{"id":11777,"date":"2018-08-06T06:24:17","date_gmt":"2018-08-06T11:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/?p=11777"},"modified":"2021-07-28T22:07:51","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T03:07:51","slug":"chronic-lyme-stealth-organisms-and-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wholehealthchicago.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/06\/chronic-lyme-stealth-organisms-and-you","title":{"rendered":"Chronic Lyme, Stealth Organisms, And You"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over the past several months I\u2019ve been reading memoirs of patients with chronic Lyme disease. When the victim is a celebrity (Ally Hilfiger, Kelly Osbourne), she\u2019ll land a contract and a book tour with a mainstream publisher. When the victim just lives down the block but believes she has something important to say, she\u2019ll self-publish through companies like lulu.com. Currently, there are more than 1,000 titles on amazon containing the word \u201cLyme\u201d and more than 100 on lulu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The titles of the first two lulu books set the trend: Surviving Lyme<\/em><\/a> by Janice Fairbairn and Lyme Recovery<\/em><\/a> by Darcy J. Williamson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To me, most interesting of the several I\u2019ve explored is Sick<\/em> by Porochista Khakpour, a very bright American-Iranian novelist (born in Tehran, raised in LA, educated at Sarah Lawrence) who, despite devastating experiences both with chronic Lyme<\/a> and the US healthcare system, does survive both and lives to tell the tale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Khakpour and virtually all the memoir-type books have in common is the hazardous relationship between a severely symptomatic patient with an undiagnosed (or un-diagnosable) illness and the brick wall of the medical profession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early days of stealth illnesses
<\/strong>As a physician, I first encountered this decades ago with chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. Despite thorough diagnostic testing, no specific illness ever turned up. A variety of viruses, parasites, and bacteria would appear on a Hercule Poirot-inspired list of suspects, but specific treatment was nonexistent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worse, the patient was often dismissed as a hypochondriac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To this day, there\u2019s no gold-standard diagnostic test for chronic fatigue syndrome. True, some patients have evidence of Epstein Barr, but others don\u2019t. Same with candida, parasites, herpes, and the list goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some truly healthy people have positive blood tests for Epstein Barr. Does a doctor treat it? Not if she\u2019s following the \u201cFirst, do no harm\u201d rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chronic Lyme disease is the chronic fatigue syndrome of our time
<\/strong>No doctor in the US would argue about the existence of acute Lyme. You\u2019re in a Lyme disease area, it\u2019s summer, you\u2019re walking through tall grass DEET-less, and a few days later you have the flu. Only half of Lyme victims even remember a tick bite and only half have the bull\u2019s eye rash. Sensible doctors (like myself, of course) phone in a course of  antibiotics and that usually clears up the acute Lyme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when acute Lyme disease is not treated, the causative organism, Borrelia burgdorferi<\/em> <\/a>(B. burgdorferi<\/em>), enters and spreads throughout your body, where it may or may not cause trouble. Listen up, because the \u201cmay not\u201d is very important<\/u>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B. burgdorferi<\/em> joins a rather lengthy list of infections that, once acquired, very likely live inside you for the remainder of your incarnation. To put it bluntly, they\u2019ll finally be destroyed when you\u2019re cremated. If you prefer burial, the infection may survive forever. Viruses have been found in mummies worldwide<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These fellow-traveler infections are called stealth organisms, and the moniker is an apt one. You\u2019re probably familiar with many of these already, but let\u2019s review. To me, the prototype stealth infection is the chickenpox virus, also called varicella zoster virus (VZV)<\/a> or herpesvirus type 3<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other stealth infections include mycoplasma<\/a>, Epstein-Barr<\/a>, tuberculosis<\/a> (if you\u2019ve had a positive result on a skin test, there\u2019s dormant TB inside you), Bartonella<\/a>, Babesia<\/a>, cytomegalovirus<\/a>, hepatitis<\/a>, and many others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you pay special heed to chickenpox (yes, lowly chickenpox) you\u2019ll understand more about chronic Lyme. And, sadly enough, you\u2019ll probably know more than most US physicians, who dismiss chronic Lyme as merely the latest fad diagnosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stealth ability of chickenpox
<\/strong>You get chickenpox as a kid. Mom applies some calamine lotion to dry the scabs. Your low-grade fever inactivates the virus and after a few days you get well. But then the virus, undeterred, migrates into part of a nerve and becomes dormant (nods off to sleep).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can remain dormant for decades, but often when something stressful happens in your life it pops awake. (\u201cDid you call me?\u201d) Maybe it\u2019s a bad flu or notification of an IRS audit, but something occurs that reactivates the virus. It then travels down its nerve and comes out your skin as–you guessed it–shingles. A friend of mine had a rotten tree branch fall on his shoulder and this unpleasantness stirred the virus awake. His subsequent shingles appeared precisely along the line of his injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you get shingles you\u2019ll call your doctor, she\u2019ll prescribe an antiviral, and the virus will return to dormancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other infections can also awaken after a big sleep. When I was a resident, I worked at a Nashville VA hospital on the TB ward. The patients were painfully similar: malnourished, down-and-out alcoholics whose dreadful physical condition allowed their long-dormant TB bacillus to awaken, usually starting in their lungs and spreading elsewhere. They\u2019d probably first acquired TB as children and it had lain dormant until their profound self-neglect allowed reactivation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Syphilis (a bacterial first cousin of Lyme, by the way) may stay dormant for decades, though its presence can be shown by a positive result on an RPR test.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chronic Lyme is a stealth organism
<\/strong>Chronic Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses are all classic stealth organisms. Lyme-carrying ticks are everywhere. Since deer are major tick carriers, you\u2019d think every deer hunter in the US would have Lyme. At this moment, there are two chipmunks gamboling on my front steps. Since they\u2019re basically cute little Lyme carriers, should I bite the bullet and blow them away?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the jillions of ticks out there and the thousands of square miles of exposed human skin, it\u2019s certainly possible that (a) you\u2019ve already been bitten by an infected tick (the average age for acquiring Lyme is 11), but (b) your immune system protected you from getting a full-blown case of acute Lyme. However, you now (c) harbor B. burgdorferi<\/em> in a dormant state in your body, which (d) will likely never develop into the misery of chronic Lyme disease, unless\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be continued next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the interim, be well,
David Edelberg, MD<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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