SYPHILIS LESSONS FOR LYME DISEASE

For the past 30 years Dr. Alan MacDonald has worked to revive the Model of Syphilis and draw attention to clinical and laboratory parallels between 

Treponema pallidum infection and Lyme Borreliosis. 

Dr. MacDonald hypothesized that Alzheimer's disease might be the late neural borreliosis equivalent of General paresis of the insane. 

He further hypothesized that syphilitic Tabes Dorsalis might have a "spinal cord only" neurodegenerative equivalent In borreliosis, namely Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease). 

He hypothesized that syphilitic Temporal arteritis might have a Borrelia equivalent in Temporal arteritis of unknown cause.

 In addition to the ongoing Alzheimer's studies, which would occupy the remainder of his research career, Alan made basic new observations in pathobiology. He was the first to publish evidence for a cystic form of Bb, granular forms of Bb, and cell wall deficient forms. 

Although officially retired now, Dr. MacDonald has started a research collaboration with Dr. Eva Sapi of University of New Haven.

Dr MacDonald and many other distinguished researchers and doctors will be presenting at this years ILADS Conference in Boston details here  

Dr MacDonald's hypothesis are slowly becoming acknowledged and researched elsewhere we have a lot to thank him for.

Judith Miklossy has also found Borrelia in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's here

Dr Martz found patients with ALS linked to Borrelia and with appropriate antibiotics some recovered and some stabalised  here 

Three cases of neuroborreliosis misdiagnosed as giant cell arteritis.  here 

Link to Dr MacDonald's website here

link to Borreliosis Spirochetes imaged from Human Blood -- Case studies  here  

SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT OF MOTOR NEURONES DISEASE, ALS, LOU GEHRIG'S

Dr. David Martz -- unedited footage from Bev Feldman on Vimeo.

Dr Martz was diagnosed with Motor Neurones Disease ( Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease) in 2003.

Above he talks about his journey in being tested for Lyme Disease but repeated negative serology until eventually a positive DNA test in Urine.

He was treated with aggressive IV antibiotics, he says the change was dramatic.

'Within 1 month the body pain that had required oxycodone had disappeared, the arthritis that had required Intramuscular Methatroxate had totally disappeared.

Within 1 month my energy went from half an hour to with 4 to 5 hours stamina.

By 2 months I was able to cross my legs without using my arms to assist them.

By 3 months I could get up out of a chair myself without anyone having to pull me up.

By 6 months my Neurological findings had disappeared.

I did not return to absolute complete normality but did return to about 70% of my base line self and was subsequently able to open a new practice to see if my response to antibiotics might be shared by others stricken down with the usually fatal diagnosis of ALS ( MND). 

Rocky Mountain Chronic Disease Specialists was opened in 2005 and we saw approximately 900 patients over the next 2 1/2 years.

 About 100 of them had ALS ( MND) we did identify that some patients did respond to antibiotic therapy regardless of the positivity or negativity of their Lyme Disease testing by any laboratories.

We found about 15% of people clearly got functionally better and probably 20- 30% had their disease stabilized, without progressing further.

This is unheard of and we are in the process of preparing this information for publication.'

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An earlier post on Dr Martz here

RECOVERY FROM ALS, MOTOR NEURONE, LOU GEHRIG, MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS, PARKINSON'S

Congratulations to David Martz, MD the 2011 recipient of the Invisible Disabilities Association Research Honors Award.

In this video Dr Martz touches on his personal story of being diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) known in the UK as Motor Neurone Disease or Lou Gehrig's Disease in 2003.

In time he realised that some of his arthritis symptoms could indicate an underlying condition of Lyme Disease although initial testing came back negative. However one test eventually came back DNA positive for Lyme Disease and he was treated aggressively on long term antibiotics making an amazing recovery.

I had the privileged of meeting Dr Martz at the London ILADS conference in 2010 and listening to his personal story - as he described many symptoms I had also experienced I found my self nodding in agreement. My diagnosis was not the same but I was surprised how many of my symptoms were as he described. Arthritis and muscle weakness, difficulties climbing stairs, difficulties lifting even small items, difficulties raising from a chair/bed, difficulties rolling over in bed or walking across a room, swallowing problems of course that just didn't describe that constant unremitting pain.

Dr Martz recovered and opened a clinic in Colorado where with a group of doctors they treated 850 patients with possible Chronic Lyme Disease many of them with a diagnosis of MS (Multiple Sclerosis) Parkinson's and ALS or Motor Neurone Disease.

At the London ILADS conference he discussed his research findings which he is hoping to publish shortly.

From the Invisible Disabilities Association here this is a list of what he is hoping to publish, they need to be disseminated far and wide among patients and doctors dealing with these Neurological diseases :-

8-year follow-up case report of antibiotic-responsive ALS-like illness; 

Objective functional improvement in 15 patients with ALS-like disease; 

Antibiotic-responsive Lyme-like illness in 40 rural Coloradoans; 

Outcomes of 90 ALS patients treated with extended antibiotic therapy; 

Case report of antibiotic response of biopsy-proven pulmonary sarcoidosis; 

Minimal complications of extended antibiotic therapy in 330 patients; and, 

A clinical study of 850 patients treated with extended antibiotic therapy for “Chronic Lyme Disease”. 

Thank you Dr Martz for your work in helping others at a time in life when most of us would sit back and enjoy some peace and relaxation and thank you to your lovely wife for her patience and support in helping you in your efforts.

MOTOR NEURONS/AMYOTROPHIC LATERAL SCLEROSIS/LOU GEHRIG'S DISEASE/LYME DISEASE

From: Martin Atkinson-Barr (mcmab@peoplepc.com)Subject: Successful treatment of late-stage ALSNewsgroups: sci.med.diseases.lymeDate: 2001-05-21 12:01:10 PST

http://www.lymenet.de/indexordner/ials.htm


I am pleased to announce the following:
Since April 1999, 150 ALS patients have been tested for Lyme disease with a panoply of tests - incl Western Blot, LUAT, PCR. Not one patient has been found to be negative across all tests. Many have been shown to be PCR positive.


The prognosis and disease development of these patients is entirely consistent with ALS.


Treatment with oral antibiotic therapy has shown mixed results. In particular the use of conventional antibiotics (esp. doxycycline) has been associated with deterioration of ALS patients. In one case the patient rapidly succumbed. In earlier stage ALS patients there is some evidence for improvement, with restoration of speech in two patients and some reported easier swallowing, when treated with oral metronidazole or tinidazole.


The reactivity of ALS patients to Lyme tests has been previously reported .
In the course of the past 9 weeks a patient (body weight 125lbs, 66 years of age) with advanced ALS symptoms has been treated aggressively with IV metronidazole + conventional antibiotics (Biaxin initially) at doses of 500mg tid metronidazole IV and 500mg Biaxin bid orally. The diagnosis of ALS was made at the Mayo clinic. The patient was admitted in respiratory failure with tongue fasciculations, weakness in the right arm. The immediate prognosis was poor and the attending physician expected the patient to expire within 24 hours. The patient was ventilated. In the course of 7 weeks of the above therapy the patient has improved and is now ambulatory and off of ventilation using only occasional nasal oxygen. On the IV therapy the tongue fasciculations disappeared.


After 7 weeks the patient was taken off of the IV meds and treated with only oral tetracycline (500mg qid). On this treatment the tongue fasciculations returned. The IV therapy was reinstated with IV Rocephin replacing the oral Biaxin and the tongue fasciculations ceased. The patient continues to improve on a daily basis.


Tentative conclusions:
The etiologic agent of ALS is Borrelia burgdorferi.


Effective treatment of late stage ALS is possible with aggressive antibiotic therapy that must include metronidazole. Other researchers have recently reported success in treating early stage ALS with antibiotic therapy.
ALS patients should not be treated with simple "textbook" antibiotic therapy which does not include a nitroimidazole.


This therapy should be considered experimental at this stage.


Regards
Martin Atkinson-Barr PhD
(physician e-mails only please, I cannot reply to every patient e-mail - it would be too many - but physicians who want to ask me detailed questions will be able to contact me and help multiple patients)


From: Martin Atkinson-Barr (mcmab@peoplepc.com) Subject: Re: Successful treatment of late-stage ALS Newsgroups: sci.med.diseases.lyme Date: 2001-05-21 21:16:29 PST


Let us be clear how I come up with the figure of 150.
When I published my work on metronidazole in Lyme around 20 patients contacted me and said they had Lyme AND ALS.


Once I had decided there may be a connection between the diseases I encouraged every ALS patient I came across, and a few physicians to test for Lyme. All told that is about 30. This is the most important group for they were unselected. There were NO negatives in this group and for the most part they were either IgG or IgM Western Blot positive, mostly to CDC criteria (which is over strict and ignores the 39kDa line)


Dr Nick Harris has been sending on to me all of the ALS patients that have contacted him who were positive. These patients I questioned closely to determine if they had a clinical picture of ALS. All did. There have been around 20.


When my website was up (thanks to the ISP it was lost) around another 80 ALS patients contacted me with their results, all positive. No ALS patient has ever been in contact with me who is negative. There must be some.
If we were to take 150 Lyme patients we would be VERY surprised to have 150 positives, more like 100. However many of the above were pre-selected (why would you contact me if you were diagnosed ALS but Lyme negative, I would be snake oil.).


BUT, if the diseases were independent, we would expect a MAXIMUM of 100 cases in the whole of the US, so 150 becomes a significant number.
Now, those patients who were diagnosed ALS and tested Lyme positive carried on to develop the sequelae of ALS. Last Thursday we lost Dean Chioles who has a web page at http://www.shoptown.com/dean/ . Note that he was diagnosed with Lyme in 1998, before I published anything on Lyme.


We should also remember: Brian Pierson and Katherine Crowe who we also lost, both Lyme positive. Brian was 43 years old or so.
Now there have been 5 papers that describe clinically diagnosed ALS patients with Lyme reactive serologies (including the Halperin paper which finds a statistically significant number of Bb positive patients with ALS) and one letter by Mandell, Steere et. al. NEJM 1989;320:255-6 which found NO Bb antibodies in any ALS patients.


The responsibility is now with Mandell, Steere et. al. to come forward and explain how they can find NO Lyme positive ALS patients when I can find them so easily and even ALS patients themselves can see the connection.
How about it Dr Steere, this is an open venue? Perhaps one of the Yale workers will read this and we can enter into a debate that will explain why this connection has been stalled for 12 years.


With best regards to all.
Dr Martin Atkinson-Barr


Related Information
The ALS/Lyme Page Severe cases of Lyme disease can be misdiagnosed as ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.

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I have long been interested in Dr Martz story of recovery from Motor Neurons and was privilege to hear him present at the ILADS conference in London 2010. not only did he present on his story of recovery but about his findings after he opened a clinic specialising in treating Multiple Sclerosis patients, Motor Neurons patients/Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis/Lou Gehrig's disease, Parkinson's and Lyme Disease patients.



Earlier posts about Dr Martz can be found by entering Martz into the search box or by clicking here