I want you to have yor own thread because you just explained to me why my son only has one band of LD on his Western blot. The poor kid has always been on antibiotics for earinfections, sinus, and strep before we found the LD. but he is suffering more than the rest of the family.

QUOTE from Dr. Ron M:

Dear Michael,

I think your comments below can open some great
discussion about the nature of microorganisms.

Dr. Lyda Matteman who used to be head of Wayne State
Dept of Microbiology confirmed that bacteria can shed
their outer cell wall and live with just their inner cell
membrane. (This is what the Bowen test is looking for.)

The conventional appearance of bacteria occur when they
are in stable environments; however, when they are
stressed they may become cell wall defecient (CWD) and
then need to live within a host cell. In this CWD "pleo-
morphic" state they cannot be cultured in the typical
culture mediums, nor do they provoke an immune
response to trigger a "+" Elisa or Western Blot.

The taking out of blood for the Bowen test apparently
will trigger a CWD state. To find the corkscrew
spirochete form you need to do a fresh blood analysis on a dark field microscope.

Dr. Ron
(BTW, it may take a while to get the double spacing format
down.)

One thing I should let you know about is that it appears that the Bowen test only detects the socalled cyst form (also called the L-form or spheroplast form) of the Borrelia bacteria.

It does not detect Bb in it's spirochete form.

I'm not sure what this mean either, but it's likely that most of the Bb floating around in our blood is indeed in the cyst form, as this explains why it is so difficult for many of us to get a positive WB or PCR.

Michael[/B][/QUOTE]

They were in the blood of a person who had been on 100mg minocycline for a year from a dermatologist before discovering she had Lyme.

I have found the spirochette forms in several others, but not the cyst forms... these other people had not been on antibiotics.

That kind of agrees with what DR. Ron says, doesn't it?

I've always been curious how long does it take to find one of the critters in a microscope?

That must take a while, doesn't it?

And what kind of scope do you have?

It is a time consuming and tedious process, but then again if you find one you have a pretty good idea what the problem is and what needs to be done next.

Of course if you look all day and don't find anything that still does not mean there are not any there.

I just have a basic but good quality biological microscope, like might be used by students in a college or by a Dr. in his office. Nothing elaborate at all. Anybody can do this.

One thing about visually examining blood is that you can pick up things that are clearly visible, but are never routinely tested for. Malaria, for instance.

1. For several years now, Lymenet people and LLMDs have been saying there are three forms of Lyme, the spirochete, L-form, and cyst. Are you saying there are only two forms, in your opinion?

In some articles the L-form and cyst form a mentioned as two different forms.

But then in other articles they are one and the same. Sometimes also referred to as spheroplast (probably wrong spelling) form.

I'm confused.

I hope the dear Dr.Ron will answer us.

In case he does not, this is what I know:

I have not seen any conflicting views wrt what abx does NOT work on. Abx do not work on the cyst form, i.e., where the spirochetes are coiled inside a little egg, or bubble, which is not a cell wall.

This is why people take what is popularly known as cyst busters, for example, Flagyl, Tinidazole or Plaquenil. These drugs are not abx.

I'm not a Dr nor medical specialist so I could be wrong about this.

I should note that interestingly it has been found that some abx discourage cyst formation in the first place, such as Zithromax and I think also Minocycline.

Also some abx seem to encourage cyst formation, most notably Rocephin.

Another interesting finding wrt cysts is that they appear to be immune to temperature and oxygen level in blood. Free spirochetes, on the other hand, die if they are exposed to high oxygen levels or high temperatures for many many hours(such as when you run a high fever for a long time.)