Saturday 27 July 2013

Campaigns — LymePowerOfUs Crowdfunding for Lyme disease awareness

Campaigns — LymePowerOfUs Crowdfunding for Lyme disease awareness

This is the third day since I saw this and I am one of only three who have donated please please pass this around, we will fight this denial every way we can for ourselves, for our children and for our children's children http://t.co/H6ufUgRCiF

Thursday 25 July 2013

BIOFILMS = CHRONIC INFECTIONS: BORRELIA BIOFILMS = CHRONIC LYME DISEASE.

So New - A retrospective on Biofilms of Borrelia and future

Post by inmacdonald » July 24th, 2013, 5:22 pm

In the Original Release of UNDER OUR SKIN [ UOS]
MacDonald's parting remarks are about the exciting future of Biofilms of Borrelia. (earlier posting about Dr MacDonald from UOS here )
At the time of filming, we already had the proof in hand, but we had to get it Published.
We had to get it past an Editor in Chief of a Journal with good academic standing in the world of Medical publishing.
We knew that we would not succeed with the Journal of Infectious Disease
or Clinical Microbiology and infectious Disease or with the newsletter to the membership of the IDSA.

The most important Milestone happened in November 2012 with the long awaited publication of

the PLOS ONE article on In Vitro Biofilms of borrelia burgdorferi.

[We had long since discussed in video interviews, in the year 2006 , and in the film UOS that Biofilms would be the Next Big thing.]

It took 6 years of tedious and politically gut wrenching work to get

THE article into a Prestige journal, PLOS ONE,

The acceptance for the article to be published was, like some births, not an easy delivery.

The original manuscript reviews required mandatory revisions.
Non-negotiable revisions.
The most onerous of these was the directive by the Editorial staff to REMOVE any and All language from the manuscript which connected the significance of Biofilms of borrelia ..... to Human medicine, Human disease, and to Lyme disease ,in specific , and to attitudes toward the proper treatment of Lyme disease and related Borrelia infections.

These demands were acceded to.

Why would PhD reviewers be at all interested in MD type Stuff?

Here the existing politics provide an answer.

None of the 3 reviewers were IDSA aligned persons.
All of the Reviewers, from best that we could determine, were European Microbiologists with special life experience in Biofilm biology of other non-borrelia microbes.

The sticky wicket about biofilms is that Biofilms of the Infectious type are
ALWAYS a marker of CHRONIC INFECTION.

Chronic Lyme borreliosis was then , was in 2006, and is in 2013 a much disputed entity.

Allowing Biofilms of Borrelia to attain academic respectability , by allowing publication of the Sapi et al In Vitro Borrelia biofilm article, the conceptual link by a microscopic structure {biofilm of borrelia community}
overturned all of the objections to the impossibility of Chronic borreliosis
as a Validated Entity.

So , ....did we ask a good question,..... as the Nobel laureate Izzy Singer once remarked...?

Yes!

And So, the next "good question" was .....Are there borrelia biofilms in living organisms or,.....are borrelia biofilms just a Test tube curiosity?

Two weeks after the PLOS ONE publication of the Sapi biofilm In vitro Paper,
came the announcement from the Sapi Group in West Haven Conn at the University of New Haven, that INDEED, Borrelia biofilms were detected under the microscope in a human skin biopsy from Europe from a patient with cutaneous borreliosis.

And, Sapi's group started to look into the Tick gut, to see if Borrelia biofilms are there in the living tick, as a measure to maintain the borrelia through a period of starvation, before it bites its next human victim. This work has also been Paradigm Shifting.

Now to look ahead to the Paradigm shifts yet to come.
MacDonald has announced that the PLAQUES of Alzheimer's disease are Biofilm communities.
That is about as chronic and in the human Body and Disease associated and disease producing as any biofilm professional could ever want to have on a Resume.

How do we Attack and remove biofilms?
That is another tough question.

Biofilms are fortress like communities which are from inception designed to
survive all manner of attack, including high dose long term antibiotic therapies through IV lines surgically sewn into the veins of sick patients who require long term antibiotic therapy.

So Antibiotic Therapy is not a panacea for eliminating biofilms of any microbe
But,
Just before Dr. Bill Costerton passed away from Pancreatic cancer in 2012,
he recorded a video interview on You Tube. In that interview he discussed many things about biofilm biology. Costerton,as the author of many peer reviewed articles on biofilms of many species of microbes, was ideally situated to Editorialize about ALL THINGS BIOFILM>

One of the last topics which he introduced at the end of the video was the concept that Ultrasound energy , correctly administered to Test tube biofilm communities actually breaks up the protective Matrix [Green goo] and opens up the heretofore protected Bacteria to the action of antibiotics, which can then get to the bugs and kill them.

So there is more than a "vague new direction" for killing Biofilm infections.
Costerton has built us an 8 lane highway.

More about this later.

I made the promise in UOS that biofilms would be the Next Great Thing.
That promise has been kept, and more great things will accrue to Lyme borreliosis patients because of Basement laboratory investigations.

Best to you, as always,

Alan MacDonald MD  
July24,2013
website Alzheimerborreliosis

PS: This Week the Lancet Infectious Disease Journal 2013: 13:(8) :719-724hasa manuscript which discusses [b]Streptococcus Gallolyticus[/b] andCancer.
Strep Gallolyticus is a Biofilm former which is highly associated with
setting up its communities on the surface of Malignant Tumors and Premalignant tumors in the human Colon. Some of these biofilm communities send off Showers of the [b]Strep Gallo[/b] biofilm community into the bloodstream, and some of these microbial "emboli" infect the human Cardiac Valves causing Bacterail endocartitis of the Strep Gallo Type[Formerly Strep Bovis endocarditis]

Endocarditis is, and always has been, a BIOFILM infection of the human heart valves.
So a timely "so new" in the world of infectious disease, brought to you by
Biofilm [always chronic] Infections.
Think about it!

Monday 22 July 2013

IDIOPATHIC OR INFECTIOUS DISEASE? SCIENCE EMERGING - BORRELIA AND ALZHEIMER'S




Part II Cystic Borrelia and Related Topics Including Round Body 

Infections of the brain.

Dr Alan MacDonald

Published on Jul 21, 2013

Cystic Borrelia are under appreciated in borrelia biology. This Lecture discusses the formation of Cystic Borrelia, and the Pathological effects in the human body which are
associated with Cystic borrelia, Especially in the Brain. Congential hydrocephalus caused by Gestational borreliosis [ 3cases in world literature ] are reviewed in Detail.
Discussion of the possibility of motility in Cystic borrelia is correlated with Electron Microscopyof borrelia Cystic forms. The String of Pearls form of borrelia is illustrated and the identification of Borrelia String of Pearls forms in human blood by Profesor Morten Laane is illustrated. Round bodies associated with various Nerodegenerative
Disorders in the Human [ ALS, Parkinson's, Cortical Lewy body Dementia. CorticoBasal Degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, FrontoTemporal Dementia] are correlated with parallel observations of Round Body Borrelia Invading Human Brain neurons in a case of Alzheimer's disease. A New paradigm of Round body Neuropathology is suggested for further Study as evidence of Invasive Cystic borrelia microbes. This Paradigm would shift the classification of Neurodegenerative disorders containing Round Intra-neuronal bodies from Idiopathic in Cause to Infectious Diseases of the Human Brain.
Alan B. MacDonald MD July 21,2013
forms in the Human Brain.

Thank you Doctor MacDonald for speaking in Plain English for those of us without a scientific background to understand better.

Sunday 21 July 2013

THE BIOLOGY OF LYME DISEASE - PATHOLOGIST ALAN MACDONALD MD



The Biology of Lyme Disease: An Expert's Perspective


Published on Jul 20, 2013
This is a 30 minute video with Dr. Alan MacDonald, a retired M.D. and board certified in Anatomic Pathology and Clinical Pathology. This revealing interview (1 of 3) covers many of the controversies associated with Lyme disease:

- Chronic Lyme disease
- Alzheimer's and Lyme disease: microscopy and culturing brain tissue
- How Borrelia changes and survives within the human host
- The many strains and variations in Borrelia, how this relates to flawed testing

The complete interview is available from The Arthroplasty Patient Foundation.
http://www.whyamistillsick.com/

And a specific library of current intelligence on biofilms:
http://www.biofilmcommunity.org/

And our non-profit web site, pls make an any-sized donation:
http://www.arthropatient.org/

Alan MacDonald's website Alzheimer Borreliosis 


Thank you Dr MacDonald for this fascinating video - in Plain English which even as non scientists we can easily understand.

Wednesday 17 July 2013

BORRELIA METAMORPHOSIS - NON SPIRAL FORMS - LYME DISEASE




Non Spiral forms of Borrelia Introduction Part i

Dr Alan MacDonald  ' non-spiral forms of Borrelia are just as real as spiral forms'

'Shape shifted Form Metamorphosis Non- spiral Borrelia in pdf form. The consequences of shape shifted Borrelia in the Diagnosis of Human Disease are self evident.

This is a link to his pdf slide presentation click here  


Monday 15 July 2013

POSTURAL TACHYCARDIA SYNDROME (PoTS) - AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM DYSFUNCTION

Increasingly I hear of cases where PoTS is linked to Lyme Disease and wanted to share this recent post from Joe Burrascano on Eurolyme. I am sure it will be of interest to those with PoTS, Lyme Disease and those with ME or CFS.

'Some neurological problems are from dysfunction, while others are from damage. Antibiotic treatments and supportive measures may go a long way toward improving or even totally clearing dysfunction and some damage, but in people with longstanding problems, some of the damage cannot be reversed by simply controlling the infection(s). In this group, infusions of intravenous gamma globulin (IVIG) as is given in cases of multiple sclerosis and CIDP (chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy) has been shown to improve significantly the symptoms in this group about 80% of the time.'


ASSESSING THE CHRONIC LYME PATIENT

DIAGNOSTIC TESTING

Because of the known immune dysfunction associated with late disseminated Lyme, serodiagnosis becomes less accurate, and the diagnosis may be missed. 

CLUES THAT LYME MAY BE PRESENT: Multisystem symptoms, any musculoskeletal pain, migratory symptoms, periodicity of symptoms with intensity that waxes and wanes, unexplained neurological symptoms and potential or known tick exposure.

HOW TO TEST: While serologic testing is always recommended, because it has a low sensitivity 1 and is an indirect test (just indicates potential past exposure), a Borrelia blood culture is essential due to the highly reliable results and because it can be a direct indicator of current infection.2

ASSOCIATED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY: B, T, and NK cell dysfunction has been described in patients with Lyme.

· T-cell function- the simplest and safest diagnostic measure is to test blood to see whether antibodies still exist for illnesses the patient has either previously had or to which he/she had been vaccinated (measles, pneumococci, hepatitis, etc.).

· B-cell function- Measure total IgG levels and IgG subclasses

· NK- cells- CD 57 cell counts may be depressed 

ASSOCIATED NEUROLOGICAL COMPLICATIONS

Borrelia infections can be associated with symptoms attributable to dysfunction and/or damage to the nervous system3. The more enigmatic manifestations can include intractable pain and dysautonomia.

NEUROLOGIC PAIN: Some of the most severe and difficult to control complaints of pain are associated with neuropathy, especially when it involves the fine unmyelinated cutaneous fibers. Such involvement is often missed but can easily be diagnosed by a simple skin biopsy you can do in your office. When properly stained, the count and morphology of these fibers can be assessed. Note that abnormalities here may also be associated with autonomic neuropathy (see below).

CLUES: Hypo or hyperesthesia of the affected area, lancinating pain as opposed to dull, tingling, sense of vibration, burning, hot and/or cold sensations, abnormal skin color or temperature and localized swelling each may indicate an underlying neurologic origin for the pain. 

TESTING: Electrodiagnostic studies such as EMG and NCV are for peripheral myelinated fibers. Do a skin biopsy to assess the integrity and count of fine unmyelinated cutaneous nerve fibers. Dysfunction of these will not show up on electrodiagnostic studies.

AUTONOMIC DYSFUNCTION

CLUES: Symptoms of dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system can include dizziness, fainting, urinary problems, sexual dysfunction, delayed gastric emptying and exercise intolerance.4 

TESTING: Tilt table test, orthostatic hypotension/POTS, heart rate variability, pupillary responses, sweat tests/QSART, gastric emptying study, urodynamics/ultrasound.

TREATMENT

· Antibiotic protocols individualized to the patient as recommended by a Lyme literate practitioner

· Intravenous Immune Globulin (IVIG) for 

o replacement for deficiencies in total IgG and for significant subclass deficiencies associated with recurrent, persistent or chronic infection

o treatment for associated neurologic conditions such as demyelination, neuropathy, autonomic neuropathy and neutrally mediated chronic pain syndromes5

· Compounded topical pharmaceuticals to safely control pain

REFERENCES

1. Stricker, BMJ 2007; 335 (7628): 1008)

2. Sapi, E. et. al. Int. J. Med. Sci. 2013; 10(4):362-376. doi: 10.7150/ijms.5698

3. Alaedini, A. et. al. Journal of Neuroimmunology. Volume 159, Issue 1 , Pages 192-195, February 2005

4. Mayo Clinic

5. Goebel, A. et. al. Ann Intern Med. 2010;152:152-158

Joseph J. Burrascano Jr. M.D.

Water Mill, NY USA



An interesting presentation on Lyme Disease with a PoTS diagnosis is here on Lyme Disease Action website.

A support group for patients with PoTS is here