K Lewis - Identifying vancomycin as an effective antibiotic for killing Borrelia burgdorferi

First off I don't have the context of that conversation to say why he said she doesn't have a serious neurologic disease. If he actually did say that in an unwarranted manner that is pretty crappy and I will not stand by him on that.

But again you are taking this a bit out of context. "It's not clear to me that remaining Bb cause the disease" doesn't mean "i think it doesn't". This is politically correct science talk. This is a challenging topic and one has to be able to consider many different angles and shifts in perspective as new data comes in. The quote i listed shows clear interest in persister causes of Lyme. But he might be having challenging research experiences from that angle and so he's trying to work from other ones. That doesn't mean he's right or wrong, but he's doing exactly what he should do which is adapting to new insights and taking diverse approaches.

"When I went on antibiotics, they slowly cleared away again. This isn't due to an imbalanced microbiome, aka PTLDS."

I don't think you understand how microbiome imbalances work. The microbiome balance keeps opportunistic pathogens in check and immune function high. There are different outcomes for Lyme disease, just like there are for tuberculosis, that depend entirely on host immune function and coinfection. The fact that you feel better on antibiotics says nothing about the involvement of the broader microbiome. You are suppressing pathogen activity with abx but your own immune system may or may not clear remaining organisms based on the state of your broader health. Someone actually just posted a new study on this on these boards. Doxycycline works alright in patients with adequate B cell responses and poorly in those without adequate B cell responses... who would have thought...

"I also find it amusing that Dr. Lewis thinks antibiotics have "enormous side effects." Those were his exact words, I'd love to hear what he thinks of using longterm pain pills like opioids and auto immune drugs on lyme patients and what would that due to the organs in their body. Even the chemotherapy and radiation they currently use on Cancer patients...."

Again, way out of context. Lewis is saying it is "unideal" as in "we should make better antibiotics with less side effects". Literally the next sentence: "We should do considerably better than that. There is little doubt that it is because there are dormant persister-cells. So this is where I see obvious ways to intervene." I don't know how else I can say this but he's advocating the use of anti persister and borrelia specific drugs to shorten treatment time and spare collateral damage to the microbiome. So that drug therapy is more specific to the pathogen, and host immunity is preserved to clear the infection. Not saying that patients shouldn't take antibiotics

People with acne don't get PLDS because Kim isn't saying doxycyline causes PLDS. He's saying microbiome disruption may contribute to the failure of the immune system to resolve symptoms of Lyme disease (whether or not that means clearing residual pathogens or taming rogue inflammation). Patients with acne don't have Lyme disease.

"Lewis should not be using a term like PTLDS. "

He should if he wants to keep his lab funded. PTLDS means persisting symptoms of unknown cause. That could be "autoimmune" or persistent infection. Obviously, I am heavily biased towards the latter, but PLDS is the politically correct term until it can be sorted out.

k07 said...


Charlie - I'm just curious, how would you explain people that test positive for BB but are not sick? It does seem that there are lots of other factors that need to be figured out.

Yeah, this is the point. Charlie needs to go look up the difference between tuberculoid and lepromatous leprosy for a classic lesson in microbiology. Leprosy can be the most heinous intractable illness or a rather self-limiting nuisance based almost entirely on the quality of the host immune system. Microbiome research and immunology research are not mutually exclusive with persister biology. One can take many angles such as antipersister drugs, more selective drugs, microbiome therapy, immune stimulants, etc or preferably a combination of anything and everything that helps.

"Heal those that chronically sick"

Dude that's the point. That's why ALL possible avenues are being explored

Psilociraptor said...
"Heal those that chronically sick"

Dude that's the point. That's why ALL possible avenues are being explored

The avenue for autoimmune disorder for Chronic Lyme Disease has been explored over and over again by these Doctors and they've come up with nothing. Just like Willy Burgdorfer has put it, nothing! You do realize that don't you? Psilociraptor!!!

My concern is, just as Tincup has put it on another lyme forum, Dr. Lewis is using a $1.5 million grant to tell chronic lyme patients they need to eat poop to cure themselves.
flash.lymenet.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/1/137239

A waste of time and money, when some of that money could be used elsewhere in a group that believes in the persister cell/biofilm narrative. Which, both you and I believe in Psilociraptor, that's all I'm saying...

I think you need to watch this video of Willy Burgdorfer and listen what he said! I hope these words burn their way into your mind so you have a better understanding of my view point!

/youtu.be/QLIWSkQdCmU?t=2m39s

Willy Burgdorfer - "The controversy in Lyme disease is a shameful affair. I say that because, because the whole thing is politically tainted. Money goes to people that have for the past 30 years, produced the same thing, nothing!"

Keywords here are "politically tainted" and "money goes to the wrong people."

So sorry if I think this grant is being wasted, but as Willy has put it, both time and money has been wasted for decades due to politically influenced people. Sorry if I seem skeptic of Lewis work on chronic lyme being an autoimmune disorder. But after people being deceived for decades, I stay quite skeptic due to IDSA/CDC influence on the medical system.

So if Dr. Lewis treatment on chronic lyme becomes mainstream, just as this new vaccine becomes mainstream. Yet both of these treatments neither work, just like the CDC/IDSA old vaccine and treatment on autoimmune. Yes, we have a lot, I mean a lot to worry about!

Post Edited (Charlie55) : 8/28/2018 1:24:52 PM (GMT-6)

oregonhay said...
You get bit by a tick, and get some kind of spirochete infection. Your body fights it, it goes dorment for 10-15 years or has zero effect on your health.

Then one day 5-10, 15 years later, you step in a puddle, eat some bad meat, or get bit by a spider. Now a new infection comes along -- a nematode parasite. Nematode parasites have a symbiotic relationship with a bacteria, that stores them in their own gut. When they reproduce, the parasite's eggs hatch and eat the mother, getting the bacteria and building the nematode-bacteria relationship. However, its in your body, and you have a spirochete. The spirochete becomes the symbiotic relationship inside the nematode, so now, you've got a nematode parasite as a new vector inside your body to reproduce and release spirochete.

The spirochete that you previously had that was dorment, or not harmful, or your body was able to fight off, can now grow and multiply inside the nematode. Now your body can't fight it off. The spirochete build to a level that can now build biofilms or other forms, and cross your blood brain barrier. The nematode can also lodge itself inside the brain, and hatch new nematodes and breed new lymes.

On top of that, nematode parasites are genetically modified and unregulated. They are sold as "bio-pesticides" The genetically modified ones, at least the one I was able to identify, had genes spliced with another nematode that is known to infect humans. So they took genes for the bad for human nematode and put it in the nematode that was not previously known to infect humans. Since they are unregulated, nobody knows how safe they are.

It gets even worse then this. One of the nematodes that I identified, the gmo one, has a symbiotic relationship with a bacteria that has the ability to become transgenetic. So it can take genes from other cells, and graft them into itself. Maybe it took genes from Lyme to become some weird hybrid. Maybe that's why the test fail. Maybe that's why your immune system can't fight them anymore, it eventually mutates into something that identifies as your own body tissue, on top of the already ability of lyme to masquerade its antigens, for a double-triple-quadruple-morphological transgenic super GMO bug. This would explain so many different contradictory treatments and symptoms.

I think this is what happened to me. Of course I am not a scientist, but this is what I have been putting together. I was able to put all of this together and ask for a prescription of ivermectin from my doctor and have been feeling better. But who knows, ivermectin could just be causing a psychosomatic feeling of getting well and I have no idea what I am talking about.

That's an amazing explanation to chronic lyme oregonhay and I think it's a pretty accurate one, seeing how the first breakthrough on chronic lyme, antiparasitics worked on chronic lyme, like flagyl, better than the traditional standard antibiotics like doxycycline.

It's not only biofilms and coinfections that may play role in chronic lyme, but these nematode parasites, which I have yet to see Dr. Kim Lewis acknowledge. But here he is, going down the autoimmune route, thinking poop is going to cure us.

There's a lot more studies, like the nematode and biofilm studies, which is leading us to believe that lyme disease is hard to treat due to longterm infection.

I really really think, we're dealing with one of the most intelligent organisms on this planet. So intelligent, it has outsmarted plenty of us. Ya gotta think about that for a second... Is it our own bodies that have messed up, these Doctors blaming us that our bodies have gone autoimmune. Or has the bacteria outsmarted us, with t's ability to have symbiotic relationships with parasites and other bacterial coinfections? Evolving in a way, so forms biofilms and round body forms to protect itself from antibiotics.

Fact: We know round body forms are true
Fact: We know hard to treat coinfections are true and as Doctor Horrowitz explained, they can form their own persister cells.
Fact: We know spirochetes form biofilms that are impenetrable to antibiotics due to Dr. MacDonalds and Dr. Sapis work on borrelia.
Fact: Borrelia forms a symbiotic relationship with some of these coinfections lyme mycoplasma, even parasitic nematodes that make the disease even harder to treat.

Hypothesis/Theory: Chronic Lyme Disease is caused by overused of longterm doxycycline that triggers an an autoimmune disorder due to an imbalanced microbiome.

So how is that, Dr. Kim Lewis is still going down the autoimmune route, when evidence is leaning towards a persistent infection. I go to Willy Burgdorfer's logical explanation - "The controversy in Lyme disease is a shameful affair. I say that because, because the whole thing is politically tainted. Money goes to people that have for the past 30 years, produced the same thing, nothing!"

Never forget history folks, because it'll keep repeating itself still to this day. Ever hear the old saying "history repeats itself." Why I learn from history and not fall for the same crap, I keep my guard up at all times.

Philosopher George Santayana - "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Post Edited (Charlie55) : 8/28/2018 1:52:47 PM (GMT-5)

Alxander, I was only on Doxy for 10 days and it worked amazing for me. I believed I already had chronic lyme untreated up until that point.

I have a prescription for Doxy right here. The only thing is that during my illness, Doxy went from originally the most affordable antibiotic ($.01/pill) --- to the most expensive one ($5/pill), due to some kind of big pharma price profiteering scheme. Now I have since learned that doxy is now affordable again. I still have the prescription and my LLND actually recommended it last visit 6 weeks ago.

If I had the money (even if its affordable) I would buy it right now. But since it is summer time where I am, I cannot take it due to skin problems and doxy. I am planning on taking it, cycling it, this winter, to see what happens. Right now I am just on Penn-G and Ivermectin. It's funny Penn-G has zero method of action on gram negative, like lyme, but it is working. I have no explanation of that, other then my above post regarding nematode and trans genetic bacteria lyme hybrid hypnosis.

I would stick with what your LLMD and try not to "micromanage" your treatment while things are working. Unless things stop working.

Also one other thing I have since learned that Doxy can be bad for mitochondria health. Again, I am still planning on using it this winter unless there is some cause for concern that I can be brought attention to.

oregonhay and Charlie 55:
I would like to thank you both, sincerely. I appreciate both detailed answer you gave me, along with this whole very informative thread (this disease is all about conflicting opinions/theory, right? ;).

I will not worry about Doxycycline too much for now.
Charlie, reading you renforce my feeling that a decent cyst buster is missing in my protocol, which is why I'll ask for Flagyl next month. Maybe this could be the reason I'm not seeing much progress after 2 months of treatment.
I'm also taking GSE drops (Nutribiotic) 20 drops with lunch for the Cyst... but for some reason I have no faith in that.
As for the biofilm, I'm taking 2 pills BID of Boluoke right now... which is friggin expensive but heard it works decently. Maybe I should add stevia to my protocol too.

"If you can find a top Lyme Doctor like Dr. J or Dr. H that can start you off on potent persister cell drugs, which could shorten your treatment tremendously in the long run and possibly save your microbiome, more power to ya, but most are limited on funds and can't travel out of state, and just treat with a local LLMD in their area"


Thing is...I saw someone closer to me for a few years...and as I was treating, and educating myself...I realized (after a lengthy plateau) - that I need to move on.


It would have been wayyy less $$$$ in the long run, if I had gone to the J clinic right off the get go.

Also, my LLND appts were every 4 weeks for an entire year...and then every two months after that.

With Dr. J, my appts are now 3-4 months apart...and will go to 6 months apart probably after my next appt. I'm thinking.
As far as appts go, I'm saving $$ because they are spaced further apart.
(And Dr. J does do phone appts - basically every other appt. is a phone consult)

And...the persister meds are introduced after several months (not right away).

Just in the short time I have been dealing with this mess known as chronic lyme, i think that Lewis is wasting everyone's time. he further solidifies it with his behaviors or responses like using PTLDS. the fact that his research efforts seem to go no where, is the main thing. for me personally, i find other researchers like Embers, Sapi, Spector, Zhang as more the ones to watch. perhaps Lewis is limited in someway to lean more toward the IDSA narrative.

Charlie55 said...

Psilociraptor said...
"Heal those that chronically sick"

Dude that's the point. That's why ALL possible avenues are being explored

The avenue for autoimmune disorder for Chronic Lyme Disease has been explored over and over again by these Doctors and they've come up with nothing. Just like Willy Burgdorfer has put it, nothing! You do realize that don't you? Psilociraptor!!!

My concern is, just as Tincup has put it on another lyme forum, Dr. Lewis is using a $1.5 million grant to tell chronic lyme patients they need to eat poop to cure themselves.
flash.lymenet.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/1/137239

A waste of time and money, when some of that money could be used elsewhere in a group that believes in the persister cell/biofilm narrative. Which, both you and I believe in Psilociraptor, that's all I'm saying...

I think you need to watch this video of Willy Burgdorfer and listen what he said! I hope these words burn their way into your mind so you have a better understanding of my view point!

/youtu.be/QLIWSkQdCmU?t=2m39s

Willy Burgdorfer - "The controversy in Lyme disease is a shameful affair. I say that because, because the whole thing is politically tainted. Money goes to people that have for the past 30 years, produced the same thing, nothing!"

Keywords here are "politically tainted" and "money goes to the wrong people."

So sorry if I think this grant is being wasted, but as Willy has put it, both time and money has been wasted for decades due to politically influenced people. Sorry if I seem skeptic of Lewis work on chronic lyme being an autoimmune disorder. But after people being deceived for decades, I stay quite skeptic due to IDSA/CDC influence on the medical system.

So if Dr. Lewis treatment on chronic lyme becomes mainstream, just as this new vaccine becomes mainstream. Yet both of these treatments neither work, just like the CDC/IDSA old vaccine and treatment on autoimmune. Yes, we have a lot, I mean a lot to worry about!

I still don't think you understand what an autoimmune disease is and what the relevance of microbiome is. These are NOT mutually exclusive with persister cells. FMT won't become mainstream unless they have clinical benefit and if they do then who cares. If it works we should all be happy. Just because there are persister cells and biofilm doesn't mean we should avoid targeting all around well-being. Again, someone just published a paper here the other day on the importance of B cell responses in the clearance of Bb via doxycycline. Take a hint from this. Addressing immune function is just as important of an avenue to explore as antibiotics.

oregonhay said...


Then one day 5-10, 15 years later, you step in a puddle, eat some bad meat, or get bit by a spider. Now a new infection comes along -- a nematode parasite. Nematode parasites have a symbiotic relationship with a bacteria, that stores them in their own gut. When they reproduce, the parasite's eggs hatch and eat the mother, getting the bacteria and building the nematode-bacteria relationship. However, its in your body, and you have a spirochete. The spirochete becomes the symbiotic relationship inside the nematode, so now, you've got a nematode parasite as a new vector inside your body to reproduce and release spirochete.

Hey Oregonhay, speaking of bad meat, you want to study something that'll scare the crap out of you other than Lyme Disease, look into prion disease. Joe Rogan recently had a fascinating discussion on Mad Cow Disease with a wildlife biologist.
/youtu.be/o6TpwdK5zxc

The cow or animal dies with a prion disease, the prions can remain in the soil or dead body, another living creature comes to feed on the dead animal or soil/plant where the prions remained, then it's transferred to that animal. They say, it's just a matter of time where it'll probably mutate and jump to human beings... Holy hell!

You want to dig deeper and go into a stranger realm of things, look into the connection of prion disease and cow mutilations.
Dr. Richard Bonenfant https://youtu.be/_kDqztRaB-I

Scary friggin stuff, how long do you think humans have before it all falls apart, lol.... Seems as though we're hanging by a thread... lol
Dr. Guy Mcpherson - Humans Will be Extinct in 10 years
/youtu.be/Gh30Kx1o5lI

Can't help but to laugh with all the crazy crap going in the world right now... Kind of gotta find the sense of humor in all of it!

Post Edited (Charlie55) : 8/28/2018 11:29:26 PM (GMT-6)

Charlie: "Right now, as well as other Lyme patients, we have to buy our antibiotics overseas to treat ourselves. Or just use standard herbs!"

Why? You live in the U.S. of A. There's plenty of LLMD's.

Psilociraptor said...

I don't think anyones got a patent to push poop on you.

I think they've pushed the autoimmune theory on lyme patients for decades and have direct resulted in millions losing their jobs, families and lives.

What's the difference if they push poop or Humira on us and they both don't work, it's both time and money wasted on what should of been targeted instead... The infection!

Psilociraptor said...

The treatment of autoimmune diseases with immunosuppressants is beyond idiotic but that has nothing to do with the science of autoimmune disease. That is a pharma maneuver.

I think you're wrong about that, it's a whole medical industry maneuver! It's not only big pharma, but the doctors who are influenced by big pharma, as well as groups such as the IDSA and CDC. You talk to one Doctor about Lyme Disease, what do they think first, autoimmunity, nothing about a perister cells and biofilms. This is the trend in modern medicine!

I bet you ask Doctors if they know that a simple virus causes Celiac Disease... And that there's an underlying Herpes virus with Parkinsons... They wouldn't have a clue, remember who pointed that out in my comment above Psilociraptor, yep, it was me.

You think I have this big misconception of autoimmune and infection, I think it's the medical industry that has a misconception of autoimmunity. And the drugs they use to treat autoimmune patients shows it, not me! That's why I have big skepticism over Dr. Kim Lewis' time being spent on Lyme PTLDS.

I have treated my own overactive immune system with CBD oil and marijuana over last 3 years. I think it's a very good way to modulate the immune system and help with pain while targeting the source of the problem, the borrelia infection. I wish I had use this herb earlier in my treatment, but my government made it illegal through corporate influence back in the 1930s, the corporate propaganda still goes on to this day. Turmeric helped, but nothing seemed to work as well as CBD oil or actual THC marijuana.

Psilociraptor said...

Pick up their pathology books and see just how obvious it is that infections drive autoimmunity. They are 100% not mutually exclusive topics. Autoimmunity stems from when an infection evolves antigen that looks like self as a way of interfering with host receptors. Then the immune system produces a response against this antigen which ends up attacking the pathogen and the self because they are cross reactive. This is called molecular mimicry and is one of the best known causes of autoimmunity.

Probably depends on the year of the pathology book, because the modern day are influenced and written by pharmaceutical corporations these days. Which means masking symptoms rather than treating the source of the problem.

Psilociraptor said...

A bacteria like borrelia can cause your immune system to produce anti-neural antibodies which is an autoimmune response but it goes away when the pathogen does. Just because a lot of doctors don't treat it that way doesn't mean that's not how it is. These are really well established concepts in basic infectious disease these days. Microbiome can cause "autoimmune" diseases the same way by being a reservoir of opportunistic organisms that trigger self-reactive antibodies. It's no different than your concept of coinfections except that they come from your body rather than a disease vector

I really think there's a big difference, between the autoimmunity in celiac disease and a disease such Lyme Disease... Something like Celiac has been triggered by an infection, a study has shown that through reovirus. But the infection has passed, yet Celiac autoimmunity still remains. Lyme Disease is completely different in the fact that an overactive immune system and inflammation stays due to persister cells and biofilms. Thinking that Lewis is going to treat chronic lyme just by using fecal transplant is going to lead to failure, I think we should be past that now, knowing what we know with Chronic Lyme Disease.

I honestly think the word autoimmune really fits some diseases and disorders, while it doesn't fit others, like Lyme Disease. I think an overactive immune system would preferably the words I choose to use and I've seen Dr. Horrowitz use these words, rather than autoimmune.

I think autoimmunity, is a deceptive word that shouldn't be used to cover a wide range of diseases, because there's so many different levels of it and each disease and disorder is different because of it's own aspects, because viruses, bacteria, and cancer all act differently.

All in all, the medical industry has lied to us and Doctors and even people have this wrong depiction of what causes autoimmunity and what it actually is.

So do you still think I'm completely off the rails Psilociraptor?

I think from time to time, I do base my feelings a little to strongly about infection and yes, autoimmunity, or an overactive immune system can play a role with treatment. I've heard Dr. Horrowitz having success regulating the immune system with Low-Dose Naltrexone, but it hasn't cured chronic lyme, has it?

At times, I think your opinions have provoked some incredible discussion in this post.

I've been pro-FMT, ever since it basically cured C-diff. But I have my doubts it will help with Lyme PTLDS. Personally I was thinking of taking a FMT pill just for boosting my immune system, they say it's like taking a nuclear probiotic. I remember finding a company that sells FMT pills, freezer dried, but it was too costly...

Girlie said...
Charlie and Psilocraptor - Let's keep this friendly...okay?

Ok, I'll tone it down...

Girlie said...
Charlie: "Right now, as well as other Lyme patients, we have to buy our antibiotics overseas to treat ourselves. Or just use standard herbs!"

Why? You live in the U.S. of A. There's plenty of LLMD's.

I have 3 in my state, been through all of them. I have talked about this before, but I don't mind talking about it again. Some LLMDs will only treat you for a limited amount of time, then they'll drop you. I assume you become a liability to their practice, considering the longer they treat with antibiotics, I suspect more they worry about the side effects and other things like C Diff. I assume a lot of them worry about losing their licenses too considering they're practicing outside the law when they treat longterm with antibiotics. Far as I know, Michigan doesn't protect their LLMDs like some of the other states in the US. There's very few states in general that protect longterm antibiotics for chronic lyme anyways.

All in all, repetitively going to a LLMD after 4-5 years can become too expensive. The disease has basically cost me everything, just as everyone else. How is it feasible to keep dishing out money to a Doctor that pracitices outside the medical profession and you have to pay out of pocket for every visit and insurance companies won't pay for it.

I can get into more, but some of you have heard plenty of stories like this already... I've also found, that certain LLMDs will only treat with weak antibiotics, while others will treat more aggressively with stronger antibiotics. If I hadn't jumped to the one LLMD in my state and get him to think outside the box and treat with flagyl, it could of caused me to plateau for a very long time. There's LLMDs out there, that still practice with a very limited selection of antibiotics and for a lot of patients, I suspect it doesn't help them progress much. At least it didn't for me... I was told from the get go on LymeNet, there's some patients that'll travel straight out of state, because some of the LLMDs in Michigan don't treat aggresively enough. It's not even the fact they don't treat aggressively, they don't use certain antibiotics like Flagyl or Tindamax. Or even some of the parasitic meds like Ivermectin. I'm not sure if persister cells antibiotics are even in their vocabulary these days. I'm sure LLMD knowledge and antibiotic protocols vary state to state, but I'm not the first to complain about LLMD Doctors in Michigan, do a search on LymeNet.org and you'll find others complaining of their weak protocols.

And by the way, it's very likely the case that prion disease can also cause autoimmune disorders like Alzheimers, not necessarily an infection, but a protein that can cause serious disease. I'm listening to this one Doctor now suggesting in some cases of Alzheimers, it's being thrown under the rug that it's human cases of mad cow disease. Interesting... /youtu.be/_kDqztRaB-I?t=1h56s

The other stuff in that video can be too much for some people to handle, here's the relation
/www.organicconsumers.org/news/there-connection-between-mad-cow-disease-and-alzheimers
/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4204584/
/www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101145687

Post Edited (Charlie55) : 8/29/2018 2:32:28 AM (GMT-6)