by CEW
(Originally published at www.suite101.com
Following a warm winter in the U.S. ticks and lyme disease may be on the rise. It's in fact the fastest-growing infectious disease in the U.S. Here's a "lowdown" on Lyme, plus general information on rickettsial diseases.
Some years ago, a technical writing professor asked our class to write an incident report on an accident that had occurred in our hypothetical Chinese restaurant. Our favorite customers, dear old "Mr. and Mrs. Ricketty," both crippled by arthritis, had somehow missed our "please wait to be seated" sign and had tried to seat themselves when a waiter backing out of the kitchen loaded with trays had stumbled into poor Mrs. Ricketty's walker, leaving the lady on the floor and also dragging Mr. Ricketty down.
Of course we had a great time writing our reports, and thought them hysterically funny. (My team recommended that the "please wait to be seated" sign be translated into English; I read the report to the class, and being tired was slap-happy and giggled through the whole; after class I had a discussion with another team member who told me how his grandma or aunt had reminded him that, whatever he had, to "keep it in his pants".) There's nothing funny about ricketts though. Anne Frank and her sister died of typhus, spread no doubt by poor sanitary conditions in the camps where they were.
Deadly Typhus, Dr. Ricketts
Typhus and several tick-borne diseases are caused by types of rickettsial bacteria. Rickettsial bacteria are named for Dr. Howard Rickets, who himself died of the disease while studying it in Mexico.
"Garden" Varieties?
Not all varieties of "ricketts" are so deadly. In World War Two, two Polish doctors reportedly injected people in one town with a not-so-dangerous "garden variety" of typhus, Porteus OX19. When positive test after positive test for typhus in the town was reported, the Germans decided not to enter the town. (The incidence of typhus in Germany was low at the War's outbreak apparently while this was not apparently so for Poland -- see the article by J. D. Snyder for more on typhus incidence in World War Two.)
Lyme: High Incidence This Summer?
This summer, after a warm U.S. winter, a higher-than-usual tick population is predicted. Lyme disease, caused by one kind of rickettsial bacteria that apparently grows on a particular receptor that's in ticks' stomachs may thus be on the rise. It's carried by the deer tick and its "cousin", the black-legged tick. (Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever -- see "Lyme, Spotted Fever, Typhus", below -- is carried by the dog tick.)
Lyme disease is named for the town of Lyme, Connecticut, where mothers noticed arthritis symptoms in their children who had one commonality: having been bitten by a tick, according to Laurie Garrett, author of The Coming Plague (1994).
Lyme, Spotted Fever, Typhus
The rickettsial bacterium that causes Lyme disease and the one that causes Rocky Mountain spotted fever in the Western United States are actually very similar to the rickettsial bacterium involved in typhus. Rocky Mountain spotted fever is so close to typhus in fact that, according to some, the main difference is that Rocky Mountain spotted fever is carried by ticks whereas typhus is carried by lice or fleas. Across the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Spotted Fever is also caused by ticks.
Chills, Congestion, Rash, Gangrene
Lyme, spotted fever, and typhus are characterized by chills, congestion, and a spotted rash. They differ from a third rickettsial disease, syphilis, which is not arthropod-borne. The latter is characterized by a neck rash while Lyme in particular attacks the feet and legs, especially in hikers (who are of course on their legs a lot). Both Lyme and typhus rashes can lead to gangrene of the extremities.
Gangrene of the extremities may also be caused by syphilis but incidences seem to be few. Typhus and Rocky Mountain spotted fever can both cause death in days, although, according to Dr. Ricketts' research, spotted fever and typhus are not the same. However the bacteria that cause both are almost identical, Garrett (1994) says.
History
According to Garrett, yaws, a kind of rickettsial disease which affects the skin and also wool bedding and is believed to be closely related to syphilis, has a long history in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. As for the history of typhus, Garrett says that it was at first flea-borne but got into lice, and when it did so human infections became more common. By the eleventh century, when armies were criss-crossing Asia and Europe, so was typhus, Garrett believes.
Evidence of crippling (from syphilis or Lyme) can be found in fourteenth century bones from Europe, according to Garrett. Syphilis was documented in Europe in Italy during the time of Columbus, but some cite earlier apparent descriptions of the disease in Europe in the late Middle Ages.
Typhus and Hygiene
Typhus, as noted, is linked to poor hygiene and sanitation. Seventeenth century painters portrayed subjects combing out head lice. An early excavator of the Great Dismal swamp described finding his way through the swamp by picking the eyelids off of one of the lice infesting his shirt, removing the louse's eyelids, and then watching to see which way the louse faced which was of course away from the forest-shrouded sun. The excavator headed the opposite direction to find sunlight. One slave in the Americas described straining the plantation milk in his "louse-infested" shirt because he had nothing else to strain it with.
Typhus was rampant in cities in Europe and the U.S., particularly in poor neighborhoods. However, late in the nineteenth century, as washing soda consumption increased, particularly among the masses, typhus began to decline, in part to awareness of the connection between it and sanitation. Washing machines came into vogue also around this time.
Lyme and Forest Destruction
According to both Garrett and Arno Karlen, who researched Lyme in his book, Man and Microbes (1996), clear cutting of forests particularly in the U.S., together with the extermination of predators such as the wolf, paved the way for Lyme to take over the brush that grew where forests had been. Karlen says that Lyme however is not particularly dependent on the deer population, that there has to be another vector. Karlen suggests rodents, though Pennsylvania's rabbit population may be another possible source. (Still another interesting fact about Pennsylvania's environment is the rapidly increasing rainfall according to NOAA data on the stafe for the last century.) Between 2001 and 2005, one or more cases of Lyme disease were reported for every thousand persons in Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
Antidote?
Pre-second World War treatments for syphilis included mercury, potassium iodide, and an arsenic compound. Colloidal silver has been touted as effective at treating Lyme but its effectiveness has not been documented. A popular treatment for rickettsial diseases among Native Americans at least was the somewhat toxic pokeweed root.
Prevention Best
Today, for dogs at least, the best solution may be vaccination. For campers, cats, and children though it's repellant. The better flea controls for cats include a repellant.
A drop of pennyroyal essential oil in shampoo can kill ticks and head lice too in children. It's also a great addition to the wash (just a drop is needed, along with the usual soap!). Do not ingest it though, as pennyroyal (a kind of mint) tends to destroy the intestinal flora and fauna. Essential oils are not designed for ingestion in any case.
If you get a tick bite, remove the tick of course (alcohol will slow the tick's activity and good tweezers are usually enough to get it out; gasoline on the tick may work better than alcohol; my mother used to first numb the tick with alcohol, then burn it with a match, and only then remove it with tweezers; it's essential to get the whole tick). Wash the bite well too, and immediately (sodium laureth sulfate is a good soap and may also help those who have a rash associated with lyme; a poultice with warm salt solution, possibly coffee, and/or peroxide may help too as may rinsing the bite with witch hazel solution which is anti-inflammatory; for inflammed 'bullseye rash' some checmical debridements may work but be careful; photograph the rash as it will gradually subside and visit a clinic or hospital).
Early Treatment
Where prevention fails, early treatment is essential since rickettsial diseases become less treatable as they progress. Lyme disease occasionally disappears after a while, but may come back, and so if you've ever had it, some caution should be observed. Initially injected into the skin at the tick bite source (which often but not always leads to a characteristic 'bullseye' rash, looking something like a bullseye in an inflammed target), it quickly infects the bloodstream.
Survival in Joints and Blood?
Arno Karlen cites research suggesting that Lyme may possibly "hide itself" long-term "in the joints" when it otherwise seems to be in remission. The joints like the skin contain lots of collagen, a stretchy tissue, and I wonder if it's the collagen that lyme flourishes in. Both Lyme and syphilis can warp and bend joints. The reason perhaps is hypoxia, induced by gout. Gout is a name for the buildup of uric acid in the joints, the result of waste -- from injuries, too much weight-bearing; waste is normally cleansed readily by the kidneys, but in some cases cleansing fails. Why does it fail in lyme and syphilis? Again the answer may be hypoxia as rickettsial bacteria live in environments without oxygen (and may perhaps work to create such an environment; see notes on magnesium and biofilms below; these are my ideas).
Lyme also seems to spread from one skin inflammation to the other, and the clear discharge from the sores and rash may infect other skin, if not dried out by heat or medicine. There seems to be an interaction between the skin and blood, and sometimes also between the skin and the joints perhaps, that spreads the rash. In yaws, which does not infect the blood, the skin rash quickly disappears and the disease ends its course, unlike in syphilis and lyme, where the rash is recurrent. Syphilis, like Lyme, infects the bloodstream.
Lyme and the Body's Metals
Traditional bacteria exploit the body's mineral transport systems, particularly the iron transport system. However lyme seems to not require iron. Instead it uptakes metal apparently using a protein involved in manganese transport, in both animals and in ticks. Without this protein it does not infect, according to research by Ouyang, He, Oman, Yang, Norgard (2008; but I don't dig these studies that use mice). Because the body generally stops bacterial infection by hiding iron but does not do so apparently with manganese, this may be one reason why lyme is able to evade the immune system so long. Chronic lyme sufferers are often manganese deficient. Manganese is an important metal in iron-binding and may be important in protecting the body from disease. Sources of manganese in the diet include cloves, cinnamon, chia seeds, and spinach. (Alas, due to my joints' reaction to cloves, apon my most recent bout with arthritis and gangrene, I removed cloves from my diet and switched to cinnamon which contains manganese too but along with calcium.)
Magnesium, deficient in most Americans and especially deficient in North American soil, is also especially deficient in lyme sufferers. This mineral is apparently needed by lyme bacteria's biofilms. Magnesium also seems to be needed by the body's fauna and flora -- which may play a role in the circulatory system, and particularly in wound debridement --, and of course magnesium is needed for vitamin D absorption. So should you replace the magnesium or is that simply feeding the bacteria? One solution might be to soak in magnesium sulfate (epsom salts) or another source of magnesium ("Dead Sea Salts" may have magnesium chloride along with calcium chloride and other minerals -- thus it's a more balanced set of minerals than in epsom salts alone) and afterwards to use probiotics on the afflicted skin (yeast, honey; I personally have had better luck with yeast). This way perhaps you let the probiotics soak up their share of magnesium before lyme gets it all (I am unsure how much magnesium is used by the body's fauna and flora, but this technique has worked very well for me). The body's own fauna and flora, like yeast, can live in environments with oxygen as well as in low-oxygen environments; this distinguishes them from the Lyme bacteria which lives only in low-oxygen environments: thus an environment rich in oxygen is o.k. for the good fauna and flora but keeps out Lyme.
Soothing Soaks and Other Treatments
Besides epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) and other salt (with magnesium chloride) soaks, possible soaks for Lyme disease might include: hot water with orange oil or orange rind, thyme, perhaps lavender (both thyme and lavender are used in "herbes de Provence"; I tried adding lavender -- reputed to help the circulatory system, which Lyme can affect -- to my soak, and it seems excellent) and witch hazel, plus perhaps some French healing clay (the latter is very soothing -- either red or green). In my battles with arthritis and inflamed joints in my toes and feet, arthritis in my fingers, and rot under my toes (and in one case foot arch), I've combined such soaks with epsom salts (manganese sulfate which as noted can help support the skin's biota).
Ultimately, on a hunch it would work (deduced from the smell), I added coffee or decaf (according to an online article about coffee and gout, drinking coffee at least may reduce gout in men aged forty and up; I myself can't however vouch for coffee enemas, which I have not tried -- and I wonder how coffee taken orally can reach a gangrenous joint without circulation there? coffee works better than decaf though decaf works too; either helps my skin and the soaks do help my gout though it might be possible to get an excess of uric acid (but some dose of this is essential in debridement). I'm also trying chicory as a coffee substitute and it seems to work). I add peroxide to the hot soak, to cool it to 'warm' and add oxygen too; cool peroxide is irritating.
As for herbs/essential oils from herbs, according to Bader Salem (2010, "The Health Benefits of Thyme [Zaatar in Arabic]"), thyme oil has anti-inflammatory and antiseptic properties. It contains thymol, which together with menthol (found in mint oils) is used as an alternative treatment for gout. One online sufferer swore by soaks in peppermint and witch hazel (for witch hazel she insisted on the real thing, the actual fresh herb which grows in North Florida, and not the solution; but I have had luck with the solution). Cinnamon oil contains both calcium and manganese (needed in bone health) and seems to soothe joints when a few drops are added to a soak (you can also apply it directly to toenails and fingernails; I have had some luck lightly blotting the corners of rot with it as it is good at drying and debridement). Orange oil (which contains collagen to some degree) as noted earlier might also be helpful. The one oil that has irritated my joints is clove oil -- interesting to me as cloves are mostly manganese and lyme exploits the manganese as opposed to the iron pathway. Birch is something I have not tried that some also claim helps gout. One company (Haw Par of Singapore) produces a "Tiger Balm™" patch that consists of camphor (from the berries of the bush, of Chinese origin), menthol (from peppermint and closely related plants), and capsicum (from hot peppers). The problem is that the patch is also loaded with glue (to make it stick; but ultimately this cuts circulation). There is also a "Tiger Balm" ointment, without the glue, but it contains oil of cloves (which as noted seems to aggravate Lyme disease in my joints).
A soak in the warm smoke of a fire may also be helpful, especially for the joints (moreso after cleaning or real soaking). So may fresh air. Beeswax, shea butter, or a cortizone or silica cream may help skin that has been over-soaked (as may probiotics such as active dry yeast which can be added to a warm soak with epsom salts without killing the yeast). I have found that you can add dry yeast (the kind you bake with) to a soak, especially to one containing coffee and even to one containing a bit of epsom salts (which really do not kill the yeast). The best temperature for a soak is in fact close to the temperature at which the yeast are active (the body has yeast of course and they are important in the skin as well as in the gut and other places). Silica itself is also critical in healing from gangrene.
Some long term sufferers take "teasel root extract" orally. I did not have much with taking it orally, but had some luck when I put it on a sore. (I have not yet applied it to my joints.) The teasel root extract is less drying than many topical medicines. I have however had better luck with "clary sage oil" -- loosely related to actual sage (or not?), and like herbs in the mint family, it has a little stem with tiny flowers. It does not contain menthol or thymol but contains various menthol-like components (those have anti-inflammatory plus some antiseptic and even debridement properties). It is excellent for rubbing on sore joints -- but I am not sure that it is not too drying and/or damaging to the skin biota.
Another topical medicine for sores -- a salt that helps with debridement, but unfortunately is poisonous in large doses -- is chlorhexidine gluconate.
Whether or not colloidal silver treats Lyme disease in the blood, it is effective on skin rashes, perhaps since the rashes are something like a burn in that patches of skin are destroyed. However colloidal silver like teasel root extract may be a bit pricey if the rash is extensive. Finally, Karlen has noted how rickets has learned to exploit different paths and also that it mutates and hides evading treatment. With this in mind, it's best to opt for more wholistic treatments (IMO clary sage kills the lyme bacteria -- at least it does so in my joints -- but removing the component that does and marketing it IMO is not the best solution; on the contrary the solution is to include more fresh herbs in our diet, use good quality oils for arthritis and not a single kind, and to allow fresh air to flow across our land so that wounds debride).
Lizard Blood and Lyme, Prevalence of Lyme
One west coast lizard, the "western fence lizard", has a protein in its blood that is believed to clean a tick's blood of lyme and explain why the young black-legged ticks in California have lyme at a higher rate than do the adult ticks. Sabin Ruessell (San Francisco Gate, 198) quotes epidemiologist Robert Murray on the differing infection rates in Connecticut versus California. I believe that early debridement of tick bites in animals -- with the help of sea and sand in some states -- may lower infection rates also. I am really still unsure why the Northeast and a few states in other areas have practically all the reported infections in humans. Connecticut has one of the highest reported incidences of Lyme. A 1998 study of one part of Connecticut ticks links tick abundance and activity with both the rate of infection of that tick population and the infection rate in humans (see Stafford. et. al; 1998.) But is this why this part of Connectiut and other parts of the Northeast have apparently most of the incidences of Lyme disease, as tick abundance varies considerably, and the lizard protein in California is a plausible explanation for the lower infection rate there. But if it's ticks you want to get rid of, an opossum in your yard or garden apparently is the answer.
Taking melatonin orally may help healing too, in places in the Northeast where the lights shine all night. For sufferers of Lyme, it's worth a try.
Do check out Amayo's discussion of seeking treatment for RMSF or lyme -- note that the doctor tried to convince Amayo that a week of treatment was enough (IMO that doctor is nuts; never stop treatment without a negative test and complete recovery; this results in antibiotic resistance; of course after six weeks or more of continuous antibiotics, which can be strong for the system, or after antibiotic failure, as happened both times I used them, you may have to switch treatment.) I've had lyme since 2001 -- traditional antibiotics stopped working during the first few months of treatment, and always fail within a day if I try them to help me with lyme problems associated with injuries. So be careful.
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