What's the mechanism?

We know our immune system can increase body temp to kill infectious agents and I suppose the mechanism behind this is well understood. (Though I personally don't it.)

But how can our immune system be tricked into lowering the temperature?

Or is it even our immune system that is responsible for this?

Perhaps it is not even related to our immune system. Could it be that Bb is so crafty that it can directly adjust the temperature?

Another theory I can think of is as follows:

Thare must be something in our body which controls the temperature. For some reason I don't think this "something" is the immune system, though. Nevertheless, if Bb partially disables this "something", that in itself would cause the temperature to become unstable, no?

What do the experts around here have to say about this?

That was my experience with lyme, temp...
Maybe you might have a similar connection.

I don't have any scientific answers for you, but my now retired LLMD said the spirochetes like to keep the body temp low.

This is a long reply, but if you go to the last link at the bottom, it's a 30+ page chart of how lyme affects every body organ.

(The first 2 pages are narrative, but print this entire chart out.) This was given to me at my first Lyme Support Meeting & it was great information.

If LD affects your hypothalamus or pituitary, then that's probably how that can happen??? And if it affects those two organs, then it affects the thyroid?

Personally, I believe LD affects thyroid function. I'm a strong proponent for getting on thyroid if your body needs it.

I've seen it work in my family. We all have LD and 2 of us are currently taking Armour Thyroid.

Feeling cold with cold hands and feet is a classic symptom of low thyroid function or hypothyroidism.

Your thyroid blood test may be within the normal range, but you're body may not be absorbing the thyroid hormone as it should.

The late Broda Barnes, MD devoted his entire life to treating patients with low thyroid.

He linked low body temperature to low thyroid function.

This is discussed extensively in his book, Hypothyroidism: The Unsuspected Illness

The Broda Barnes, MD Foundation still exists today to get the word out.

If you have low body temperature when you awaken in the morning and it's below 97.8, even a fraction of a degree, you most likely have low thyroid function.

Again, even if your TSH blood test is normal, you can still be low thyroid with an early morning, low body temperature.

Here's the Broda Barnes Basal Body Temperature test for anyone interested:

Place thermometer at bedside. When you wake up in the morning, place the thermometer under the arm for 10 minutes if it's an old mercury kind. Do this for 2 days in a row.

Do not talk, move, or get out of bed before finishing the temp.

If your temp is below 97.8, you probably have low thyroid even in the face of a "normal" thyroid test.

Here's the catch:
The thyroid tests will always have to be run & you will probably have to find a "special" doctor to prescribe the natural form of RX Armour Thyroid.

This Armour Thyroid will cost like $10 a month------very cheap. Thyroid revs the metabolism to get the toxins out & the oxygen in the cells.

It impacts every organ function.

As I said, your blood test may be normal, but your low body temp is the clue that you do need RX thyroid hormone.

Some thyroid Docs like you to bring in 5 days in a row of morning temps----depends on the DOC.

Ask your Primary Care Doc for TSH, T3, T4, TSO (TSO is thyroid antibody test) to test for Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

The TSH test alone is simply not enough.

The new official range for TSH is 3 as of 2002. (It used to be 10 - so get your lab work & check it over; old labs may not have modified their TSH values)

NOTE THIS:
Women usually feel better with a TSH of 2.
Men feel better with a TSH of 1.

This test was first published in the Physicians Desk Reference & was later removed when the new synthetic thyroid meds hit the market.

That's too bad because this caused Dr. Barnes' method to lose credability. And, he helped thousands of patients in his lifetime.

It you have insurance, request that your PCP run a test for thyroid function. Get a copy of the results & take to a thyroid friendly physician.

Physicians who are members of the American Academy for Advancement of Medicine or ACAM will usually prescribe thyroid.

Or, go to: www.thyroid-info.com to find a thyroid physician in your state. Patients even rate the doctors here. This is a great site.

Or, go to: www.acam.org
(American Academy for Advancement of Medicine or ACAM) & find a doctor by zip code or state.

Traditional doctors will not treat hypothyroidism with a "normal" thyroid blood test.

Here are some low thyroid symptoms taken from the book by Dr. Stephen Langer, "Solved The Riddle of Weight Loss."

He was skeptical of Dr. Barnes' thyroid practices, but when he started using it on patients, the patients improved!

Remember, you don't have to have every symptom to have hypothyroidism.

Fatigue

Feeling cold, particularly the hands & feet

Weight gain or inability to lose weight, despite constant attempts at dieting

Lethargy

Dry, Coarse skin

Swelling eyelids

Coarse hair

Pale skin

Enlarged heart

Faulty memory

Constipation

Hair Loss

Labored, difficult breathing

Swelling feet

Hoarseness

Nervousness

Depression

Menstrual problems in females

Low libido

Impotence

Heart palpitation

Emotional instability

Brittle nails

muscle weakness, pain

Pain in joints

Poor concentration & memory

Anemia

Atherosclerosis

High cholesterol levels

Headache is a huge under the radar symptom which I've learned from my own family & others.

These are only a few of the symptoms.

Here is Lymenet's Bambiland's in-depth information about thyroid: http://flash.lymenet.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/027781.html

Here is Lymenet's Daystar1952's information: http://flash.lymenet.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/029876.html

Here is a symptom chart handed out at our Support Group Meeting. It shows how LD affects every body organ.

It's in pdf file form so it's easiest to print out & have on hand for easy reference.

It's full of great information & you can refer to it repeatedly.

Here's the link below:
You'll need to scroll down the page to the green indicator next to SYMPTOMS & click.

http://www.lymeinfo.net/lymefiles.html

You also may need to have adrenal function & DHEA studies done. It all ties in together.

Hope this may help.

Take Care,
Jan

You still might be interested in the link at the bottom of my previous reply re: Lyme Symptoms.

I failed to mentioned that it lists journal citations which sounds like what you're interested in.

Then there is the local doc who said I had subnormal temps because it was cold outside and we needed warmer weather.

I am sure she is right.

I would like to try the thyroid meds. But, have yet to find a doc who agrees with giving it a try.

The lyme doc says it is the lyme causing the low temps and we just need to take care of the lyme.

So, I am giving that a try first. The less meds I put in my body the better.

On the other hand, if I take the thyroid meds and find that they improve the situation this would be worth it.

You made me laugh with your smilies & "believing the regular doctor."

In Broda Barnes, MD's book, he talked about thyroid hormone helping us fight infection. It's suppose to get the toxins out & the oxygen in-----if you need the thyroid.

I've checked Dr. Barnes' book out of the library twice now. I guess I need to spring for my own book. It's very readable & I bet you'd enjoy it. Maybe that might shed some light on deciding to take it or not.

Or check out:
www.thyroid-info.com

I don't understand all the science behind it, but it has helped me & my family.

Best Wishes,
Jan

Will look into this thyroid.

Glad to hear taking Armour T helped your family.

And Kam, you can tell your duck that warmer weather is on its way for this weekend..

I also never get fevers. A handful of times in my life I got around 99, never near 100.

I also never get fevers. A handful of times in my life I got around 99, never near 100.

Heat is sensed externally (environmental temperature) by the skin and internally (internal temperature) by the hypothalamus, as both contain thermo receptors.

When it is cold outside, messages are sent from the themoreceptors in the skin or from deep thermal receptors via the blood to the cerebrum (the wiggly grey stuff) and the hypothalamus. The cerebrum makes the person aware of being cold and can cause voluntary behavioral changes voluntary (like putting on a sweater!).

When the message has reached the hypothalamus, a series of reactions follow. TRH (thyroid releasing hormone) is released by the hypothalamus which heads to the the pituitary gland. Then, the pituitary gland releases TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) into the blood stream aiming for the thyroid. Once the thyroid receives the TSH, the thyroid produces thyroxin. Thyroxin increases cellular metabolism to make heat. (Yeah, say that ten times fast!)

Other things that happen to make you warmer (many brought to you by our friend the autonomic nervous system):
-vasoconstriction (blood diverted from skin to keep heat in)
-reduced sweating (because evaporation of sweat cools us off)
-skin hairs raised (erector pilli muscle contracted, GOOSE BUMPS!)
-shivering

When it is too warm, messages are sent in the same way to the hypothalamus. This causes:

-increased sweating (cool off from sweat evaporation)
-vasodilation (blood diverted to skin to lose heat)
-skin hairs lowered
-reduced metabolic rate

SO, you can see in this cascade of events how having a messed up thyroid can affect your body temperature, BUT you can also see that there are many other means by which your temperature can be screwed up (hypothalamus, pituitary, autonomic nervous system, etc). To make it even MORE complicated, Lyme could also be affecting none of these things, but causing the production of chemicals by the immune system(like cytokines which themselves could affect some of these processes).

Which one (some or all) Lyme is affecting is a crap shoot. And keep in mind, while some folks have low body temperature, some have low grade fevers! So what seems to be consistent is there is some effect of Lyme on thermoregulation BUT what it is and how it occurs is unclear. And, the mechanisms for low body temperature may be different than those that cause low grade fevers.

In short, what is THE factor in Lyme that messes up body temperature? Dunno. What are the candidates and how they might happen, well this should help you see that.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program...

I'm a bit grumpy, because LLMD had my MRI from June reevaluated by his guy and they did find a small bit of damage. The first "Mr. Dr. M.S. GUY" as my DH puts it, says he saw no damage whatsoever. Now I get another MRI, which I really did not enjoy.

I was surprised that all co-infection tests came neg as well as the Lyme (although it was all done by Quest). But happy that I will be on 10 weeks of Plaquenil to stave off Malaria there in the south of China. Read here the other day that this has some positve affects. Well, time to put boys to bed. Keep warm. I'll be being heated by a quilt, a 4.5 yo DS and a heating pad.

Get the body temp back to normal and alot of the symptoms ALSO disappear.

Sounds like it can't hurt to have those extended thyroid tests done that Jan suggested.

Btw, I remember my temperature as being normal up until in my teens where I stopped getting sick and thus never took my temperature again until my early 40's when I the Lyme flared up.

I recall the anal temperature was always 97.7F in the morning.

I remember this number cause in celcius (I'm from Europe) this is 36.5C, or 1/2C below the red stripe on the thermometer which indicates the normal temperature of 37.0C.

So since anal temps are 0.5-1.0F higher than oral, let's take the average of 0.75F, my oral temperature must then have been around 97.0F during my first 20 years in this world.

For sure I'm gonna call the doctors office to see what the temperature readings they have compiled over the last 20 years I made visits there.

Low dose (5-10 mg) cortef did help a little, so I think the adrenals were more of an issue for me than the thyroid.

Since completing the babesia treatment and being on bicillin, my body temp is completely back to normal. It's very strange, after years of being cold, not to have to wear layers and layers of clothes and clutch a heating pad all the time.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cheryl:
http://www.wilsonssyndrome.com/WilsonsThyroidSyndrome.htm

---

Interesting reading. The sales pitch is a turn off though.

quote:

---

Originally posted by lymelady:
I once asked somebody (don't remember who, but somebody in the learned LD field) why deer do not get lyme disease. Answer: ecause their body temp is too high.
Is there a correlation here?

---

I think there is a correlation. Namely that Bb likes it cool and therefore doesn't survive in deers.

Is it true that cows don't get LD either?

What is their excuse?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Recipegirl05:
Ask your Primary Care Doc for TSH, T3, T4, TSO (TSO is thyroid antibody test) to test for Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

The TSH test alone is simply not enough.

The new official range for TSH is 3 as of 2002. (It used to be 10 - so get your lab work & check it over; old labs may not have modified their TSH values)

[b]NOTE THIS:
Women usually feel better with a TSH of 2.
Men feel better with a TSH of 1.
[/B]

---

Jan,

Checked out my thyroid lab results this morning.

Turns out that even though within range, they are all low.

Quest (6/24/04):
Free T4: 0.89 (range: 0.71-1.85) [NG/DL]
TSH: 1.94 (range: 0.49-4.70) [uIU/ML]

Quest (10/27/04):
T4,Total: 8.6 (range: 4.5-12.0) [uG/DL]
T3,Uptake: 25.8 ! (range: 27.8-40.7) [%]
T4,Free,Calc.: 2.22 (range: 1.53-3.85) [Units]

So I don't know what all this means?

I'm confused from what you wrote above whether these levels should be low or high in order to not affect the temperature.

Also, isn't low thyroid levels also usually associated with reduced metabolism and weight gain?

My weight is stable as a rock and I can eat almost anything without gaining weight. I've always been slender.

Have not seen my doctor yet.

Michael

[This message has been edited by cmichaelo (edited 07 February 2005).]