Implants to stop Lyme disease??

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. (Nov. 24, 2014) -- Researchers at Tufts University, in collaboration with a team at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, have demonstrated a resorbable electronic implant that eliminated bacterial infection in mice by delivering heat to infected tissue when triggered by a remote wireless signal.  The silk and magnesium devices then harmlessly dissolved in the test animals. The technique had previously been demonstrated only in vitro. The research is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition the week of November 24-28, 2014.

"This is an important demonstration step forward for the development of  on-demand medical devices that can be turned on remotely to perform a therapeutic function in a patient and then safely disappear after their use, requiring no retrieval," said senior author Fiorenzo Omenetto, professor of biomedical engineering and Frank C. Doble professor at Tufts School of Engineering. "These wireless strategies could help manage post-surgical infection, for example, or pave the way for eventual 'wi-fi' drug delivery."

- See more at: http://now.tufts.edu/news-releases/wireless-electronic-implants-stop-staph-then-harmlessly-dissolve#sthash.v11NNMZp.dpuf

Gibson, Maloney push NY Governor Cuomo to sign Lyme bill

Click here:

 

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/news/health/lyme-disease/2014/12/02/gibson-maloney-cuomo-lyme-bill/19802729/

Once again, thanks to the Poughkeepsie Journal and to reporter, John Ferro, for their concern and efforts to get the Lyme bill passed.   PLEASE thank him by recommending and making a comment on the article!

 

GREAT thanks are due to our Congressmen Gibson and Maloney for bringing this critical issue to Governor Cuomo by expressing their concerns in their letter to Governor Cuomo. They also worked to get HR4701 and many other bills passed in a bipartisan manner. These two are a prime example for all of our US Congress, doing what is right for constituents and the USA! Now Governor Cuomo, it is your turn to do what is right for NYS.  NY is the Empire State, it is time to act like it and lead the way! (read this article at the link at the top)

 

As Karla Lehtonen commented:

Let's get 10,000 emails to Cuomo! For more campaign info including a flyer, sample email to friends & family, bill info, FAQ, and NY Voices of Lyme facebook link: 

http://www.nyclymesupport.org/cuomo.htm

 

Jill Auerbach
Hudson Valley Lyme Disease Association, Chairperson
NYS Coalition on Lyme and Tick-borne Disease, Member

"What's the problem? Well it's the ticks of course!"

Excerpts from interview with Willy Burgdorfer, Ph.D., Lyme disease discoverer

Watch interviews with the discoverer of the Lyme disease bacterium and how it is transported by ticks to humans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLIWSkQdCmU

Exercise and gut flora diversity are positively correlated

Being physically fit appears to be associated with a greater diversity of gut bugs, researchers found.

In a case-control study, Irish athletes had a far wider range of intestinal microbes than did matched controls who weren't athletes, Fergus Shanahan, MD, of the University College Cork in Ireland, and colleagues reported online in Gut.

"Exercise seems to be another important factor in the relationship between the microbiota, host immunity, and host metabolism, with diet playing an important role," they wrote.

There's been much attention surrounding gut microbiota and its relationship with obesity and metabolism, but few have looked specifically at the effects of exercise on these gut microbes.

Shanahan and colleagues looked at 40 professional athletes from an international rugby team while they participated in pre-season camp -- a regulated environment -- and compared them with healthy male controls from the Cork region of Ireland.

They found that athletes and controls differed with respect to plasma creatinine kinase, a marker of extreme exercise, and inflammatory and metabolic markers. Athletes had less inflammation and better metabolism than did controls, they reported.

Athletes also had a far higher diversity of gut bugs -- 22 phyla, 68 families, and 113 genera compared with just 11 phyla, 33 families and 65 genera for controls with a low body mass index (BMI), and 9 phyla, 33 families and 61 genera for controls with a high BMI.

Athletes also consumed far more protein than controls, with protein accounting for 22% of their total energy intake compared with 16% of energy intake for low-BMI controls and 15% for high-BMI controls.

This high protein intake, as well as high levels of creatinine kinase, positively correlated with bacterial diversity, suggesting that both diet and exercise are drivers of biodiversity in the gut, Shanahan and colleagues wrote.

The results provide evidence that exercise has a beneficial effect on gut microbiota diversity, they concluded, but it also indicates that the relationship is complex since it's also tied to dietary extremes -- which is why further investigation is needed into the relationship, with a particular need for intervention-based studies to tease it apart.

In an accompanying editorial, Georgina Hold, MD, of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, noted that the article is the first to report that exercise increases gut microbe diversity and that it "highlights that exercise is another important factor in the complex relationship among the host, host immunity, and the microbiota."

She added that future studies examining the impact of exercise and the nutritional value of foods in terms of relevance to gut bacteria are essential: "Developing new ways to manipulate the beneficial properties of our microbiota by finding ways to integrate health-promoting properties into modern living should be the goal."

Bartonella causing liver disease

At our Lyme support meetings, we of course often talk about our coinfection test results, and about the multi-pronged approach to treating Lyme disease, since coinfections are common in the same patient. There are  many known coinfnections that come along in the same tick, and more are being discovered all the time. Not only does the Lyme bacteria itself have three different forms (spirochete, cyst, biofilm), but there are many species of Borrelia. Then, there are the coinfections such as Bartonella, Ehrlichea, Babesia, Cytomegalvirus, EBV, HHV6, Protomyxzoa, and so on, and each of these requires a different drug or herbal regimen for effective eradication or at least reduction. Specialists often disagree over the order in which the different microbes should be attacked,  which ones prevent the others from being effectively treated. That's a big topic. But here's a little side note worth considering:

Below is an abstract of a case study (a single patient) whose liver was infected with Bartonella henselae. It was very difficult to discover the cause of the patient's pain, and then to determine that there was an infection, and that it was  Bartonella. This kind of case study makes me wonder how many bugs we all have running around unchecked in our bodies. 

It  seems to me, more and more, that the best way to get better from all these many coinfections is to do as much bolstering of our immune systems as possible. That is what my homeopath used to say to me, as she was trying (unsuccessfully) to find the right 'constitutional remedy' to reboot my immune system. I wish she had been successful. Often, unfortunately, chronic Lyme patients are so sick that their immune systems are not working correctly and just won't reboot from getting a lot of rest, eating a clean diet, removing heavy metals from the body, doing psychological work to reduce/rethink negative thought patterns that affect the immune system, and so on. 

-Bob

Granulomatous hepatitis due to Bartonella henselae infection in an immunocompetent patient

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3287964/

 

Abstract

 

Background

 

Bartonella henselae (B. henselae) is considered a rare cause of granulomatous hepatitis. Due to the fastidious growth characteristics of the bacteria, the limited sensitivity of

histopathological stains, and the non-specific histological findings on liver biopsy, the

diagnosis of hepatic bartonellosis can be difficult to establish. Furthermore, the optimal

treatment of established hepatic bartonellosis remains controversial.

 

Case presentation

 

We present a case of hepatic bartonellosis in an immunocompetent woman who presented

with right upper quadrant pain and a five cm right hepatic lobe mass on CT scan. The patient underwent a right hepatic lobectomy. Surgical pathology revealed florid necrotizing granulomatous hepatitis, favoring an infectious etiology. Despite extensive histological and serological evaluation a definitive diagnosis was not established initially. Thirteen months after initial presentation, hepatic bartonellosis was diagnosed by PCR studies from surgically excised liver tissue. Interestingly, the hepatic granulomas persisted and Bartonella henselae was isolated from the patient's enriched blood culture after several courses of antibiotic therapy.

 

Conclusion

 

The diagnosis of hepatic bartonellosis is exceedingly difficult to establish and requires a high degree of clinical suspicion. Recently developed, PCR-based approaches may be required in select patients to make the diagnosis. The optimal antimicrobial therapy for hepatic bartonellosis has not been established, and close follow-up is needed to ensure successful eradication of the infection.

 

 

NY Governor must sign Lyme bill

Editorial: Governor must sign Lyme disease bill

Friday, November 14, 2014

From The Daily Gazette

Schenectady, NY

Gazette Editorial pages

With the Polar Vortex upon us and the Ebola scare closer in the rearview mirror than it appears, right now might seem like an odd time to be talking about Lyme disease.

But the governor and the state Legislature will return to Albany soon, and on their desks is a bill that could help treat this terrible, growing tick-borne illness.

The legislation, entitled the Patients' Rights/Doctor Protection bill (S.7854/A.7558B), would enable doctors to use effective forms of long-term treatment on patients with Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses without fear of being charged with professional misconduct or loss of medical license.

We're not talking about turning our backs on legitimate medical science and allowing any quack to invent his own treatment for the disease.

We're talking about allowing government regulators to be flexible when doctors employ new, long-term antibiotic treatments to care for patients suffering from pain and chronic health problems due to long bouts with it.

The medical community is particularly wary of long-term antibiotic treatments. But such long-term treatment is sometimes necessary to fight stubborn cases of Lyme disease where short doses of antibiotics haven't worked.

The reason we should care about this bill is because Lyme disease is growing at epidemic levels. There are more than 300,000 new cases of Lyme disease in the U.S. each year, and New York has among the highest rates in the country.

The epicenter for the state is the Mid-Hudson Valley area. But cases also are prevalent in our area. In 2011, according to a Gazette report in 2013, Schenectady County reported 79 cases of Lyme Disease; Schoharie County, 29; Saratoga County, 525; Rensselaer County, 656; Montgomery County, 30; Fulton County, 8; and Albany County, 364.

The number of confirmed cases has grown exponentially during the past two decades and is expected to continue to grow at an alarming rate.

And just because it's getting cold out doesn't mean the threat is over. While they're generally active during the spring and summer, disease-spreading ticks can still be prevalent through Thanksgiving and can even be a threat in winter.

The state and individual counties have information about ticks and Lyme Disease on their websites. so visit them for more information about how to prevent, identify and treat the disease.

But for people who already suffer from it, and for whom short-term antibiotic treatments didn't cure them, it's imperative that the state give them relief.

The bill has already passed both houses of the Legislature. The governor now needs to sign it and let doctors do what's necessary.

The source:

 http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2014/nov/14/1114_editlyme/

Several obituaries for Willie Bergdorfer

Here are a number of URLS for tributes fot WIlly Bergdorser. 

NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/health/willy-burgdorfer-who-found-bacteria-that-cause-lyme-disease-is-dead-at-89.html


The Week:

http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/272323/speedreads-medical-entomologist-who-discovered-lyme-disease-bacteria-dies


Ravalli Republic:

http://ravallirepublic.com/news/local/article_c1e2691a-7059-11e4-92e1-33a74bcd01ee.html


NBC Montana

http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/hamilton-scientist-who-discovered-cause-of-lyme-disease-dead-at-89/29828920

What does Lyme feel like?

22-month-old baby dies from ehrlichiosis

Nashville Jury Awards $5 Million In Death From Tick Infection

Posted: Oct 13, 2014 7:40 AM PDTUpdated: Oct 14, 2014 6:41 AM PDT

A local pediatric clinic and hospital were found jointly responsible for failure to diagnose the bacterial infection that led to the death of a young boy.

Nashville, TN, United States – - October 13, 2014 —

On October 2, 2014, a Nashville jury held a pediatric clinic and local hospital accountable for the wrongful death of 22-month-old Ryder Laurent. Ryder died on June 10, 2009, as a result of complications from ehrlichiosis, a tick-borne illness.

The jury ruled in favor of the Laurent family against Old Harding Pediatric Associates, which was found to be 50 percent responsible for Ryder's death. Vanderbilt University Medical Center was also found 50 percent responsible, but had resolved all issues associated with the case prior to trial.

"We are very pleased that the jury carefully listened to this tragic matter and rendered a verdict that was fair and just," said Ms. Laurent's attorney, Daniel Clayton, of Kinnard, Clayton & Beveridge in Nashville.

"Ms. Laurent did everything she could to get help for her son. The medical community let her down."

Ehrlichiosis is a bacterial infection transmitted by ticks. The disease causes flu-like symptoms in those infected and, as in the case of Ryder Laurent, can be fatal if it remains untreated.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the antibiotic doxycycline is the first line treatment for ehrlichiosis. If it is administered within the first four to five days of symptoms, fever usually subsides within 24 to 72 hours and the infection is cured with no long-term problems.

In this case, the diagnosis and treatment both came too late for one little boy.

In May 2009, a tick bit Ryder Laurent while he was playing outside. Approximately two weeks later, he developed a fever and a rash on his face. Ryder's mother, Story Laurent, took her son to Old Harding Pediatric Associates in Nashville on Wednesday, June 3, because of his symptoms.

The pediatrician, Dr. Chris Patton, noted the recent tick bite on Ryder's chart, but advised Ms. Laurent that the bite had nothing do with her son's illness, citing an ear infection as the cause.

The following morning, the rash had spread all over Ryder's body. Ms. Laurent said that he had a high fever throughout the night, was experiencing episodes of disorientation and was patting his head like he had a headache.

She took Ryder back to Old Harding and saw Dr. James Keffer. Dr. Keffer failed to look at the chart from the day before, which would have revealed the recent tick bite, and diagnosed Ryder with an allergic reaction.

By Friday, with her child's symptoms worsening, Ms. Laurent took Ryder to Vanderbilt University Medical Center twice – once in the morning and once around midnight – and was sent home both times.

Finally on Monday, June 8, Ms. Laurent brought her son back to Vanderbilt, where an infectious disease expert made the presumptive diagnosis of ehrlichiosis. At that point treatment began, but it was too late.

Ryder Laurent died after suffering a brain herniation caused by ehrlichia meningitis on June 10, 2009. Ms. Laurent made the decision to give the gift of life and donated Ryder's organs.

For more information about us, please visit http://www.kinnardclaytonandbeveridge.com/Medical-Malpractice/

Contact Info:
Name: Daniel Clayton
Email: daniel@kcbattys.com
Organization: Kinnard, Clayton & Beveridge

Release ID: 65912

Discoverer of Lyme bacterium is in hospice

Dear Friends,

 

You may not be aware of this gentle and brilliant soul who identified the spirochete as the cause of Lyme disease. Thus it was named Borrelia.burgdorferi (Bb)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_Burgdorfer

 

You may have heard that Willy Burgdorfer, discoverer of the Lyme spirochete, is in Hospice.

He is still aware of his surroundings but his health has been deteriorating all summer. We don't know how long he will live, but we have an opportunity to show our appreciation of his work. We hope that hearing from you will boost his spirits.

We have set up a website where you can express your thoughts to Willy about his life's work. We will share your words with his family. Please visit:

http://lymedisease.org/news/touchedbylyme/burgdorfer-gratitude.html

to send Willy a message.