Kissing and transmission

Actually, I'm even worried I could give her Lyme just by living with her.

LLMD MR wrote this about transmission ;

“The Lyme infection, borrelia, can be sexually transmitted. However we do not know the actual rate or chance of transmission. There is limited science around this topic, but here it is.

Studies do show borellia in vaginal fluid and male ejaculate of those who have positive testing with Lyme disease (1, 2).
In one recent study, 13 people with lyme were studied. Of the 13 studied 3 were sexual partners. All 13 had evidence of Lyme in the genital secretions. The sexual partners in each of these studies had identical strains of borrelia (Lyme) detected in the male ejaculate and vaginal fluid. However the researchers did not clarify the length between sexual activity of each couple and when the specimens were obtained. Nor is there scientific evidence indicating how long borrelia can persist in the vaginal fluid after male ejaculation. Thus it is possible the detection of identical strains in the female partner could be from male secretions in the vaginal fluid rather than her own vaginal secretions. In addition, it is possible each person in the couple were independently bitten by ticks which each carried the same strain. Furthermore this study only included 13 people. Small studies of this nature often do not reflect what happens in the general population.
Lyme is a spirochete like syphilis which is well know to be sexually transmitted.”

“ On a positive note, in my experience when I practiced in Seattle, most who get a Lyme infection through sexual transmission do not develop Lyme disease. I believe most people have immune systems that are able to rid the body of the Lyme infection or keep it under control.“

Bartonella in dog and cat saliva.

Vimzor, I don't think you'll get a clear cut answer on it. It's probably best to show her all the data that you have and ask her what she wants to do.

kiss her ! life is short ...i rinse with chlorine dioxide mouthwash after . and pop an alinia preemptivly when my sick gf wants to get romantic... look around with lyme goggles and you will see 90 % of humans are already infected imho.

i thought i gave it to all my friends smoking with them , then i look at they're lifestyles and realized its not my fault. i did not bioengineer this steath pathogen, i just live here...and if u get a chance to do some living ...take it !

eds is a connective tissue disease that i believe often has roots in congenital borrellia . dime to dollar if you look at her blood under a decent microscope you will see spirochetes already.

as a plus she is probably very flexible, kidding aside mothers use abx to try and not give lyme to their babies , she outta be ok whilst you are treating at full dose ....

it strikes me that we are discussing this as if the situation were - we are all uninfected - until we are exposed to some pathogen - and then we get infected - and then we get ill

this is the old model of acute infectious disease

more and more evidence is emerging that does not seem to fit well with this paradigm
eg
1, the study of the partners of lyme patients above having EXACTLY the same genetic strain of lyme in them ( could have been left over DNA of course - but may well indicate partner to partner transmission)

2, the sharply increasing prevalence rates of lyme in all developed countries worldwide - is this just from greater awareness - or is something else going on here

3, some of the more sensitive ( but admittedly less mainstream ) tests are showing around 50% of healthy controls have evidence of borrelia in them - eg Red Lab Phage based test ( i had until recently regarded this technology as a bit of a unsubstantiated outlier - but it seems the test was actually developed by published and per reviewed researchers in phages at the university of Leicester in teh UK - so its not just a " we are two guys in Belgium who have set up a lab with a new proprietary lyme test that we say is good" - type situation, as i had first thought).

4, think about how we humans evolved and lived up until the last few hundred years - typically dwelling in huts, caves etc alongside animals and their parasite vectors, a completely different level sanitary conditions - and therefore constantly exposed to tick and flea and louse bites - and their pathogenic bacteria - including lyme, bart, babs etc ( all of these species are much older than humans ) not everybody who got bit and "infected" by these organisms got ill - or we would probably not be around today to know anything about it

so what has changed - why are more of us getting ill with lyme et al in the last 2-3 decades

it may be that exposure ( ie getting bitten by something - or kissing someone - or having sex with someone ) is not in fact the main determinant of who becomes ill or not.
it could well be that exposure is commonplace and other factors determine who becomes ill
like immune system status / stress / trauma

i know i was living a very stressful life for the few years before getting ill - working ridiculous hours in big business as a kind of turnaround guy.

many many man made chemicals now in the environment are also being found in peoples blood, urine and tissues routinely - many of which are known to be disruptive to our immune systems or hormonal systems or both. microplastics are starting to come to the fore as another biologic dysrupter in ecosystems, animals, food chains and now humans.

modern life is just not conducive to healthy immune function - people are sleeping less, working more, and the line between work and home life is becoming more blurred in our always-on culture and as a result people are feeling more chronically stressed,
we are also exposed to bright lights at night, taking more prescription medications than ever before and eating a diet further and further away from our natural template than ever before ( note 60% obesity levels in USA and UK - which is also an inflammatory and immune system disturbing effect ).

so i ask you - do you think the average Joe today who is working too much, sleeping too little, living on pizza and natco's, permanently connected to social media, has several spare tires around their waist and gets out of breath going up 2 flights of stairs - is going to do as good a job of fighting off a stealth pathogen as a lean active hunter gatherer or smallholder farmer from a few hundred years ago living close to the earth.

i rather think this is the more likely picture of what is going on

that said i could not in all conscience, knowingly risk passing something as horrible as lyme et al on to anyone i loved on the basis that i did not invent it.

I'm all for living life - but i have just lived through 7 years of what happens to the person you love when they contract Lyme disease - and i would not wish that on anyone.

even apart from the moral aspect - it really would not do you any good at all in the long run to see someone you love suffer.

how to prevent it - that's a tough one - i really don't know if there is a way to be sure - perhaps there are ways to reduce the chances of transmission - eg continuous antibiotics - but we simply do not know enough to know by how much at this stage.

personally, i don't think i will be looking for more romantic involvement until i feel i have recovered - or the picture becomes clearer

if you are already in a relationship - and exposure has already happened - then the picture is more clear- more a case of just looking after yourselves to make sure the pathogens do not get a foothold -or at least do what you can.

That's also what happened with me. Got bitten when I was 10, didn't start becoming sick until I was 20. After a couple weeks of working night shift and a stressful period at home the house of cards called my immune system came crashing down.

Garzie said...
I'm all for living life - but i have just lived through 7 years of what happens to the person you love when they contract Lyme disease - and i would not wish that on anyone.

even apart from the moral aspect - it really would not do you any good at all in the long run to see someone you love suffer.

True but I also don't want to be lonely the rest of my life. Like I said before; this sucks.

So we kissed, just 3 small kisses. I used chlorine dioxide mouthwash before and she did after.
Then the next day we kissed again, I always use mouthwash. To be sure I had her take sida acuta, houttuynia, cat's claw and thymus extract the second day.
She felt feverish and sick at the end of that day. I'm not sure if it's a herx but it looks like it.

bluelyme said...
eds is a connective tissue disease that i believe often has roots in congenital borrellia . dime to dollar if you look at her blood under a decent microscope you will see spirochetes already.

So maybe bluelyme is correct. That's a weird response to taking those herbs, for people that don't have Lyme & co. And a lot of her symptoms are eerily similar to mine.

So either it's a Lyme herx or the thymus extract is making her body fight something else she had.

Humans are all kinda cesspools of pathogens - between our teeth, in our tonsil crevices, under our fingernails, etc. We eat raw food with traces of bird poop on it without even thinking about it (lettuce just rinsed with water, for example). Many of us on this forum and people with EDS have some degree of immune dysfunction making it a little more dicey for us to do those things, and we make choices to mitigate that dysfunction.

That said, the endorphins and hormones released when we are attracted to someone and when we are turned on are very good for our immune systems! Sex is beneficial for our bodies! Those connections are good for us neurologically and emotionally as well.

Maybe get tested to make sure neither of you has treatment-resistant throat gonorrhea, but don't make this a medical issue requiring hypervigilance and post-smooch treatment. I'm guessing you both do plenty of things that could lead to chronic illness if your body were compromised, like eating sushi or breathing near a preschool.

Make out with her. Lots. Enjoy yourselves.

sorry to say that's how I got Lyme. Was really living a stressful lifestyle and had a crappy immune system. I lived with my ex who had Lyme but either didn't know it or didn't tell me. I remember the day we kissed, then the next day I had a fever and shooting pains down my legs and boils, had recurring fevers and muscle weakness for months after, then I gradually got sicker and sicker, lost my business, developed arthritis in my mid 30s went through 8 doctors, 5 years later finally got diagnosed. Been getting better in phases since diagnosis for the last 3 years.

Chronic Lyme kind of forces you to get really disciplined and knowledgeable about your own health and find your own way to recovery. If your gf is willing to risk getting Lyme, that's on her, as long as you disclose and let her know the risks. The worst case scenario is of you both getting sick, but hey, it could turn out to be a silver lining if you both help each other get well!

A complete recover would be ideal of course and I believe that's possible nowadays. I'm currently in month two of the new horowitz double dapsone protocol along with using the Fremedica Wave 1 device, with acupuncture and supplements for support. I am still herxing now but much less than the first 3 weeks, and feeling that a full recovery is possible.

Post Edited (alphacentauri) : 10/20/2022 5:09:18 PM (GMT-7)

alphacentauri said...
.....we kissed, then the next day I had a fever and shooting pains down my legs and boils, had recurring fevers and muscle weakness for months after, ....

it may seem that way - and we often connect things up after the fact that seem to fit to the picture we have developed - but Lyme is known to be a slow growing bacteria.

so even when bitten by a tick first symptoms do not occur right away - but over the following weeks
for example
- the average time for a bulls eye rash to develop (if it appears) is 7 days and
- the average time for other symptoms is around 3-10 weeks

of course you could well have contracted something else from our partner, or from anywhere else and other things may well develop faster than lyme.
for example a virus could be transmitted rapidly and develop symptoms rapidly - and that virus could upset an already sub-optimal immune system - and that could be what opened the door to lyme that was already present but so far under control to take hold fully.

often its like this - something similar happened to me - more than one factor involved in our journey from health into illness