Topic: Married folks/folks in relationship--intimacy
ArtistDi
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 2297
posted
I would like to know how you have been handling intimacy so your partner doesn't get sick. I have been ill for a long time, and only now am getting my life back. What do your llmds say about kissing? Can that transfer lyme? My llmd has advised barrier methods always, but I forgot to ask about kissing. Sorry, if this is embarrassing, but I don't want to get my husband sick either when he was well.
[ 04-26-2009, 11:33 AM: Message edited by: ArtistDi ]
Posts: 1572 | From Hatfield, MA, USA | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
My LLMD is not real convinced that Lyme and Co. can be spread through intimacy of any kind.
But I say it can and so does Dr J the kids LLMD.
I would not kiss your partner -- sorry!!!! I know it has been real hard for me and hubby too. I am almost sure I gave my hubby Lyme by being intimate.
Syphilus is a spirokete and is sexual transmitted so it only makes sence that this can too be past on the same way. Studies have shown ketes in blood, urine, semen, breast milk and saliva.
IMO it cannot hurt to be too careful.
Hope that helps, Stacy
Posts: 476 | From Columbus, Ohio | Registered: Aug 2007
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From everything I read, I am not 100% convinced either way about the "contagious" nature of Lyme disease other than it can potentially be congenital from an ill mother to a baby.
No doubt Lyme sucks but then again I hate the idea that you cannot enjoy the gift of life that's offered to you through birth. Kissing obviously is one of them.
The more important question seems to be what you value your life and how you want to live it.
Just my thoughts.
Posts: 822 | From midwest | Registered: Apr 2009
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Ocean
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 3496
posted
Kissing? You cannot get HIV from kissing, I didn't know Lyme can be found in saliva? Am I reading this correctly?
posted
I asked my new LLMD the exact same thing at my first appointment with her because I am really wondering if I got this from my fiance. He can trace it back to when he was 7 or 8 years old. I had no symptoms at all until April of last year. She said we will probably never know if he gave it to me.
My old LLMD and new LLMD both think it is possible to transmit even though there is not scientific evidence on it yet.
No kissing is a hard thing for sure.
-------------------- Lyme, Babesia Microti, possible Bart. Posts: 173 | From A little south of sanity - PA | Registered: Jan 2009
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posted
Based on the dearth of reports, my guess is the lyme transmission rate through intimate contact is very low, even near zero. Despite no particular precautions during 15 years, my wife shows no signs of lyme. I'd say it's far more likely for a couple to both independently pick up lyme because they participate in the same outdoor activities, like hiking, in the same tick infested regions.
Posts: 727 | From USA | Registered: Mar 2006
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nenet
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 13174
posted
It is one of the most difficult things to think about and deal with with this disease. My husband and I have not changed our behavior, but we are also concerned that he already had Lyme as well. Again, we both have been exposed to Lyme endemic areas all of our lives, so it is impossible to say.
I am refraining from having a baby unless and until something comes along that will better ensure that my baby will never suffer like I have suffered.
As for casual transmission, saliva, etc., I do not share food or drinks or utensil, etc. with anyone beyond my husband. I try to be very careful, but it is impossible to live in a plastic bubble, especially without knowing for sure what is possible.
Unfortunately there are no studies done yet on sexual transmission, and no reliable ways to report it clinically, because just as has been said here, and in many previous threads, it is impossible to say for sure if someone got it from a loved one or from the shared environment, or had a previous infection from long before the relationship that only recently sufaced or became bad enough to get diagnosed.
It would be too highly unethical to try to do research on human to human transmission, which is what was done to understand syphilis, during the Tuskegee experiments.
I know of one study of experimentally infected mice that showed contact transmission of Lyme:
"Experimental inoculation of Peromyscus spp. with Borrelia burgdorferi: evidence of contact transmission."
1: Am J Trop Med Hyg. 1986 Mar;35(2):355-9. Burgess EC, Amundson TE, Davis JP, Kaslow RA, Edelman R.
"In order to determine if Peromyscus spp. could become infected with the Lyme disease spirochete (Borrelia burgdorferi) by direct inoculation and to determine the duration of spirochetemia, 4 P. leucopus and 5 P. maniculatus were inoculated by the intramuscular, intraperitoneal, and subcutaneous routes with an isolate of B. burgdorferi obtained from the blood of a trapped wild P. leucopus from Camp McCoy, Wisconsin.
All of the mice developed antibodies to B. burgdorferi which reached a peak indirect immunofluorescent (IFA) geometric mean antibody titer of 10 log2 21 days post-inoculation. B burgdorferi was recovered from the blood of 1 P. maniculatus 21 days post-inoculation.
One uninfected Peromyscus of each species was housed in the same cage with the infected Peromyscus as a contact control. Both of the contact controls developed IFA B. burgdorferi antibodies by day 14, indicating contact infection.
To determine if B. burgdorferi was being transmitted by direct contact, 5 uninfected P. leucopus and 5 uninfected P. maniculatus were caged with 3 B. burgdorferi infected P. leucopus and 3 infected P. maniculatus, respectively.
Each of these contact-exposed P. leucopus and P. maniculatus developed antibodies to B. burgdorferi, and B. burgdorferi was isolated from the blood of 1 contact-exposed P. maniculatus 42 days post-initial contact. These findings show that B. burgdorferi can be transmitted by direct contact without an arthropod vector."
posted
Ok I need to go back and look at the study I have tucked away some where. I thought it was about Bart and how even sharing nail clippers and things like that can transmit it.
I guess it does come down to a quality of life issue for some too. I do know that there has been this discussion on the board before so a search would pull up more info.
Until we can get someone to do the research we desperately need I guess we are not able to know for certain how easily this may or may not be passed on
Stacy
Posts: 476 | From Columbus, Ohio | Registered: Aug 2007
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bettyg
Unregistered
posted
i'd like to suggest for folks to google LYDIA MATTland, sp?, she found evidence of many things and presented it at a lyme conference 3-5 years ago!
you might even do a search here for her name in medical in TEXT portion, show no date, and click search...found at top!
she devoted her life to LYME; believe she died last year around age 95 !! she worked up to the end the last i'd heard
posted
i'd like to suggest for folks to google LYDIA MATTland, sp?, she found evidence of many things and presented it at a lyme conference 3-5 years ago!
you might even do a search here for her name in medical in TEXT portion, show no date, and click search...found at top!
she devoted her life to LYME; believe she died last year around age 95 !! she worked up to the end the last i'd heard
lymeinhell
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 4622
posted
It's good to remember that CANDIDA can be spread by kissing (or other things). So when you're yeasty and treating it, no kissing and get your spouse treated simultaneously, otherwise you just keep passing it back and forth.
-------------------- Julie _ _ ___ _ _ lymeinhell
Blessed are those who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed. Posts: 2258 | From a better place than I was 11 yrs ago | Registered: Sep 2003
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Starfall1969
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 17353
posted
I just read some of this to my hubby, and he replied, "What am I supposed to do, be a MONK?"
Kissing is about all we do anymore.
My docs are all through a Catholic based hospital, so no birth control at all.
Hubby won't use condoms, and he doesn't trust natural family planning, so since before our 2 year old was born, we've had sex once!!!!!
And about kissing--My son has a habit of coming up and planting a kissy on my lips sometimes, now I need to worry about that too?
How the #$%% did life get so out of control?
Posts: 1682 | From Dillsburg, PA | Registered: Sep 2008
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sixgoofykids
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 11141
posted
Starfall, I have used Natural Family Planning for 16 years now. Yes, I have all these kids, but my youngest is almost 11 and we still manage to be intimate way more than you would think using NFP.
I am very fertile and never took more than one month to get pregnant when we wanted a baby, and now using modern methods of NFP which use clinical observations, we are confident what times are fertile and what are not. We add one day to our observations since I have such a strong reason to not get pregnant.
I would suggest Googling Couple to Couple League for more information. NFP is as effective as birth control pills, and in some studies even shows as more effective.
Sounds like your hubby is already a monk ..... and no reason to be with modern NFP.
-------------------- sixgoofykids.blogspot.com Posts: 13449 | From Ohio | Registered: Feb 2007
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