Newsgroups: alt.med.cfs
Date:         Sat, 19 Dec 1992 13:39:50 PST
              <CFS-L@NIHLIST.BITNET>
From:         John Setel O'Donnell <jod@EQUATOR.COM>
Subject:      Re: Lyme Disease/Garlic-Vit.C 'Cure' ...

    >>Does anyone know of any alternative remedies or treatments for Lyme
 Disease?
    >>This is for a person who has tried various antibiotics with only very
    >>limited help in relieving the symptoms.
    >>I have heard that high doses of garlic and vitamin C can actually kill th
    >>spirochytes that cause the disease and live in the body.

    >Oh, please.  This is foolishness, and destructive foolishness.
    >Failure to get proper high doses of antibiotics AT ONCE with Lyme
    >disease can lead to a lifetime of disability.

    I agree.  However there is no evidence that *prolonged* courses of high
    dose antibiotics like Rocephin after an initial adequate course are of
    much help either.  There is recent evidence that that most "chronic Lyme
    disease" may actually be fibromyalgia, somehow triggered by the initial
    Lyme infection.  Attempts to treat it as fibromyalgia have been more
    rewarding.  See for example:

        Sigal LH. Current recommendations for the treatment of Lyme disease.
          Drugs 1992;43(5):683-99.
        Dinerman H and AC Steere. Lyme disease associated with fibromyalgia.
          Ann Intern Med 1992;117:281-5.

    David Nye
    nyeda@cnsvax.uwec.edu


Prolonged courses of antibiotics are not curing the illness because of
intracellularity and other mechanisms that the spirochete has to
avoid antibiotics. (Liegner et al., abst. 63, V Int Conf LB, 1992;
Georgilis et al, abst. 165, V Int Conf LB, 1992)

The claims of "fibromyalgia" are just the latest round of emotional,
irrational claims without factual basis made by primarily by rheumatologists
trying to protect their research monies by denying the now conclusive
evidence that long-term Lyme symptoms result from persistent spirochetal
infection, not some "post-Lyme syndrome" or its newer name, "fibromyalgia."

It is true that prolonged courses of antibiotics will not cure the
disease _once_it_has_become_established_. Prompt, high-dose antibiotic
therapy has tremendous success, however.  Lyme can be a minor annoyance
or a major, life-destroying nightmare, depending on the actions taken
in the first 6 weeks of infection.  This is what I was referring to
in my suggestion that one not toy around with garlic, etc.

As for those with chronic Lyme (only a small percentage of whom are
diagnosed correctly; others are given diagnoses ranging from MS to CFS to
depression), antibiotic therapy offers maintenance and management, and
the difference between a functional life and disability.  It does not, however,
offer a cure; and for many, it does not even offer an adequate level
of functioning.  The many thousands of us with the disease must become
active to improve federal funding for research towards a cure.

LAST YEAR'S FEDERAL RESEARCH BUDGET DIRECTED TOWARDS A CURE FOR LATE LYME
WAS LESS THAN MY PERSONAL LYME MEDICAL EXPENSES TO DATE.  IT WAS LESS
THAN $10 PER NEW CASE OF THE DISEASE LAST YEAR.  THIS IS A NATIONAL SHAME.

As for the citation above of Sigal's work, I offer a re-post
of an earlier message of mine in another forum as the next message.
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