posted 03 March 2005 09:40               

I've been checking in on and reading all the discussions, but need to print them out to spend the time reading them. I seem to have a hard time reading and retaining the information, so I need to keep re-reading it.

This is something I will discuss with my LLMD, but I find it's helpful to understand some of the different point of views so I can ask more "informed" questions.

One of the things I've learned from this whole Lyme experience is that there are many different point of views and even the doctors that are LLMD's have different opinions on some topics.

In the past, I've taken what doctors have said at face value, now I've learned to question more. By asking this question here, I'll be able to have better discussion when I finally get to see the LLMD.

skrwolf, I sent you an email. I don't if it helped or just made it clear as mud I think I'm in the same boat as you right now.

At this point, I'm just trying to understand the different issues to form an opinion of my own. I will let you all know what my LLMD's opinion is on the topic.

Thanks again!

posted 03 March 2005 12:20               

Severe Lyme disease may lead to other ills, UMDNJ study finds

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

BY ANGELA STEWART
Star-Ledger Staff

People who suffer from a prolonged, more severe form of Lyme disease
also
may be prone to developing autoimmune illnesses such as arthritis and
heart
disease, a new study shows.

Researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
in
Newark made the discovery in a laboratory study of mice, where they
found
genetic similarities between the bacteria that cause Lyme and other
bacteria
known to trigger various autoimmune diseases.

"These mice had a worse (Lyme) disease, much more chronic and it
lasted for
a long time," said Elizabeth Raveche, an immunologist at the UMDNJ-New
Jersey Medical School and principal investigator for the study. "That
gives
some insight as to what happens in humans, as not everyone who gets
Lyme
ends up with a lifelong problem, but some individuals do."

The research appears in the latest issue of the Journal of Clinical
Microbiology.

Lyme disease, caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi and
transmitted by
a tick bite, peaks in the spring and summer months. It can affect the
skin,
nervous system, joints and heart. Individuals can develop a bull's
eye rash
surrounding the site of the tick bite.

In the study, Raveche and her colleague, Steven Schutzer, another
UMDNJ
immunologist, found that the Osp-A protein of the Lyme bacteria shared
molecular similarities with another protein, Streptococcus pyogenes
M, known
to cause autoimmune diseases, including rheumatic heart disease and
arthritis.

According to Raveche, in certain individuals with Lyme, antibodies
produced
to fight the condition also can cross-react with one's own tissues
and cause
prolonged illness in people genetically predisposed to autoimmune
disease.

"All the mice had a genetically programmed immune defect leading them
to
produce antibodies capable of reacting with the (Lyme) bacteria as
well as
their own tissues, resulting in arthritis," she said.

"This may show some of the reasons why people react differently and
why Lyme
causes such a chronic illness in some people and mild disease in
others,"
said Elizabeth Chalom, pediatric rheumatologist on staff at Saint
Barnabas
Medical Center in Livingston,.

Chalom said the same pattern is true in the many people who develop
strep
throat, with only a few of those individuals going on to develop acute
rheumatic fever, which is a bacterial joint infection.

"The antibodies their body makes to fight the strep can cross-react
and
cause arthritis," she said.

Raveche said a second study is underway that will attempt to further
identify a target gene that could interfere with the cross-reaction
process
so that severe Lyme symptoms won't develop in people prone to
autoimmune
illnesses.

posted 03 March 2005 16:08               

go to this link which contains articles such as the one below. RULE out an infection agent before giving up and saying it's the autoimmune's problem.
http://www.roadback.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/education.display/display_id/130.html

"If the infectious hypothesis proves to be correct the treatment of RA will need to be completely re-vised, and the consequences for the pharmaceutical industry will be enormous. It could become unethical to use steroids, or agents which block prostaglandin synthesis, as we cannot be sure they do not promote proliferation of the organism, and so in the long term lead to more severe disease. Instead we will need to devise antibiotic regimens and immunotherapeutic protocols." (1993-Annals of Rheumatic Diseases-England)4

posted 03 March 2005 16:25               

The infectious theory for rheumatic disease is one of those old ideas whose time has come again. Up until the 1940s, it was taken for granted that most illnesses were caused by some kind of bug - although before electron microscopes, many germs had never been seen clearly enough to give them a name, and some, such as viruses, had not been seen at all. That difficulty in isolating and identifying a specific probable cause is one reason the infectious theory for rheumatic disease went out of vogue for several decades.

Another reason was the breakthrough in cortisone, a potent anti-inflammatory that was mistakenly thought to have the same role in rheumatic (inflammatory) disease as insulin has in diabetes. By the time it became obvious this was not the case - and that in heavy doses, cortisone could be extremely dangerous - the whole sub-specialty of rheumatology was firmly seated on the wrong horse, and the mistake had grown into an institutional tradition.

Today it is widely accepted that bacteria, mycoplasmas and viruses, all possibly aided and abetted by a genetic predisposition, are prime causative suspects in rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma, lupus, fibromyalgia and related diseases of the connective tissue. In fact, the so-called New Germ Theory is finding support in a far wider medical arena, from Alzheimer's disease to MS, and from ulcers to asthma to cancer. And in every case, no matter how spectacular the evidence or how revolutionary the outcome, the initial response to this theory and related treatment for an infectious cause is strong resistance from an institution which sees as dangerous any challenge to the status quo.

The most likely infectious cause of most forms of rheumatic disease is a class of small organisms about halfway in size between a bacterium and a virus. Now called mycoplasmas, they were first isolated from arthritic joint fluid by Dr. Thomas McPherson Brown at the Rockefeller Institute more than 60 years ago. Assisted in that early work by polio pioneer Albert Sabin, Brown devoted the next half-century to research in the infectious etiology of rheumatic disease, and the use of safe, inexpensive antibiotic therapy for its control. Dr. Brown was the author, with Henry Scammell, of The Road Back, which first brought the case to the general public, and later gave the Foundation its name.

posted 04 March 2005 10:56               

Many of these "mystery" diseases, like MS, Lyme, arthritis, psoriasis, that have no known cause or cure, are actually the same disease.

They just present themselves differently in different people, depending upon genetic disposition, immune system response, environmental factors, etc. They appear different because they attack different body systems, but in reality they are the same disease.