The ILADS Lyme Conference was available to everyone via streaming video today, and will continue tomorrow. The streaming video is covering the primary presentations as well as some of the breakout sessions of the conference.
Not all of the presentations were available via the video stream today, some got cut off (like Burrascano’s session) and are supposed to available for replay online at a later time.
Garth Nicolson talked mostly about ATP Fuel and NT Factor, both are helpful mostly for patients with severe fatigue, with little effect on patients with mild fatigue. NT Factor can also stabilize nerve cells for those with fibromyalgia.
Christine Green talked about co-infections (other than babesia). She says that many of the co-infections are spread by sources other than deer and deer ticks, with 8 out of 10 squirrels in CA positive for tick-borne diseases. She also stated that 40%-60% of domestic cats have bartonella, so if you’ve ever been scratched by a cat, or if you’ve had cats as pets, then you definitely have an exposure risk.
Green also mentioned some of the drug therapies that she uses. She says never to use rifampin alone, some combos mentioned were rifampin with zithromax, or rifampin with doxycycline. For chronic viral infections, she says that 4 months to several years of treatment is often needed. She uses high-dose Valtrex (6000mg per day) for herpes infections, and acyclovir for HHV-6 infections, stating that low-dose Valtrex does not get into the brain tissues.
Richard Horowitz had more to say than I could possibly write down, but hopefully I got the important points in his talk on babesia. His session was also having audio/video technical issues, so hopefully this too will be on the replay later on. He thinks that babesia and parasitemia (babesia is a parasite too) is a major concern, and that there are multiple strains of babesia that can come into play. He’ll use a combo of clindamycin, zithromax, plaquenil and Mepron (with Mepron at 2tsp bid), and then replace the Mepron with Malarone after a while. He says that Septra makes the Mepron more effective, and that zithromax and Septra are an effective combo for bartonella. Short courses of Coartem have also proven to be effective with his patients, with 4 tablets bid for 3 days, which is then repeated as necessary. However, he warned that often antibiotic therapy alone is often not sufficient to prevent relapse once off of the medications, so he uses herbal therapies as well.
For non-pharmaceutical therapies, Horowitz says he has good success with cryptolepsis at 1tsp tid, often combined with some of the Cowden and Byron White formulas (he wasn’t specific as to which ones). He also uses stephania. Turmeric (curcumin) is also a good herb to use, since it is anti-malarial and down-regulates COX2. Personally, I use black seed oil instead of the dried herb for this, and it is interesting that some Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients have reported good success with the black seed oil as well. Horowitz said that heparin is also good for babesia, in that it helps to clear the intracellular parasites, but didn’t mention dosages on this.
Stay tuned for more tomorrow!
Not all of the presentations were available via the video stream today, some got cut off (like Burrascano’s session) and are supposed to available for replay online at a later time.
Garth Nicolson talked mostly about ATP Fuel and NT Factor, both are helpful mostly for patients with severe fatigue, with little effect on patients with mild fatigue. NT Factor can also stabilize nerve cells for those with fibromyalgia.
Christine Green talked about co-infections (other than babesia). She says that many of the co-infections are spread by sources other than deer and deer ticks, with 8 out of 10 squirrels in CA positive for tick-borne diseases. She also stated that 40%-60% of domestic cats have bartonella, so if you’ve ever been scratched by a cat, or if you’ve had cats as pets, then you definitely have an exposure risk.
Green also mentioned some of the drug therapies that she uses. She says never to use rifampin alone, some combos mentioned were rifampin with zithromax, or rifampin with doxycycline. For chronic viral infections, she says that 4 months to several years of treatment is often needed. She uses high-dose Valtrex (6000mg per day) for herpes infections, and acyclovir for HHV-6 infections, stating that low-dose Valtrex does not get into the brain tissues.
Richard Horowitz had more to say than I could possibly write down, but hopefully I got the important points in his talk on babesia. His session was also having audio/video technical issues, so hopefully this too will be on the replay later on. He thinks that babesia and parasitemia (babesia is a parasite too) is a major concern, and that there are multiple strains of babesia that can come into play. He’ll use a combo of clindamycin, zithromax, plaquenil and Mepron (with Mepron at 2tsp bid), and then replace the Mepron with Malarone after a while. He says that Septra makes the Mepron more effective, and that zithromax and Septra are an effective combo for bartonella. Short courses of Coartem have also proven to be effective with his patients, with 4 tablets bid for 3 days, which is then repeated as necessary. However, he warned that often antibiotic therapy alone is often not sufficient to prevent relapse once off of the medications, so he uses herbal therapies as well.
For non-pharmaceutical therapies, Horowitz says he has good success with cryptolepsis at 1tsp tid, often combined with some of the Cowden and Byron White formulas (he wasn’t specific as to which ones). He also uses stephania. Turmeric (curcumin) is also a good herb to use, since it is anti-malarial and down-regulates COX2. Personally, I use black seed oil instead of the dried herb for this, and it is interesting that some Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients have reported good success with the black seed oil as well. Horowitz said that heparin is also good for babesia, in that it helps to clear the intracellular parasites, but didn’t mention dosages on this.
Stay tuned for more tomorrow!