Many patients get Lyme Disease each year and Lyme Disease Antibiotics are the most commonly accepted form of treatment. Estimates run anywhere from 300,000 to 1,000,000 cases per year in the United States. While at least 80% of these patients get a rash or flu then get better, there is a portion of patients who see their health crushed by long-term debilitating symptoms. Prominent symptoms include joint pain, muscle pain, headaches, fatigue, and odd neurological complications.
Antibiotics kill 90% of the infection and the immune system has to “mop up” the last 10%.
I recently finished reading Conquering Lyme Disease: Science Bridges the great Divide by Brian A Fallon, MD and Jennifer Sotsky, MD out of Columbia University. They had an extremely interesting section about how antibiotics normally work I would like to quote from starting on page 146.
“…since it is generally accepted that antibiotics eliminate the majority of bacteria, and rely upon the host to ‘mop up’ the rest. If the bacteria are able to evade host “mopping,” then the logic of the scenario falters. It is not surprising, therefore, that experimental studies, using a broad spectrum of animal species (mice, dogs, monkeys) and a variety of antibiotics (doxycycline, amoxicillin, cefriaxone, tigecycline) have all shown a failure to completely cure the animals of B. burgdorferi infection. “
The Shocking Truth About Lyme Disease Antibiotics
I was surprised to read that antibiotics don’t EVER cure 100% of an infection. They never have and never will.
I have been getting medical education or been in practice helping patients for over 15 years now, but in that time this topic has never come up. Not once, in the past 15 years has anyone told me that antibiotics don’t cure 100% of an infection. Remember that time you had strep and you took antibiotics? Yeah, the antibiotics killed 90% of the strep and your immune system handled the rest. Remember the time you were sick and the doctor gave you a z-pack (or any other antibiotic). Um, it killed 90% of whatever bacteria was making you sick and then your immune system handled the rest.
This information was literally so shocking to me that I emailed and called several other colleaues in the medical field to see if they knew this. I got a resounding…”Yes Kyle that’s how it works….didn’t you know that? Everyone knows that.”
It is generally accepted that antibiotics eliminate the majority of bacteria, and rely upon the host to “mop up” the rest. If the bacteria are able to evade host “mopping,” then the logic of the scenarior falters.
Can we use Lyme Disease Antibiotics to kill more than 90%…can we use them to kill the last 99%?
This is precisely what many different routes of Lyme Disease Antibiotic treatments attempt to do. While this can be part of the problem, it is trying to compensate for the immune systems failure. Antibiotics/Killers simply bring down the bacteria population to a point where you immune system can take over and rebalance you. The goal of all antibiotic/killer therapy is to reduce the bacterial load to a point where your immune system can win the war and return you to health.
If the immune system failed to “mop up” the last 10% of the Lyme infection, can we rehab the immune system to do its job?
This is the core the problem in chronic Lyme disease. Lyme Disease creates an imbalance in the immune system which allows it to stay in your body. This imbalance creates both an overactive immune system and an ineffective immune system. This means there is inflammation driving symptoms, but its not actually accomplishing anything and you can keep on being sick indefinitely.
Did the Immune System Fail or Did the Antibiotics Fail?
At the core of Chronic Lyme Disease, is the failure of the immune system to “mop up” the bug. While antibiotics/killers may be part of the solutions, ensure that you are doing things to help restore proper immune system function, or else you will continue to have symptoms from the overactive, but ineffective immune system.
Support the Immune System To “Mop Up” the Infection
While there are many different ways that we approach helping the immune system, one key component is getting natural killer cells functioning again at a high level.
Unique Immune Supplement For Patients with Tick Borne Illness (Lyme)
Transfer factor is highly useful in helping to reboot the effectiveness of the immune system.
One of my favorite parts about this formula is the ingredient “transfer factor NK+”. This is made from transfer factors, colostrum, and PRP. While the other ingredients are more typical for immune based products, this transfer factor makes this product much more potent than others we have tried. They did a study where they tested this product with the transfer factor NK+ ingredient and another version of the same supplement without that single ingredient and the results were staggering. The NK+ ingredient showed 32% increase in NK cell activity. This is decent, but the group with the transfer fact+ showed 193% increase in NK cell activity! That’s a huge difference.
While the above study was in vitro (in the test tube) it is always important to try things in vivo (in the body). In this study they looked at dosage between 1 and 2 servings a day. The group getting 1 serving a day had a 235% increase in NK cell activity! The group getting 2 servings a day had a 620% increase in NK cell activity!
Not only that but while raising the NK cell activity, it also raises regulartory cytokines such as IL-10 which are used to induced a reduction in immune system activity. This means this products helps promote a balance of the immune system. It is very possible to both activate and bring down inflammation at the same time!
Read More about Lyme Disease Antibiotics in our other article on the topic.
