Posted by bleauberry on March 8, 2009, at 9:18:48
In reply to Re: Samento for lyme disease ,question? » bleauberry, posted by Phillipa on March 7, 2009, at 20:14:54
> With psch issues part of disease how did you make out at lyme docs? Love Phillipa
It was interesting. Labs are "suggestive" of Lyme with a couple bands. History and symptoms are "highly suggestive". In his experience, psych issues are more pronounced when yeast (Candida) is also involved. The guy is a walking library on infectious disease of all kinds. Amazing to watch him speak.
Anyway, the only concrete diagnostic tool is a trial of antibiotic to see what happens. He had to balance a few things...being very cautious with me being sensitive, being very cautious with a psych history, not wanting to use too wimpy of an antiobiotic, not wanting to use too wimpy of a dose.
The starting point is Tetracycline 500mg once every two days, instead of the usual 500mg 3 times per day. He says 2/3 of patients start to feel better fairly quickly, 1/3 get a lot worse. Either way, it is diagnostic. He knows how to read the reactions and knows what they mean, whether it is Lyme or whether it is one of the other 20 pathogens in a Lyme bite, or whether it is a co-infection of more than one, and if Candida is involved also. He said if all I get is some heartburn but nothing else, I do not have an infection.
The Tetracycline is potentially productive, but the primary purpose at this point is diagnostic. He has to see what will happen to know where we stand and where to go. He had me stop all supplements of any kind two weeks prior, so that we can see clearly what Tetracycline on its own does without anything else clouding the picture.
40% of people have false negatives or false positives on Lyme tests, so they are failry useless by themselves. It is the history, tick exposure, symptoms, and response to blind antibiotic trial that do the diagnosis. A good response or a bad response is diagnostic. A neutral response means to look somewhere else for the cause of the symptoms.
He said to start with, being cautious, we'll kill some Lyme, take a day rest, kill some more, take a day rest, and build up over time. The pulsing strategy itself is actually a very effective technique. Lyme likes to go in hiding when it is on the defense. It can be tricked into coming out of hiding, and then wham. Just when it thinks it is safe to come out again, wham.
First dose last night. I didn't feel anything from it until about 2 hours later when I got very sleepy. It reminded me of how Zyprexa used to knock me out. I slept almost 10 hours and could have slept longer. Very sleepy. Very tired. The usual morning anxiety was nearly gone. Not quite as depressed as the last few days.
Very cool doctor. He told me what to do in an emergency, and had me repeat it to him three times. He told me to call him daily with updates...worse, better, nothing, whatever. He spends a lot of time on the phone with patients.
One thing I found interesting was that one of the more effective meds he uses, when a med is needed, is Gabapentin. For depression, anxiety, pain, and sleep. Most people don't seem to talk much about Gabapentin and I don't think it has a great reputation generally, but this doctor finds it a very useful med.
poster:bleauberry
thread:884045
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090304/msgs/884380.html