Lyme Disease - A Plea To Doctors

October 2, 2004

SSRI-Research

1 Oct 2004 09:41:29 -0000

http://www.rense.com/general53/plea.htm

Lyme Disease - A Plea

To Doctors

By Marjorie Tietjen

Daystar1952

6-18-4

Lyme Disease is the fastest spreading vector borne disease in the

country. The question must then be asked as to why this most serious

degenerative neurological disease is essentially being downplayed,

ignored and fraudulently misrepresented?

Doctors across the country are dismissing and turning away thousands

of seriously ill patients. Many doctors even refuse to consider the

possibility that those previously diagnosed with such diseases as ALS,

M.S, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, BiPolar Depression, Fibromyalgia,

Alzheimer's, etc, may actually be infected with Borrelia Burgdorferi (

Bb... the causative agent of lyme disease ) and other coinfections.

This microbe may be the main cause of various autoimmune diseases and

other vague conditions or in some cases it may be a co-factor. Certain

labs which look for the L form of Bb are finding this pathogen present

in much of the chronic illness population.

Respected researchers , such as Lida Mattman ( author of " Stealth

Pathogens " ), are finding it more and more difficult to find blood

free of Bb for control purposes. Bb has not only been found in ticks

but also in human tears, breast milk, semen, mosquitoes, cow's milk,

fleas, mites....even well water and african dust. This attests to the

extreme hardiness of the lyme spirochete.

Almost every patient we come into contact with is reporting that

doctors are reacting very strangely when presented with the idea that

the patient may be ill with Chronic Lyme Disease. Doctors are taught

that there really isn't such an entity as Chronic Lyme Disease (

meaning chronic active infection ). This is a blatantly false teaching

and I will list a couple of links later in this article which will

prove that Lyme can be a persistant infection. The theory that Yale

University puts forth to the medical community....and it is only a

theory without proof to back it up....states that after three to four

weeks of antibiotics a person is automatically cured. They contend

that if on the 31st day , the day after treatment is stopped, then the

patient no longer has an active infection but that it has suddenly

turned into a disease of an autoimmune nature. This theory is absurd..

Testing is so unreliable that there is no way to prove the lyme

spirochete has been totally eradicated. If the same symptoms

persist...so should the treatment.

The mere mention of this disease to most doctors seems to trigger

anger, fear, sarcasm, condescending attitudes, denial and often even

explosive behavior. Patients often leave the doctor's office in tears,

feeling they have been emotionally attacked. This of course only

compounds the stress of this legitmate illness and often weakens the

patient further. Many doctors tell the patient they are depressed and

that they need antidepressants which will solve all their problems.

Many of us are beginning to think that it's the doctors who need

something to calm them down. I'm really not trying to be sarcastic and

I don't want to come across as if I'm attacking the doctors. We

realize they are also victims of the system. It must be very

frustrating for doctors to be taught one thing and then have patients

come in demanding something totally opposite to what the doctors have

been told is Truth.

Are doctors frightened of something that the public is not aware of or

is this abnormal behavior and resulting non treatment due to

ignorance? Is there an intentional lack of education concerning this

issue? It certainly seems so and I will tell you why it seems so.

Most testing for Lyme Disease is very inaccurate and therefore can not

be used reliably in the diagnosis or " ruling out " of Lyme Disease. The

Centers For Disease Control states that their very restrictive

diagnostic criteria should only be used for surveillance purposes and

not for diagnosis. However, my chief complaint is that no one is

encouraged not to use this criteria. There is no promotion whatsoever

of this stance of the CDC. As a result, a very large percentage of the

population is left undiagnosed, misdiagnosed and untreated.

The Centers For Disease Control also states that Lyme Disease is a

clinical diagnosis. This means that doctors should use their own

judgement after considering the patient's symptoms and history.

Laboratory testing should only be used as an adjunct.

Doctors need to educate themselves as to the extensive list of

symptoms which are associated with Lyme Disease and it's coinfections.

Once familiar with the general symptom complex it is very simple, even

for lay people, to predict and conclude who is probably stricken with

Lyme Disease. Reports from young doctors confirm the suspicion that

not much is taught concerning Lyme Disease, in medical school. It's an

unfortunate situation that doctors and patients alike have to seek

their information from sources other than the mainstream. Patients are

in the midst of this unprecedented controversy and are realizing that

perhaps this lack of education is intentional. The studies and

doctor's personal experiences are out there, which show unrefutably

that Lyme Disease can be a chronic active relapsing infection. The

medical authorities refuse to acknowledge this and continue to thwart

proper diagnosis and treatment by refusing to educate doctors as to

the facts concerning this disease.

The Lyme Disease pandemic is such an extreme problem in Connecticut

that a special Hearing was held in February of 2004. The purpose of

this Hearing was to bring to light the fact that Lyme Disease can be

chronic and that Lyme Disease can and does sometimes remain an active

an relapsing infection. The microbe which causes Lyme Disease is

pleomorphic ( changes form) and as a result is very adept at evading

detection. There may, at times, be autoimmune factors present but this

does not exclude the fact that an active infection can be present

along with autoimmune markers.

The Centers For Disease Control had to be sternly persuaded to attend

the Connecticut Hearing. Attorney General Blumenthal strongly advised

the CDC to send out special warnings or notices to doctors, labs and

health departments, for the purpose of promoting and encouraging the

enforcement of their statement that the CDC criteria should not be

used for diagnosis. I recently contacted the CDC to ask what progress

had been made in this area. I was referred to an article in a magazine

put out by the CDC which supposedly states very clearly that doctors

should not use the CDC criteria for diagnosing lyme, using the Western

Blot. According to them this is their big effort to educate. The CDC

official agreed to send me the link to this article...however I never

recieved it. I then e-mailed the CDC ,for more specifics, and have yet

to recieve a reply.

The extent of misdiagnosis and morbidity concerning Lyme Disease is

staggering. Despite the undistributed statement regarding their

diagnostic criteria, most doctors and labs are basing their

conclusions on these very restrictive guidelines or parameters. In

addition testing for antibodies in tertiary late stage Lyme Disease is

almost futile due to many factors which interfere with the antibody

response. A more reliable test...such as the Bowen Test, isolates the

actual L form of the Lyme microbe.

Why isn't there an extensive campaign on the part of the CDC to

educate in this most crucial matter? It makes no sense that this

agency is not doing so. This can lead one to the conclusion that

perhaps the use of such restrictive testing criteria keeps the extent

of this pandemic under wraps, to the benefit of pharmaceutical

companies and other corporations.

In the past we have held medical conferences for doctors, lab

technicians and nurses, in the local hospitals. Invitations to all

doctors were given to the hospitals to pass out to their physicians.

In all cases doctors were conspicuously absent. Our speakers were very

well known and respected doctors who specialize in Lyme Disease. They

offered very valuable information to the lab technicians, nurses and

patients who did attend. Evidently the medical doctors were just not

interested, they were pressured into not attending or they were never

given the invitations.

Doctors, many times, express the idea that they don't have enough time

or energy to investigate into the many diseases currently afflicting

our world. This is certainly understandable but perhaps the root cause

of many diseases involves only several microbes which present

themselves differently in each individual. This appears to be the case

with Lyme Disease...the second " Great Imitator " next to

syphilis....another spirochetal disease.

It is our hope that more of those in the medical profession will take

it upon themselves to investigate both sides of this issue. It is

vitally important to keep the mind open to the experiences, research

and protocols of those lyme literate doctors who are working in the

trenches with the realities of Lyme disease. Experience is always the

best educator. And most important of all....good doctors always really

listen to and believe in their patients. Effective physicians tell how

they have learned more from their patients than from anywhere else.

After all, the patients are the ones experiencing the disease first

hand. It is interesting to note that many lyme literate doctors have

experienced Lyme Disease themselves and therefore understand the

enormity and complexities of the disease. Most of us are not " just

depressed " nor are we hypochondriacs. Lyme Disease can affect every

body system and as a result the number of symptoms which can be

experienced, is overwhelming. The fact that many patients are glibly

told their symptoms are due to depression, is doing them a great

injustice. Lyme Disease can cause depression, anxiety and many many

other neurological manifestations....but the point is...these patients

need antibiotics....just as syphilis patients need antibiotics...to

eradicate the source of their problems. Antidepressants just cover up

the symptoms which allows the infection to simmer and progress below

the surface.

I blame the medical system which appears to be educating doctors

towards their own selfish purposes. The insurance companies and

pharmaceutical companies play a very large role in the medical system

and in the education of doctors. We all know that corporations don't

have a conscience and don't care about the individual. They care about

profits and that's what motivates them. We know that drug companies

profit greatly by promoting many symptomatic treatments for one

disease rather than a single curative treatment. Doctors are also

divided up into so many subspecialties that it makes it very difficult

for one doctor to ever see the patient as a whole person and to be

able to discern the connectedness of the many symptoms which present

in Lyme Disease.

For example.....a single patient may be separately diagnosed with

carpal tunnel syndrome, fibromyalgia, heart palpitations, irritable

bowel, seizure disorder, TMJ, foot pain, conjunctivitis, acid

reflux....and also be separately treated for each and every condition,

with either surgery or symptomatic treatments. This approach is

extremely inefficient, costly and very dangerous. Many times the basic

underlying cause of all these symptoms or so called diseases, is found

to be due to one organism such as babesia, borrelia burgdorferi,

different strains of mycoplasma or even a combination of these

microbes. Why isn't testing for these organisms routine when someone

presents with a chronic illness....especially when the patient is from

an endemic area?

For more clues as to why the medical system is set up in this crazy

fashion, please visit

http://congregator.net/medicalnews/tietjen/index.html

For those of you who are sincerely concerned about the welfare of your

patients and the future of your own family's health, please take the

time to study and ponder the following links.

" Lyme Disease: The Sensible Pursuit Of Answers " By Kenneth Leigner

-- http://www.lymeinfo.net/sensiblepursuit.html

Especially note the " Persistence File " near the top

-- http://www.lymeinfo.net/lymefiles.html

-- www.bowen.org

October 3, 2004

Hi Folks! A doctor, who is treating me with ultraviolet blood irradiation

therapy (photo-oxidation), has commented that he beleives he can achieve good

results with his therapy against lyme disease. My experience with the U.V.

therapy, is that it's benign, and without side effects (when used correctly, of

course). The early research in the 1940's showed usefulness with many

infections, and there may be a record of use with lyme disease, but I just don't

see it listed in my one and only book on the subject. Steve

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califpacific

Saturday, October 02, 2004 2:15 AM