15 Resources: Alternative Treatment Links

Although I have an LLMD who is a bit old school (as I've said before), that doesn't mean that I don't endorse the use of any alternative treatment. Given my increasing intolerance to antibiotics, I may have to try more alternative treatment in the future, so this is something I am investigating. I realize it's not a perfect world, and I wish everything was tested under double-blind random controlled studies, but I don't forsee that happening in the near future. If you're dealing with an illness now and want to try an alternative treatment, protect...

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2 Commentary: Finding the right treatment that works

I'm realizing that it is taking longer than I thought it would to put together posts on persistence - if you read the chain of comments on this TED talk on quorum sensing, I had an interesting exchange with someone anonymous (anonx) which got me thinking of how to write about how Borrelia persists in the host (I recommend checking it out; it's worth it). There's a lot of ground to cover, and it may take a while for me to firm up an outline or structure for the posts, which is what I'm working on bit by bit. In the meantime, other topics are a...

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0 Video Parody: Bad Project

I'm working on posts about the persistence issue in Lyme Disease. In the meantime, I came across this video parody of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" that I thought was kinda funny. This is dedicated to all of you overworked graduate and doctoral researchers working in bio and microbio school labs... I think the biohazard bag dress on their version of Lady Gaga is a real trip... And oh, they sing about Western blots, too! Warnings: Use of the word "bitch" NSFW.  You may want to use headphones...

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0 A few words on being right and alliances

I'll be posting more later, but for now here are two thoughts to chew on: 1) Just because someone is right about something, doesn't mean they are right about everything. 2) The enemy of my enemy is my friend... unless that enemy is my enemy as well. For those of you whom are active participants in the Lyme patient community, consider reflecting on those thoughts in line with recent events. For those of you whom are not such participants, these thoughts have value independent...

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0 Administrivia: New page and updates

Just a brief note for those revisiting or who are new to my site: 1) I've added a new page about the middle ground which contains transcribed notes on Pamela Weintraub during the October 2010 IOM  Q & A session. That page is: The Middle 2) I've updated the FAQ, too. That is a...

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17 Video: How bacteria "talk" and how to make them shut up

Another interesting TED talk today. This one is by Bonnie Bassler, who discovered how cell populations use chemical powwows to stage attacks, evade immune systems and forge slimy defenses called biofilms. For that, she won a MacArthur "genius" grant. At the beginning of Bassler's slideshow, she displays Lyme Disease as one of the bacteria we are in a war against, and she proceeds to explain how bacteria communicate with one another to invade us. Once bacteria reach a certain population level after dividing, they release a chemical message...

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0 With Apologies To Maslow

This about covers it for me... other than I think I'd substitute "To bitch" for "To complain", and "Coffee" for "A rare sweet".  How about y...

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2 Polymicrobial Infections

I know that in my comment on my last topical post, “Syphilis and Vaccines”,  I wrote about how I thought it was scary that infecting patients with Malaria in order to raise a fever to kill Syphilis because 10% of patients subjected to the procedure died. This was considered an acceptable risk at the time, since there was no cure for Syphilis and once it moved to the third stage, madness and death weren’t far behind. In this day and age, Syphilis and Lyme Disease are both treated using antibiotics, and the thought of a Lyme patient adding...

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0 Salon article: How to tame the media, not be tamed by it

I don't usually refer to Salon here that much and read them only on occasion, but I thought this article provided food for thought and thought you might also enjoy comments on it: How to tame the media, not be tamed by it It's about looking at what you read with a critical eye, and questioning everything you read. One funny thing about the article is that by the end of it, the audience is questioning the very article which recommended they question what they read. Brillia...

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2 Hello European Readers: a query

I noticed a lot of my hits are coming from the Netherlands and Germany... Welcome to Camp Other! Is er een Borrelia-gerelateerd onderzoek in het Nederlands geschreven ik zou moeten weten? Gibt es gute Borrelien-Forschung in Deutschland sollte ich wissen? I can get through original documents written in either German or Dutch with some help, if they aren't already translated into English - but prefer a good English translation copy if given one. Dank u! Danke! Than...

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3 Syphilis and Vaccines

Let's learn a few things about Syphilis and the bacteria which causes it, Treponema pallidum.  The reasons why I am looking at Syphilis on a tickborne-related illness blog are because a) it is spirochetal, b)  there is speculation on the similarities between Syphilis and Lyme Disease, c) some of the data on Syphilis may be informative in how one thinks about other infections or infection states, and last but not least d) some of the information given in this post provides background information for future posts. So, what do we...

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2 Brief remarks on an older post about forum rules

I am somewhat puzzled that of all that I have posted here thus far, a post on forum posting rules I do not understand is one that continues to get a fair number of hits. Why do people think this post is so interesting? I think Kary Mullis' Altermune research is way more interesting than that. To each his own, I guess. Anyway... I've revisited this issue on a forum thread recently, and those who responded seemed to have not read what I wrote in the first place, and responded that I should know why LLMDs need to have their identities protected...

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1 When will the media ask more of the right questions about antibiotics and vaccines?

I was originally going to title this post, "Why is the media drinking the Kool-Aid?", but then I thought better of it, and changed the title after recalling a well-written post on that phrase. So, my original question stands: When will the media ask more of the right questions? When I reflect on the media's approach to the issue of Chronic Lyme disease, it seems they almost completely side-step the issue of Lyme Disease and infectious diseases and their treatment in general. Dear media, where is your sense of curiosity? Your ability to dig...

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0 Pain & Suffering

I'm in more pain lately. Suffering. Not drinking the scotch. Yet. This brings something to mind that I saw last year, and if you've suffered a lot of pain, perhaps you can relate to it... There is this hilarious writer, Allie Brosh, who draws manic childish drawings to illustrate her stories for her site, "Hyperbole and a half". In this story about her boyfriend, she talks about how the original "faces of pain" scale in the doctor's office and ER is inadequate to describe pain, and creates her own. I'm posting an image of part of her version...

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