Q&A on the Lyme disease treatment

We were first asked to find a treatment for Lyme disease in the fall of 2016. Our initial treatment helped these early clients, partly because it got rid of borrelia toxins, but we didn't have a full psychoimmunology bacteria eradication / immunity treatment until 2024. Our new treatment finished phase 1 clinical trials in April of 2024.

Cause
Lyme disease is caused by a spirochetes bacteria from the genus Borrelia. The disease is carried by a tick, and about 30,000 new cases every year are reported to the CDC (Center for Disease Control) in the USA alone. Often the initial infection site can be seen on the skin, but the main problem with this disease is that the symptoms can vary quite widely, making initial diagnosis difficult.

Is there Lyme disease in Australia?
Although reportedly there is no Lyme carriers in Australia, we were quite surprised by how many of our Australian colleagues actually had Lyme disease. Their most obvious symptoms were pain in their joints and musculature, which our psychoimmunology treatment immediately eliminated. How did they get infected? Perhaps they got it from travel overseas, or perhaps there are tick or other vectors not yet identified in Australia.

Lyme symptoms
Stage 1: Early symptoms of Lyme disease usually happen within 3 to 30 days after a tick bite. This is called early localized disease. This stage of disease has a limited set of symptoms.

  • A circular rash is a common sign of Lyme disease. It may become clear in the center and look like a target or bull's-eye, or stay solid red. The rash often feels warm to the touch, but usually not painful or itchy. Up to 30% of people don;'t develop or notice any rash.
  • Fever.
  • Headache.
  • Extreme tiredness, fatigue, malaise, and lethargy (you might feel like you have the flu)
  • Muscle or joint pain that moves around (is migratory). That means you might feel it in different places on different days. Typically, no redness or swelling accompanies the pain.
  • Loss of appetite
  • Swollen lymph nodes. You may notice swollen lymph nodes anywhere on your body, not just near the area of your tick bite.

Stage 2: These symptoms often show up within 3 to 10 weeks after a tick bite. It is called early disseminated disease. Stage 2 is often more serious and widespread, as the infection has started to move beyond the site of your tick bite to other parts of your body such as your heart, brain, or spinal cord. Lyme disease that has moved to the brain is sometimes referred to as Lyme neuroborreliosis, or neurological Lyme disease. Stage 2 may include the stage 1 symptoms and the following:
  • More than one rash on other parts of the body (a sign very suggestive of Lyme disease)
  • Pain that may come and go and move around the body, in joints, tendons, muscles, and bones
  • Pain that starts from the back and hips and spreads to the legs.
  • Pain, numbness or weakness in the hands or feet.
  • Headache, neck pain, neck stiffness, and sensitivity to light and sound caused by inflammation of the brain and spinal cord (meningitis)
  • Numbness, weakness, or tingling in the arms and legs (radiculoneuritis)
  • Muscle weakness on one or both sides of the face; drooping on one or both sides of the face; difficulty closing an eyelid (facial palsy)
  • Painful swelling in tissues of the eye or eyelid, or vision loss due to immune-system activity in eye nerves
  • Inflammation of the heart (carditis) that can cause heart palpitations, irregular heartbeat, dizziness, shortness of breath, or fainting, due to immune system activity in the heart. (If you are experiencing any of these heart symptoms, seek immediate medical care.)

Stage 3: Symptoms usually begin 2 to 12 months after a tick bite. This stage is called late disseminated disease. You may have symptoms from the earlier stages and other symptoms.
  • In the United States, the most common condition of this stage is arthritis in large joints, particularly the knees ("Lyme arthritis"). Pain, swelling or stiffness may last for a long time. Or the symptoms may come and go.
  • In Europe the common type of Lyme disease can cause a skin condition called acrodermatitis chronic atrophicans. The skin on the backs of the hands and tops of the feet get discolored and swell. It also may show up over the elbows and knees. More-serious cases may cause damage to tissues or joints. This skin condition may show up many months to many years after a tick bite.
  • Arthritis with joint pain, warmth, and swelling that may be constant or come and go. Lyme disease-related arthritis typically occurs in one joint, usually the knee or another large joint, though it can also occur in more than one joint.
  • Concentration issues, brain fog, and memory issues
  • Nerve pain that feels like tingling, numbness, burning, or stabbing in the hands and feet (peripheral neuropathy)
  • Anxiety, depression, mood swings, and other neuropsychiatric issues
  • Sleep disturbances such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, need for extended sleep, or unrefreshing sleep.
  • You may also experience a worsening of earlier Lyme disease symptoms.

What are chronic Lyme symptoms?
10 to 20% of Lyme disease patients who have completed a course of antibiotic treatment continue to have symptoms, often termed 'post-Lyme syndrome', such as severe fatigue, sleep disturbance, unconsciousness, and cognitive difficulties, with these symptoms being severe in about 2% of cases (US National Institute of Health).

Common chronic Lyme symptoms are:
  • Arthritis that begins with Lyme disease and doesn't improve.
  • Body aches and pains.
  • Constant or frequent tiredness.
  • Memory complaints.

Does our psychoimmunology treatment work for people who have long-term, chronic symptoms? The answer is "it depends". If the symptoms are just from borrelia bacteria, this treatment will work very well. However, if some (or all) symptoms are actually from other pathogens, such as candida (caused by long-term antibiotic use), other tick pathogens, or even from some other unrelated illnesses, there won't be an improvement in those symptoms. Fortunately, in our testing so far, most clients respond very well to simply getting rid of the borrelia bacteria. As we see more clients, we'll be able to get a better handle on the statistics of these secondary diseases.

Borrelia antibiotic resistance
How does borrelia resist antibiotic treatment in some people? The borrelia spirochete has three morphological forms - spirochetes, round bodies, and biofilm-like colonies. The latter two forms occur when the bacteria is in a hostile environment, such as the body of someone taking antibiotics. It is likely that these secondary forms are the reason why chronic Lyme is so difficult to eliminate with antibiotics. Any successful treatment would have to be able to eliminate its secondary forms to be sure that the host does not get symptom return when the bacteria shifts back to the spirochete form. Fortunately, the psychoimmunology approach automatically eliminates all forms of the borrelia bacteria.

Lab tests for Lyme
Oddly, there is no really reliable blood or other test for Lyme disease at this time. Current tests have significant percentages of false positive or false negative results. The commonly used ELISA test is not a reliable indicator for many Lyme patients - although one can do antibody tests for the disease, this is only considered reliable in the later stages of the disease, after sufficient immune response in the patient has occurred. Another problem is that current antibody tests cannot tell the difference between a past infection and a new infection. The Western blot test tends to be more sensitive, but it still misses 20 percent or more of Lyme cases.

In our clinic we use an in-house simple experiential psychobiology diagnostic marker for the disease.

Proactive immunization
As mentioned earlier, one of the advantages of the psychoimmunology approach is that it also confers future immunity to Lyme disease. In fact, it can be used proactively, i.e., it can be used as an immunization technique before a person is exposed to infected ticks. However, this won't make a person immune to other pathogens a tick might be carrying. At this time, we don't suggest using our Lyme treatment prophylactically, because there are no symptoms of the disease to measure treatment success against and so we cannot be sure that the treatment was fully completed.

References