RE: To Maz- Re: FYI herx

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Thank you for your post. I too have Lyme's which I believed triggered RA.

I am most interested in your comment: This is why Lyme docs also employ

cyst-busting medication simultaneously with antibiotic therapy. If not

too much trouble can you give me examples of cyst busting meds? I would

like to discuss with my Dr. on my next visit. I too believe that AP is not

enough; it's fabulous and gave me my life back but I suspect the Lyme's is

still in there --- waiting----patiently. Regards, El

_____

From: rheumatic [mailto:rheumatic ] On Behalf

Of momazmat@...

Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 2:29 PM

rheumatic

Subject: rheumatic To - Re: FYI herx

>>>Question: can the syphilis germ/virus be dormant in future offspring

causing them medical problems OR will the virus only effect the initial

person(grandfather) . Have a cousin who has Reiter's Syndrome?. I have

psoriatic

arthritis and in a wheel chair have just had new testing done to see what is

happening.<<<

Hi ,

I hope you don't mind me hopping in here on this thread. I was interested in

your question, because as someone with Lyme which triggered RA, I've learned

that the borrelia spirochete has much in common with Treponema pallidum -

the

syphilis spirochete. In fact, Lyme has been dubbed the second great

imitator,

syphilis being the first.

What they are discovering about Lyme (and about which there has been much

denial in the mainstream) is that mother's infected with Lyme can pass it to

their baby in utero and, if not causing miscarriage or still birth, the baby

is

often born with seriously confounding mental and physical deficits and

abnormalities. However, in the movie documentary, Under Our Skin (which I

highly

recommend seeing!), a mother who previously lost babies to miscarriage and

one that

was stillborn (the baby was found on autopsy to have Lyme), found that her

newly born son did have Lyme, but was at the time they filmed him, still

symptom-free.

Not much is known about these spirochetal infections, which have the ability

to morph into many different forms, including L-forms (spheroplasts) and

dormant cystic form. What is known is that when environmental conditions in

the

body are not conducive to the spirochete (e.g. when under antibiotic

attack), it

balls up into this hard little, virus-like cyst and literally waits out the

attack...sometimes for years. This is why Lyme docs also employ cyst-busting

medication simultaneously with antibiotic therapy. It is the cystic form of

Lyme,

which is thought to cause persistence and the waxing and waning symptoms

that

many with this disease experience.

So, the question remains...does congenital syphilis exist and, if it does,

is

it possible that a cystic form is passed to the fetus, in utero, and manages

to hang out in the child until adulthood and then burst forth at some

opportunistic time?

I think the answer to this is still pretty much an unknown, too, but it is

certainly worth considering. There are some very famous children who were

born

to people with syphilis, including I, queen of England, who took

the

throne from her father, Henry VIII, who had rampant syphilis and was likely

the cause of the loss of his many children by various wives at birth.

was known to have quite a few health problems, including baldness in

adulthood. There's a lot of dispute over whether or not she actually had

congenital

syphilis, but I do wonder whether she was one of Henry's " fortunate "

children,

who survived birth, but was passed a cystic form of syphilis that laid

dormant

until she reached adulthood. I guess we'll never know for sure.

So much is still unknown about these pleomorphic organisms, but if syphilis

can be passed sexually, then it is very possible that Lyme - also a

pleomorphic

spirochetal infection - can be, too. And, if Lyme can be passed

congenitally,

then why not syphilis?

Mice studies (Barthold etal) have now shown that borreliosis-infected mice

given IV antibiotic for a short period of time become seronegative for the

spirochete and it no longer shows up in their blood serum. However, when

non-infected mice are then given skin grafts taken from these previously

Lyme-infected,

antibiotic-treated mice, these uninfected mice soon become seropositive for

Lyme. Why? Well, it's likely that the antibiotic has driven the spirochete

into

the dormant cystic form and when tissues are transplanted into uninfected

mice, the coast is clear and the spirochetes sprout out again.

It's long been known that syphilis often requires open-ended treatment with

antibiotic therapy, because it is a chronic, persistent disease. Why?

Probably

because, like Lyme, Treponema pallidum morphs into a chronic, persistent,

dormant cystic form.

This is all speculation on my part and I'm just a Lyme patient - not a

physician - but it's a bit like follow-the-dots with all this. The reason

why many

chronic Lyme patients don't get well is because they're given short courses

of

antibiotics that drive the spirochete back into a cystic form, but the

cystic

form is never addressed and, when the coast is clear again...out they come

to

play. ( Trouble is, this is at the root of the whole chronic Lyme

debate...the mainstream arguing that a short course of antibiotics clears

the

infection...added to which they argue that Lyme cannot be tranmitted

sexually or

trans-placentally. As Dr R (a Lyme Literate MD in the Under Our Skin movie

documentary), " Well, that's ridiculous; this just isn't good science! " A

researcher, Dr

Alan Mc is also worth checking out.

Peace, Maz