Posted 6/14/2016 12:25 PM (GMT 0)
Here's an excerpt on both topics that were addressed during a recent interview with prominent Lyme Doc (Dr. H):
12) Is there a way to prevent children from developing congenital Lyme if you’re
unaware they had it while pregnant?
Well, the thing is the mother’s antibodies are passed onto the children for the first six
months, so unless you were gonna do PCR’s, you can’t really use antibodies to know.
You could certainly try and do serial PCR’s. They’re trying to improve some of the PCR
technology. You’ll, again, see this in the new book, but I think doing PCR’s will be one
way because you certainly don’t want to give a child antibiotics. It doesn’t mean just
because you had it, that you absolutely transmitted it and I think the good news and the
kind of get out of jail guilt-free card that I can give to most women who tell me this, is a
lot of women did have it and I just don’t see it being transmitted that often. It’s not
that it never has been, because the first story in my first book was about a woman who
kept having miscarriages. However, Dr. Jones would tell you from the pediatrician
standpoint that the kids who are infected are very, very ill. They’re hypotonic, the
developmental growth spurts are not there. I mean, they’re just not hitting those
milestones that young children should.
So, I think the only way you’re really gonna be able to do this is by probably looking at,
you know, broad tick borne testing, but I don’t know that, as far as developing it, there’s
no way at this point. There’s no controlled studies, whether you look at herbs in young
kids, Samento Banderol – there’s no way to know at this point exactly, but I think
certainly after six months when maternal antibodies are gone, you certainly at that point
can do antibody studies knowing they’re not – they’re quite unreliable, although we
found the C6 Elisa certainly to be a better test than the regular Elisa, which I never used
to do. We are getting some positives with the C6, but I do think that with the new PCR
testing on Miyamotoi and other Borrelia species, you should be able to identify whether
children have it or not and – and of course, a Lyme literate pediatrician is very, very
important, but I don’t see it happen that often.
So, I think the kids who have gotten it, my sense is they probably got it on the lawns and
it’s the same thing with sexual transmission, Number 13.
13) Sexual Transmission of Lyme?
When you look at the studies that were done by Maureen Middelveen and Ray Stricker,
they only found, you know, one or two spirochetes in the vaginal secretions and sperm
and a lot of the couples come to see me, yes, they both have it, but we also have
people who don’t have it and when you look at the epidemiology of Lyme, it was a very
nice debate that went on between Sam Donta and Ray Stricker at the last LDA
conference in Rhode Island – Sam was pointing out, and I think appropriately, that if you
look at the epidemiology, even though I don’t think the CDC is getting the full picture of
how many people are coming down with this disease, you still see spikes in the Spring,
Summer and Fall and you still see a drop during the Wintertime and I’m gonna assume
that people are still having sexual relationships in the Wintertime and they’re not
stopping with the cold weather.
So, you would expect that, if that were the case, you should still be seeing higher
amounts in the Wintertime. And the other thing we know with infections like strep is
that, even if you have group beta strep in your throat, but you only have one or two
organisms, you’re not necessarily gonna pass that onto someone else.
What they’ve shown in infectious diseases is that you need high levels of these
organisms to pass it on. So, I think is it possible? Yes. Do I think it happens quite
often? No, because, if it did, I think just about every person – in this person would
probably have it, because we’ve underestimated the number of people who have come
down with Lyme and associated Borrelia infections at this point.
So, regarding how I advise sexually active patients – I do let them know that there is a
small risk. I do not think it’s a high risk and I let them know, I mean, there’s just no
literature at this point to say that you should take a prophylactic antibiotic. For some
people that are worried about it, certainly the men will use condoms, but it’s very
difficult. It’s really a case-by-case basis that you have to let people know that there
might be risk, that the risk is low, but that if they really wanna protect themselves, they
really should be doing some form of protection like using condoms, but we don’t tell one
person. We basically have an open discussion on it.