Posted 4/3/2024 5:36 PM (GMT 0)
sorry to hear you have gone through this - i am sure its extremely distressing
as discussed above - it will be very difficult indeed to determine the exact cause in any individual case - unless tests of the placenta were done
some LLMD's do this testing routinely on pregnant patients placenta after the birth of a child - as one way of trying to understand if the child is likely to have problems later.
PCR testing accuracy of tissue sample for Lyme is quite good ( as opposed to blood - where it is v poor) - and there is high correlation between infection in the placenta and in the foetus.
so this is perhaps something to consider for future pregnancies.
on the general topic off whether lyme can cause miscarriages
i think there is evidence in the scientific record that it can - as well as still births and birth defects
but as pointed out above - there are many other causes for these and so its not possible to know what the cause was in an individual case with certainty from general circumstances around the pregnancy.
on the topic of sexual transmission
some well known LLMDs -( i think i recall Dr H and Dr J speaking on this) - favour treating the mother with antibiotics during pregnancy as a means of lowering the chances of vertical transmission - when lyme is diagnosed or suspected
they may also favour this as a precaution even if only the father is infected / suffering from lyme
Dr J in particular is of the view that infection with the lyme spirochete is extremely common, that is is sexually transmitted as well as via arthropods - and he believes infects at least 50% of the human population.
the vast majority of which are not showing any signs of illness - because their immune systems hold the infection in check - just as they are supposed to do - more than 90% of the time - and so its only when our immune systems are suppressed or overloaded that people get ill with recognisable lyme disease
there is a certain amount of evidence to support this view:
-less than 30% of people with Lyme recall a tick bite or a bulls eye rash ( there could be other explanations for this of course - but it is curious that the majority recall neither)
-there is a German study of people over the age of i think 70years that found around 50% had exposure to borrelia via serology
-perhaps one of the more convincing studies was by a Dutch testing company who use phage based methods developed at the university of Leicester in teh UK to detect borrelia with greater sensitivity to other available tests - they also find 50% of "healthy controls" also have borrelia in their bodies.
-there was another study of couples with lyme - either both symptomatic or only one - in almost all cases the individual distinct strains infecting one partner - wee found in the other sexual partner - strongly suggesting sexual transmission - as bites from different ticks would be expected to contain different strains.
borrelia have been found in the genital tissues and secretions of infected individuals - suggesting sexual transmission is possible
-and of course - other spirochetes are known to spread very readily by sexual contact - eg borrelia's dumb cousin - syphilis - but also intestinal spirochetes
so its far from a slam dunk and conventional medicine outright denies it - but it is looking more and more likely as evidence accumulates that lyme is able spread from human to human pretty easily - and whether that person has any symptoms or not is more a matter of how their immune function is working. this makes the topic rather difficult to pin down - as it gets into the question of "what is infection"
the reality may be a complete paradigm shift from what most people believe today
from
- that lyme disease is a rare disease and that once infected a person will become ill within weeks
to
- that the organism that causes lyme disease may be extremely common - present in the majority of humans at low levels and acts more as an opportunistic pathogen - only causing problems when a person immune system is compromised in some way. this could be months or years after initial transmission
if you think out the history of humans - the above also makes more sense than the prevailing view.
for over 200 thousand years - and millions of years before that - humans and our hominid ancestors lived off the land hunting and gathering. this routinely involved excursions through tick habitat, killing, carrying, skinning and butchering animals that carry ticks, and sleeping in close proximity with animals that carry ticks.
so its only in the last hundred years or so that most peoples daily activities were
this would mean - just as in nature lyme only makes already weakened animals ill - like deer etc - it was part of the natural environment we evolved in - and only makes weakened humans ill also
so perhaps its just that todays modern life is making us all more susceptible - the food we eat is undeniably both less nutritious and more contaminated with additives etc - the water we drink carries more and more toxic chemicals - the chemicals we are exposed to from multiple sources like - cosmetics, furniture, and the air and in our homes - the chronic stress from being further and further from the original lifestyle we are adapted for - chronic stress levels - lack of sleep - etc etc - all of which are detrimental to our immune systems.
i know i only became ill after 4 or 5 years of an extremely stressful job, long hours, high stress, lots of international travel and lack of sleep, all in a toxic political environment.
many others here reflect on stressors in their onw lives before becoming ill - everyone's lives are different - but typically these were some form of chronic stress, trauma, overwork, bereavement, etc
sorry for the lengthy post - but for a meaningful discussion i felt it necessary to start with the paradigms - and when they are at odds with conventional received wisdom - i then felt i needed to explain why that might make sense - and by the time you do that it gets kinda long
i hope its of some help