A person might have a different diagnosis for their neurological symptoms, other than Lyme disease, however most often if asked, your doctor likely will tell you the cause of your diagnosis is unknown, but in the doctor’s professional opinion, it definitely is not Lyme disease. However, there is an increasing amount of clinical reports of improvements in people with MS, ALS, and other well-known neurological illnesses, following effective treatment of Lyme microbes and the damage they cause. Still, mainstream research is lacking to correlate Lyme disease with those conditions. Time and research is needed to correlate conclusively that these common diagnoses are directly or indirectly caused by the hidden infections from tick or vector-borne bacteria, most often collectively called Lyme disease.
This article is for people with confirmed or suspected cases of neurological Lyme disease that may or may not have the same symptoms as other illnesses.
Symptoms Common in Neurological Lyme
Lyme rage, irritability, personality changes, emotional instability, seizures, tremors, hypothermia, migraines, headaches, POTS, vertigo, dizziness, neurocardial symptoms, not to mention cognitive dysfunction in the form of brain fog, brain fatigue, memory loss, dyslexia, systemic dystonia, paralysis and attention deficit, and many more symptoms are maladies often experienced by people with neurological Lyme disease. Some of these symptoms are also common to Multiple Sclerosis, ALS, Muscular Dystrophies, Alzheimer’s, and many other illnesses, because very often tick-borne microbial infections are found in the brain of each of these illnesses.
There are definite, and scientifically recognized causes of these many symptoms. This article will discuss the causes and new treatment options for people with Borrelia and coinfection-induced neurological problems.
The multiple strains of Borrelia spirochetes (spiral-shaped bacteria), most associated with Lyme disease, are closely related to the spirochete of Syphilis, another malady that was known in the medical community to cause predictable neurological problems. Other co-infections are always present in the brain or affecting the brain, such as Bartonella sp., Candida sp., etc.
Borrelia Are Shape-Shifters
One might say that Lyme spirochetes are the genetically-enhanced cousin of syphilis. Both are able to shape-shift in order to escape antibiotic treatment efforts. They are called pleomorphic bacteria, being able to change its shape to evade treatment measures. (Lida Mattman, PhD).
Research has been reported that within 20 minutes of infection from the bite of an infected insect the Lyme spirochetes can reach the brain. When this happens, very predictable problems begin to occur.
Ammonia Toxicity in the Brain
One of the very predicable problems to occur is the accumulation of ammonia in the brain. The spirochetes of Syphilis and LD are known produce urease enzymes which cause localized ammonia to accumulate (hyperammonemia) in the brain. The Lyme-induced ammonia causes inflammation and swelling of the astrocytes (brain cells) leading to numerous subsequent neurological symptoms.
The presence of the spirochetes and ammonia in the brain also cause the blood-brain-barrier to leak, allowing larger molecules to enter the protected inner sanctum of the brain. The brain essentially registers these substances, the increased swelling of the brain cells, and the excessive alkalinity of the ammonia, as a brain trauma. On MRI of the brain, longstanding Lyme encephalopathy can present like a classic traumatic brain injury from a car accident or other physical injury to the brain.
The prefrontal cortex, frontal, and temporal lobes, which are largely responsible for working memory and executive functions are most susceptible to alterations in brain wave patterns caused by these bacteria-induced insults. Random, often unexplainable neurological symptoms often are the result of these irritants.
Lyme Disease: The Perfect Storm
All of life’s challenges can combine in “perfect storms” of issues, which can create spontaneous worsening of neurological symptoms. Challenges to the body, such as how much protein a person has eaten that day, a shift in the barometric pressure as weather fronts change, excessive salt intake causing increase fluid retention leading to increased brain edema in localized areas of the brain, poor dietary choices, hormonal shifts, emotional upsets, mental strain, physical strain, not to mention the harmful effects of pharmaceutical or natural treatments that are not working in synergy with the body. The list is endless of possible life challenges that can aggravate the already hypersensitive and irritated brain tissues.
When it comes to treatment, the challenges are just as diverse. For the lucky few who have enough inherent integrity in their body the lowering or complete elimination of the invading bacterial population might be enough to allow complete and lasting health, in spite of the fact that they will always have the bacteria as part of the background microbial population. Antibiotics will only create a lowering of the bacterial population due to the known fact that all bacteria mutate to avoid these drug treatments. These mutated bacteria may never cause disease again, or they may remain silent for months to years, only to cause symptoms again when the conditions in the body are weakened due to life stressors. This is the classic form of remission. Patients are often told by their doctor that the infection is gone, due to the absence of a positive lab antibody or PCR test, however these tests are widely known to be inaccurate, creating false-negative results, even in the worst stages of the infection.
New Discovery May Lead to More Rapid Results
While the last thirty years of medical treatment of Lyme disease has been chasing the newest antibiotic or antibiotic cocktail, the latest being Disulfiram, for many these treatments have lead to years of worse symptoms with the promise of cure which often seems to elude all but the lucky few who get early treatment or happen to respond to their treatment.
A new clinical hypothesis is being researched at the Biologix Center for Optimum Health, in Franklin, Tennessee, revolving around the ability of bacteriophages (viruses that only infect bacteria) to specifically target and kill 100% of the invading bacteria. The use of bacteriophages in medicine is not new, however the working hypothesis at the Biologix Center, that every bacterial infection enters the body with its own infection of a bacteriophage that only infects that specific type of bacteria, is new.
It is estimated that bacteriophages most often only kill 40% of the type of bacteria they infect. The research underway at the Biologix Center is the brainchild of Dr. David Jernigan, D.N.M, D.C., who developed a new technology called Induce Native Phage Therapy (INPT). The idea that makes INPT so exciting is the potential of causing the bacteriophages in to seek out and kill 100% of the invading bacteria of any type. The INPT technology is being implemented with very encouraging improvements in many patients who had no improvement with any previous type of natural or pharmaceutical treatment.
The amazing thing is that phages do not need your body to participate in their killing of the microbe, nor do the phages damage the friendly bacteria in you body, as is seen with antibiotic treatment.
Two of the more recent dramatic improvements seen with INPT at the Biologix Center have involved ladies who had been confined to the wheelchair, now able to stand up, one is now able to walk around the house for up to ten minutes before needing to sit down. Both of these people were previously diagnosed with MS, yet were found to have neurological infections that once addressed with INPT rapidly cleared, with never before seen speed of improvement. Their challenge now is to build the muscle strength they need to sustain their new found ability to move.
Lyme Microbes are Like Termites in Your House
For the chronically ill person who is suffering horrible neurological symptoms in spite of every treatment and everything they try, it is sad but true that by itself, simply killing bacteria will often not result in restoring the quality of life neurological function you seek, due to the neurological damage caused by the infection. A good analogy would be seen in having termites eating the wood of your house. You can kill the termites, however just killing them does nothing to repair the damage they caused in the wood. Because of this the Biologix Center incorporates a multi-prong treatment approach to not only strive to eliminate all the various primary infections, but also to help the body repair the damage.
Yes the bacterial population needs to be addressed…from a overall body integrity perspective. However, more fundamental to this is the need to shift what has happened to the brain waves that regulate every single system and cell in your body. The brain waves control and regulate every chemical and cellular interaction in the body. Getting the brain waves optimized in combination with strategic elimination and correction of the causes of Lyme-induced problems, is the only way to help restore the body’s ability to regulate itself correctly and restore the desired quality of life.
The ultimate treatment goal must be to restore optimum structural integrity and function to the brain. All of the bottom-line causes of neurological issues need to be addressed sequentially.
- The source of the ammonia, the bacteria need to be brought under the control of the body. This is much easier now that we are incorporating INPT.
- The urease enzymes that are causing excessive ammonia to be produced need to be blocked.
- The ammonia itself needs to be neutralized, so that it cannot continue to irritate the brain and cause swelling, and draining the brain’s energy production.
- The blood-brain-barrier must be repaired so that it no longer allows particles to reach the brain that were never supposed to do so.
- The harmful toxins from the environment and from various causes must be detoxified and source-eliminated to remove accessory irritants.
- The brain tissues must be nutritionally supported and the brain’s mitochondrial energy production restored.
- The structural issues that are now there from illness must be addressed.
- Address all of the Lyme-induced epigenetic miasms and the Lyme-activated SNP mutation issues.
- Finally, the brain waves themselves which have been stuck in various ways need to be assessed and relaxed, so that normal regulation of the mind and body can be restored.
The old adage, “A chain is only as good as it’s weakest link,” is the perfect analogy to healing the body from the ravages of Lyme disease.
Why Chasing Pills and Remedies Likely Won’t Work
The bullet point list above is just the most basic issues that a doctor needs to address in a person with chronic Lyme disease. This cannot be taught in blog posts. When every conceivable system of the body has been corrupted by this dastardly illness, its ultimate healing cannot be placed in the hands of the one suffering. Thinking every potential problem can be detailed into a blog that says, “Take these supplements and you will be well,” is like buying a book called “Brain Surgery for Dummies!” It would be similar to calling the Mayo Clinic and asking their doctors to just figure out what is uniquely wrong with your multi-system illness and have the doctor tell you what to do over the phone or in an email.
I would estimate that nearly 100% of our patients spent many years and many thousands of dollars on medications and natural remedies in their attempt to get well. Lyme disease has been in pandemic proportions for years now, and everyone has a “online cure” or “the online protocol to end all protocols.” There are the lucky ones who follow this or that online, “DoctorGoogle” advise and get well. There are many more people who have seen 30-100+ doctors and healers of all types, chased every home remedy, bought various healing machines, and still suffer day in and day out. In my opinion, people (and doctors) often compound their problems by taking essentially random supplements and medicines with no concept of their global effect on the biochemistry of their body.
Your ability to return to health often requires a doctor to be the detectives that we were trained to be, although the vast majority of doctors are more like cooks and chefs, just following a cookbook recipe that they use with minor variations for everyone with the label, “Lyme disease.”
This is why I consider the doctors of the Biologix Center for Optimum Health, the Wellness Physicians of the 21st Century! Our doctors are trained to dig deep, investigate, innovate, and use the maximum applied effort and technology to seek out and help the body restore it’s perfect condition once more.
I recognize that this is self-promotion, however when you have something unique, especially when compared to the standard healthcare delivery in this country, it must be contrasted. The standard medical care to to place all your hopes and dreams of health on a collection of drugs. The doctor essentially says, “Here, take this and come back in three months. You then wait month after month, wondering why you feel so horrible, wondering if it is the right thing to keep doing, wondering if it is working and that is why you feel so badly, or if you are reacting to the drugs and that is why you feel so bad, waiting to see if your lab test results are better, which even if they are better then why don’t you feel better? Contrast this to our doctors, who work on your body at least an hour every day of the week (M-F), dynamically seeking out and problem solving every issue that can be found. Healing crisis and progressive worsening is minimized by constantly adapting what they are doing each day to how the body is shifting in response to all of the treatments and therapies.
Health is not the absence of bacteria. Health is the condition where the body’s systems can oversee and control every type of microbe that enters the body, preventing it from causing disease. True health care seeks to restore this control to the body, instead of depending on the sledgehammer effects of antibiotics, drugs, and I.V. drips. The point is not to get to the point where high-powered drugs are necessary, just to barely manage the symptoms. The point is to enable the body to heal quickly on its own, whereby lasting health prevails.
Treat the bugs with antibiotics and stronger bugs will follow. Treat to completely eliminate the bugs with INPT as well as restore the optimum human condition and health will follow.