WalkingbyFaith said...
Georgia Hunter,
Great to hear from you as always! You said:
“The way to approach treating these pathogens is important because if you treat one and not the other, you may never get well. . . . . I prefer to try to take out the biggest problem first and work my way down to the lesser pathogens.”
When you say biggest problem, do you mean size-wise like what Klinghardt says about treating pathogens from largest to smallest, i.e. parasites, then bacteria, then viruses, or do you mean whichever pathogen seems to cause the most symptoms for a particular person?
I started treating Lyme and bartonella first (including Sida acuta and Bidens pilosa which also affect babesia). My reasoning was because Lyme and ehrlichia were the only ones positive on my DNA Connexions test and most of my symptoms seemed likely to be from bartonella.
I believe what you said about bartonella interacting with just about everything.
My most confounding factors are mold/chemical sensitivities and rage. They go hand in hand. My doc (SA) tells me the chemical sensitivities are from mold and parasites. My last mycotoxin test, levels were in the negative range and Neuroquant MRI results were negative for CIRS but still abnormal (mold score 2, Lyme score 1). No matter what pathogens I attempt to treat, I experience exacerbated sensitivities and psych symptoms to the point I have to take a break. I don’t know how to overcome that and get on top.
I've never thought about
treating the size of the organism first, but there may be something to that. I would treat the one causing the biggest problems first but when dealing with our immune system, size does matter.
I personally would probably never treat bartonella. I would never say never, but more people have it than Borrelia with no symptoms so something else is triggering their problems through bartonella.
If I were dealing with rage or psych symptoms, I'd focus on being consistent with my sodium intake. Rage, or bipolar symptoms, is a massive fluctuation in sodium from extracellular to intracellular spaces. That can be caused by several factors and many unknowns. The key is to lower acid levels so your available hydrogen ions are limited. Basically, your acid levels inside the cell and possibly just outside the cell are too high. Alkalinity would be your friend. There are pathogenic bacteria that utilize hydrogen ions for fuel and this could be compounding your issues. It is common in Lyme patients for these bacteria to move from the GI tract to the periphery where they are problematic. Saturated fat intake causes instability in the tight junctions of the GI tract to allow this to happen.
With psych symptoms, it all starts and ends with the neurotransmitter pathway. You aren't completing this pathway correctly and the acid increase due to inflammation is probably the culprit. When looking at why this pathway doesn't function correctly, there are many possibilities. You could have insufficient tryptophan available to begin the pathway. This is common due to tryptophan being shunted over to make niacin. Niacin deficiency is due to a lack of niacin producing GI bacteria. B6 and Riboflavin are also required to make niacin and a decrease in bacteria that make these can be an issue as can a CBS699T mutation. If the case of the mutation, limited sulfur intake would be advised which reduces methylation. Changing the GI environment to support bacteria that make those vitamins is required to get better. Reducing histamine formation, increasing manganese, reducing gram negative anaerobes, and reducing GI pathogen load is required to get better.
Another common problem with the neurotransmitter pathway is the availability of BH2 to make BH4. I'll abbreviate to spare the big words. This can be an issue in patients with high phenylalanine levels. Reducing phenylalanine levels through a proper diet and internal yeast reduction is required. Folate is a cofactor in BH4 formation so optimal levels of folate are required to make BH4. If one has mutations to GCH1 or DHFR (those are most common), then BH4 levels can be too low. Recycling of BH4 most likely isn't happening so neopterin levels may be high. Thyroid issues occur in this situation. There could be a deficiency of pterin moieties which would limit production of BH2, so citrus fruit daily would be of benefit. We all eat citrus fruit, but how many of us eat 2 or 3 servings every day? This can increase acidity so a balance must be found.
I could type a long time on things that need to be done, these are just a few of them. Knowing what to do is the first step, fixing it is the next step. Knowledge is the key.