I have recently watched a conference about Lyme disease held in October at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York). During the conference, prof. Kim Lewis (Northeastern University) talked about the persistent phenotype of Borrelia burgdorferi as a possible cause for at least some cases of post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS). He mentioned a drug (disulfiram) as a possible treatment for this condition. Disulfiram has been studied for Lyme disease only in vitro, so far (Pothineni V et al. 2016), but Kim Lewis mentioned a trial on the animal model of Lyme borreliosis, which is ongoing. It is currently unknown how disulfiram exerts its action on Borrelia burgdorferi, but we know that in vitro it is able to kill persistent forms.
My question is: has any of you tried this drug? It is curently used against alcoholism, as it is an inhibitor of the enzyme acetaldehyde dehydrogenase and thus it lets acetaldehyde to build up, if you drink any alcohol, leading to unpleasent consequences.
Posted by bluelyme (Member # 47170) on :
I asked my doc he is waiting for studies and dosing etc before guinea piggin....anabuse is the trade name ..can it be had in euro without prescription?
welcome paulo....sapis work on venom or curza 99 may come before that does ..but even high dose claritin was tried by some here ..
Posted by Paolo (Member # 49493) on :
I have the drug, and given that it is relatively safe (as safe as other antibiotics I guess), I am going to try with a small dose, a dose smaller than the one used in alcoholism (which is 400 mg/day for months).
[ 12-15-2016, 05:45 AM: Message edited by: Paolo ]
Posted by bluelyme (Member # 47170) on :
Please keep us posted.
Posted by Rhiagel (Member # 21880) on :
Any updates on your experimentation with Disulfiram, Paolo? In this video at the 39:35 mark, Kim Lewis shows a chart demonstrating that Disulfiram blew away doxy, rocephin, and vancomycin in terms of killing Bb persisters in vitro. It also has a great half-life (60 to 120 hours) and crosses the BBB.
[ 02-26-2017, 05:38 PM: Message edited by: Rhiagel ]
Posted by BobG (Member # 39642) on :
I will look into this. One good sign from the thread is that it is used for alcoholics long term. They don't have the best liver profiles, so that is a good first indication that this could be as safe as some of the other things Lymies take.
Posted by gigimac (Member # 33353) on :
Wonder if this drug would have the same herx cycle as abx?
I would really love to hear if anyone had good results with the claritin.
Thanks
Posted by BobG (Member # 39642) on :
The claritin people went quiet. Maybe they don't need to come here anymore!
Posted by Haley (Member # 22008) on :
Is the mechanism the same as LDN? It sounds like a similar type of drug.
Posted by gigimac (Member # 33353) on :
That would be great BobG! Anyone know what Claritin dose people were aiming for?
Posted by foxy loxy (Member # 47053) on :
Has anyone been helped by this drug?
I was thinking of bringing it up for discussion with my dr on tuesday... From what little research I found, it has the potential to kill lyme persisters and babesia (as is can kill malaria)
Posted by Rhiagel (Member # 21880) on :
2019 Update: Lewis et al obviously tweaked the compound and subsequently passed the mouse model, since they are now advertising for clinical human trials.