I was carrying a conversation with a good friend who was checking on my wife's current condition. While I tried to use my limited Lyme knowledge to explain to him about the weakened immune system due to Lyme spirochetes, etc., he came to this question:
Ok, so Lyme bacteria wenken one's immune system. If that's true, how can you explain the same people who suppose to have the weakened immune system are having so many symptoms? Are symptoms related to the immune response to the foreign invaders such as inflammation or fever? Isn't the inflammation or fever or pain caused by the immune system that tries to defend one's self?
If one's defense system is disarmed, should that person live without any symptom at all, for there is no fighting going on inside the person's body?
I know there is an answer somewhere to this "reasonable doubt" but I couldn't come to argue much.
Can you?
Posted by Carol in PA (Member # 5338) on :
Many of our Lyme symptoms are caused by neurotoxins. When the white blood cells (the immune system) kill the Lyme bacteria, the bacteria leave behind toxins that affect the nerves, hence "neurotoxins."
Neurotoxins are eliminated by the liver, but when the liver lags behind, the symptoms get worse.
Some of the symptoms are caused by low magnesium. The Lyme bacteria use up the magnesium in our cells, which causes alot of problems, as our cells need magnesium for all the enzyme processes.
If the defense system is disarmed, the body cannot defend itself from invaders, and you'll get sick with every bacteria and virus that shows up.
So, although the immune system may be weaker, it's still there, and causes symptoms like inflammation and fever when fighting bacteria and viruses.
Carol
Posted by coltman (Member # 21272) on :
Like Carol said not all symptoms are product of immune responce - some are toxins , some are caused by bacterial proteins subverting normal cells and disregulating human metabolism. As bacteria grows in numbers disregulation become symptomatic
Also chronic infection still causes inflammation - by leaving those foreign proteins and dead bacterial cells, some bacteria even attaches its proteins to healthy cells so immune system attacks them
If you are immune system is supressed does not mean you will feel well- AIDS patients are destroyed by infections, it takes a while for them to be actually killed by it , does not mean they feel great. Same with lyme -it is not as serious as HIV, but incredibly destructive nevertheless
Posted by TF (Member # 14183) on :
Some symptoms are related to the immune response, but many, many symptoms are not. Many symptoms are the result of the invader attacking your body, as in any other disease you can think of.
Think of chicken pox. The pox are the result of the invader, not the immune system.
Think of cancer. When you find a lump on your body, that is the direct result of the cancer, not the response of your immune system or an inflammatory response to the cancer.
The sickest lymies are those whose immune system is totally fooled, so it is not making any antibodies to lyme at all. It is not waging a defense at all, in other words. So, the germs have full sway. They can attack any part of the body they want and get away with it.
Lyme attacked my nervous system making all of my muscles extremely weak any time it wanted to. The weakness was a direct result of an attack of the nerves going to muscles. It had nothing to do with the immune system response.
It gave me gaps in my visual field when it attacked my optic nerve. (That's like the chicken pox giving you pox marks.)
It gave me sound sensitivity whenever it wanted to. That is from an attack on the auditory nerve.
Once it attacked my brain so bad that I could not move, think, walk, or talk. After a number of hours, it went away.
It attacked me gynecologically and caused me to go into a false menopause. It shrunk my ovaries and they stopped functioning.
It gave me all the signs of menopause--low estrogen, small ovaries, no menstrual periods. These things are not caused by the immune response or inflammation. They are a direct result of an attack by an invader on that system.
Whatever system lyme attacks will not work properly. On top of that you will have the symptoms that come from inflammation. But, when you feel like you are being stabbed with thousands of pins, that is a direct result of the nervous system being attacked. It is a neuropathy. So is feeling like you are being stabbed by a knife, numbness, burning sensation, feeling of moving patches of sunburn, etc. These are common lyme symptoms. They are not the result of inflammation.
Same with bells palsy and trigeminal neuralgia. Bells palsy is facial drooping as a direct result of an attack on the facial nerve. Trigeminal neuralgia is an unbearable pain from hell when lyme attacks the trigeminal nerve in your face.
That is my understanding of lyme disease. As Burrascano says, lyme is essentially a disease of the nervous system.
"It is clear that in the great majority of patients, chronic Lyme is a disease affecting predominantly the nervous system." (p. 4 of Burrascano Guidelines)
When lyme attacks the nervous system, you will lose function, or feel nerve pain, or get strange sensations from the nerve damage caused directly by the disease.
Posted by Pinelady (Member # 18524) on :
Good jobs all. Wtl tell him just because the immune system is shut off by the Bb that does not mean the
damage from the initial infections and the opportunistic infections are not still damageing
cells that control every function we have. I am finding it easier to say it is what it is. To those
that have no idea.
Posted by wtl (Member # 19883) on :
Thanks all. I feel I am somewhat equipped with tools to defend this disease better now.
I don't know where I got the idea that all our symptoms are the result of our immune system trying to defend ourselves from invaders. I am glad to learn that there are many other causes.
You are the best bunch. I wish my regular doctor is this good in explaining things.
Posted by D Bergy (Member # 9984) on :
Some symptoms are caused by the immune system, others are from other co-infections and from the Lyme itself. Lyme seems to only cause symptoms when it converts to spirochete form, or when you are actively killing it.
The immune system is weakened, but not dead. It still puts up a fight, when it can see the Lyme and other pathogens. The response is inflammation and it may even kill some bacteria. Most often, it just causes inflammation, chronic inflammation that does not resolve the infection like it normally would.
I can kill off the spirochetes in my wife's body pretty easily. Once they are gone, the symptoms are mostly gone. When ever there is a conversion she gets symptomatic again.
My Crohn's disease is basically caused by a dysfunctional immune system. It attacks bacteria but cannot kill it. This leads to chronic inflammation which produces many symptoms all on its own. Physical and Mental symptoms.
There is some common elements to both diseases. Which is why I was able to control my Crohn's rather quickly. I used what I had learned about Lyme and applied it to Crohn's. Unfortunately, Lyme is much more difficult, and complex.
Dan
Posted by wtl (Member # 19883) on :
Makes a lot of sense now.
I know from years of personal experience about TB infection. I am still not clear why the argument about the length of treatment for Lyme.
For TB bacteria, the standard treatment length is 9-18 months, even in the US. If the main stream medical community really believes that bacteria can be eliminated within 2-3 weeks of antibiotic, why then they do not dispute the use of antibiotic for TB much longer than Lyme?
I hear the theroy of this and that, including the most common one about insurance companies don't want to pay for longer treatment. But why not they also target other infections such as AIDS and TB?
I know this is totally a different topic now but you see why I am getting frustrated.
Posted by Hoosiers51 (Member # 15759) on :
Honestly, I don't know that you could necessarily say our immune systems are "weak." Maybe for some of us, but I am not sure that is an accurate statement across the board.
For some of us, they are unbalanced. Some of us have more of an autoimmune state going on, which is not a "weakened" immune system, it's an unbalanced one.
I would moreso say the immune system is "busy." But I don't know if we fit the definiton of immunocompromised. I think that is an assumption people make that could be incorrect.
But please don't take MY word for it....I am just speculating.
Posted by sutherngrl (Member # 16270) on :
I speculate the same as Hoosier. I believe that our immune system is changed, not neccessarily compromised. I do believe it is possibly in an autoimmune state for some of us.
Posted by D Bergy (Member # 9984) on :
Dysfunctional would have been a better description.
Dan
Posted by dguy (Member # 8979) on :
In general I don't think lymies are immune deficient. If we were, we'd commonly experience opportunistic infections, similar to what AIDS patients experience.
A better fit for most lymies is excess immune response on the Th1 side. From http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/321/7258/424 "Th1-type cytokines tend to produce the proinflammatory responses responsible for killing intracellular parasites and for perpetuating autoimmune responses."
That explains why we so rarely catch a cold: our immune system eradicates an intracellular invader before it can gain a foothold and replicate.
The excess Th1 immune response is also revealed by looking at one common (but ill-advised) therapy: steroids. Steroids turn down our immune respone, which reduces inflammation and in turn our symptoms.
On steroids I quickly feel like a healthy person, with all my myriad lyme symptoms virtually gone.
Posted by wtl (Member # 19883) on :
Now, that's more than I expected.
Like many, I always thought we have a weak immune system that cannot defend ourselves from the spirochetes. And i have been struggling even with myself to explain why then my wife hardly ever get a cold for many years now.
Now I think I am getting on to something.
By looking at dguy's posting, is it then some steroids can be good for lymies? Will the overly aggressive Th1 response be bad for us?
Thank you guys and gals...
Posted by MariaA (Member # 9128) on :
someone in the comments section of the LymeMD blog (www.lymeme.blogspot.com) referred to Lyme as 'half AIDS'- meaning it suppresses some aspects of the immune response and raises others to alarming levels.
Posted by TerryK (Member # 8552) on :
In reality, I'm sure there are many other things that contribute to symptoms but I think the toxin issue is significant for some of us who have trouble getting rid of biotoxins.
Terry
Posted by wtl (Member # 19883) on :
Terry - thanks for the link to the article.
One thing that has been explained to me about my wife's not seeing much response and improvement since she started treatment about 4 months ago is that she has both heavy metal and mold/fungal issues. And there have been some theories about which one needs to be addressed first.
Her holistic practitioner thinks she will have to start addressing heavy metals before dealing with fungal issue. She states something about one protects the other from your body getting harmed.
I did some research just to se if I could get a bit more understanding on the theory but so far I ahve failed. Anyone knows if I just completely misunderstood the conversation?
Posted by coltman (Member # 21272) on :
quote:Originally posted by dguy: In general I don't think lymies are immune deficient. If we were, we'd commonly experience opportunistic infections, similar to what AIDS patients experience.
You might not think like that but it reserch points that it most likely has strong immune suppression response. Unlike AIDS it does not destroy all T cells though, it severely downregulates certain types of immune response