lot of people have allergy problems.
My daughter has a mild asthma since she was a little baby. Recently she withdrew from her swim team because she seems to be tired all the time. She does not have a lot of energy. She has some pain in her knees area. She is just turned to 12 and 5'4″ tall. Every one told me it's “growing pain”…. I sure hope she won't get RA.
My husband recently has to stop running because his foot tendons have some major inflammation….
My sudden on set Mixed Connective Tissue Disorder was induced by beta blocker a year and half ago… I was told….
This really makes me wonder….
Maz said:
what sort of a doctor would tell you that your RA was self-inflicted?
I don't think the doc is evil, they mean as well as they can. But that is precisely what they are saying when they tell us that we have an auto-immune disease.
We all wonder about the heritability of e.g., RA, since we do see it in mother / daughter cases but it is too rare to be strictly genetic. But there is a bit of family aggregation so the docs posit that there is some weak genetic component. But if you look at it differently, all auto-immune diseases in a family, and infectious etiology vs. genetic susceptibility, then nearly every family with a rheumatic patient has other members with other auto-immune diseases. That just makes sense if the etiology is microbial. It is by far the best explanation for my family. Husband and wife both vigorously healthy for many, many years, now succumb to auto-immune diseases and likewise their young daughters? But we are all healing now. I am now as healthy as I was 10 years before I had RA. Most of my discomfort these days is due to deliberate herxing on the MP. When I need or want to be fully functional I cut back for a few days on my antibiotics and for those few days I am fine. Cricket isn't far behind me. Her health is much better than it was a couple of years ago. Youngest daughter is a soccer star and we have a strong lead on repairing oldest daughter's idiopathic ADD. I am quite optimistic these days. Thank god for Tom Brown who pioneered this way.
Jenn – I have wondered about the role of stress too, and I do think it is a contributor. But there isn't any of us that don't go through episodes of great stress. It is part of life. If Marshall is right, and this is the most controversial part of his model, then 60 years of heavy supplementation with vitamin D has introduced a self-inflicted immune suppression that has made all of us very susceptible to disease. We are sitting ducks as it were. So an episode of stress, surgery, an automobile accident or a tick bite and our load of pathogens becomes too much and our resistance too low and we succumb. It wasn't you Jenn. Thank Dog for AP (or God?, I get confused).
john
JB,
This stuff does get passed as i , like Diane, have many family members with diseases.
Also, just wanted to touch base about your child with asthma. There is a pediatrician in Texas that spoke to me on the phone about “infectious pathogens”. He treats all his little asthma patients with abx and almost always finds they test pos for mycoplasma or chlamdyia. Most never touch inhalers or steroids again. He will talk to you on the phone so if you need his number , PM me. He also told me this stuff does get passed around the house and told me to get my hubby checked too. Sure enough, he is pos for myco pneumoniae, has lung probs that were passed off as COPD at 37, started when he was 32 and is now on AP as well through our family doc who is just following my AP docs protocol.
coxsackie virus has also been found in sclero patients, that i know.
Also, a bit off topic but interesting to anyone interested. I just returned home from a school camping trip in the north. There was a museum in the park which is a large protected park . They had write ups and info on the moose as well as other animals. Well, they had a little clear tube vial on display showing the 2 most detrimental disease causing pathogens to the moose . These 2 things were the main cause of death and disease in the moose other than predators. In the tube, which you had to look through a magnifying glass to see, were wood ticks. They looked like little specks. They come from deer in which they do not harm. When they get on moose, they feed for yrs and become the size of quarters. They had a piece of skin from a moose with these huge ticks on. These ticks also cause “threadworms” that live and grow in the brain and spinal fluid of moose that causes disease and death in them. These ticks are also spread by dogs. little did i know i went on a camping trip and learnt more than the kids there. When i came home , i looked at my dog who has had fleas which have bit me and wonder how much i have got from her.
I also totally agree with Maz and the pea soup though i know i passed this to my son in utero or through the birth canal. When i look back now, i see all the problems he had as a baby came from me, from my mother to me and so on. I believe our ” pea soup” in my family anyway ,comes from genetics to start but became a barrel of things over time our immune systems just cant keep up to.
Anyway, i have also spoke to Garth Nicolson. This stuff does go through families and he too has found many whole families infected including the family pets. Most docs just dont get it or wont get it.
Also, when i came home from camping, my hubby met me in the driveway to tell me my mom had a heart attcak, kidneys arent functioning, fluid all around heart and lungs etc etc and its not good. Well she has a crappy ” mainstream doc who has treated her for yrs with other drugs other than AP for lupus. I managed to get her an AP doc 3 weeks ago and she started mino. Now this happened. Anyway, the first night she went by ambulance to emerg, her family idiot doc was there, gave her a shot of abx in the arm and said”i dont know if you have a virus or bacteria”. Go figure. She went home and my dad drove her back the next day with the same chest pain. The new emerg doc admitted her with a heart attack that should have been caught the previous night. Well goes on the story, that her doc thinks all the others are “quacks” but funny how he said, you may have a virus or bacteria. He will only treat the symptoms , not look for the cause or treat that. Now i feel , i got her on AP and maybe she was so badly infected that the mino caused her to herx this way. I dont know but one more thing on my mind.
Anyway, i have jumped in topics here , i know but i just dont have a “intact” mind right now. these pathogens are “infectious” and they are destroying all life in this house. I am sick of it all!!!
Sorry for all that as i am venting to.
Casey
Wow, Casey, I am so sorry to hear about your mom! You know, on MP they are always VERY concerned about cardiac Herxing, and go to great length to make sure people are careful where that is a possible issue. Of course, they also consider the Benicar some protection against powerful Herxing and don't want you to even take Minocin until you have the Benicar blockade in place. This is all why I have been reluctant to suggest any of this to my mom. With her strange array of symptoms, I just don't know what it could do to her, and she is so used to the idea of quick fixes that I don't think she could take even a little more discomfort.
I know how you feel about how it is messing up your family. We both need to read Maz's post over and over to calm ourselves! She is right about balancing our walk with this all because as Jenn mentions, embracing stress is NOT going to help!
Oh, and John, maybe a bit more Herxing will clear up that nasty dyslexia that you have! 😉
I can also see a number of issues surfacing in my family, especially my hubby. They are minor and he always gets a HUGE thumbs up when he goes for his very detailed yearly physical. He very atheletic, fit, etc., and his issues are minor, but they are on my radar all the same. We can't do much about that though. He is an AF pilot, and you just can't give him any meds without it being a big issue with his work.
Well, I'm the only member of my entire family with a health issue. I think I did it to myself with stress. There's nothing in my family that resembles any of the auto immune diseases. My son has celiac but that's it. My exhusband's family is healthy. No A.I.s . I'd rather believe it's unique to me than think about my kids catching it. If I'm being naive- so be it! In the meantime, I will still act like I have the bird flu and not spread my potential germs to the best of my ability!;)
Jenn
Casey,
I hope your mom will recover very soon.
I have a chronicle bronchitis for a very long time. I got reply from a cellular microbiology professor. Here is what he wrote:
<<<<<<<<
than two hours). Person to person transmission can occur via sputum (coughing
droplets that contain the organism), saliva, sexual secretions, blood, and
urine. But there are many sources of mycoplasma around us, actually everyone
of us carries one type or the other. Mycoplasma infection can lead to
bronchitis or pneumonia (differs in the site of infection of the respiratory
tract). So it is possible that your bronchitis is caused by mycoplasma
infection. Such infection can be cleared up with antibiotics such as
minocycline you are taking.We are not so sure why some population is more prone to mycoplasma
infection. But the key is a weak immune system or the patient is infected by
other agents.>>>>>>>>>>I found this article which is very interesting. I am wondering what type of antibiotics these two doctors used to treat themselves for their mycoplasma infection.
http://www.shasta.com/cybermom/asimple.htm
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