Clongen reports many unusual organisms seen swimming around in a drop of blood taken from many of the most ill, chronically afflicted patients. Why? I believe these patients are immunologically compromised. People of the ILADS/chronic Lyme disease community, have long claimed that Lyme disease infection (Borrelia spirochetes) is immunosupressive: this, it is argued, why co-infections, erstwhile opportunists, are able to easily grab a foothold. As one of my patients pointed out to me, there exists research showing a mechanism by which this might occur. Wooten and others have shown that Borrelia infection can lower a specific cytokine ( a mediator of normal immune function), IL 10. This weakens the ability of the immune system to fight or contain certain infections. If one microbe can do this, it is plausible that many others can do so as well, through various mechanisms. For example, XRMV, has been linked to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Not CFS. The proper nomenclature is CFIDS (Chronic Fatigue Immunodeficiency Syndrome) because the syndrome is believed to be associated with a yet understood, dysfunction within the immune system
The epidemic of CFS started suddenly in the mid 1980s. The Medical community at first thought it might be caused by Epstein Barr Virus, but ultimately decided the cause was unknown. The CDC was concerned about this new epidemic because they developed a case definition for the disorder, first in 1988, then revised in 1994.
Please visit the CDC website and print out their Case definition of CFS. Compare this to the ILADS published expanded definition of chronic Lyme disease. They match, nearly to a T.
Fibromyalgia arrived on the scene around the same time. For the longest time, most physicians refused to consider it a "real disease." Ultimately, The American Academy of Rheumatology published a case definition, in essence, pronouncing Fibromyalgia a genuine disease.
Fibromyalgia shares many features with chronic Lyme disease and CFS. Even the terminology sounds familiar. Instead of having Brain fog - Patients have "fibro-fog."
Let me turn the table a bit more. Pain - and I will introduce a new variable, Migraines: why does it hurt. Pain occurs when sensory fibers are stimulated, carrying a message to the brain/pain center causing the subjective feeling of pain.
Why Migraines? At first doctors thought it was a vascular disorder caused by constriction and dilation of blood vessels. Then, it was understood to be a brain disorder. Abnormal brain function can be imaged associated with migraines. Now - Botox injections can treat migraines. What is going on here?
Botox paralyzes nerves, relaxes muscles. This decompresses some nerves.
Inflamed, architecturally changed muscle tissue, impinges on nerves which too may be damaged and inflamed, perhaps exacerbated by autoimmune damage of tissues.
A lot of patients with migraines also have fibromyalgia, associated with tight muscles in the back of the neck. It is now understood that pressure applied to tiny nerve fibers, compressed by local abnormal muscles initiates the cascade. Messages are sent to the brain leading to abnormal brain function and then changes in blood vessels. The vessels constrict and then dilate, pressing on nerves. This is why migraines have a pounding quality. The vessels dilate more when the heart contracts. Fibro muscles irritate nerves but in a different way. The same can be said for Lyme patients.
Stardard medical thinking holds that painful conditions like fibro and irritable bowel syndrome are due to overly sensitive nerves. This thinking seems to have a psycho-somatic slant. These sorts of biases need to be replaced with a better understanding of the science and a respect for the suffering of the patients, rather than blaming the patient - as if in some way, the patient is responsible for the illness.
This thinking is fueled by observations that certain illnesses are more prevalent in women - the implication: women are prone to hysteria and psycho-somatic problems. In fact women have more robust immune responses than men and are twice as likely to experience autoimmune disease. This is where we need to look.
Let's go back to the first paragraph. Sick patient have germs in the blood; parasites bacteria, unknowns. The immune system is to some measure broken. These germs should be contained in a box, somewhere else, by a competent immune system.
Perhaps an initial infection: Lyme, Mycoplasm or something else, initiates the process seen in our: chronic Lyme, CFS, fibro, chronic pain syndromes, migraine, IBS, chronic pelvic pain, IC and other patients. The smart, offending germs are in some way programmed to disrupt normal immunological functions(as is known to be the case with Borrelia) causing a wide range of downstream sequelae.
Some antidepressants, Cymbalta, Elavil disrupt the neuronal messages sent to the pain center, or in some way alter the perception of pain in the brain. The same is true for anticonvulsants like Neurontin, Lyrica. They may help some. But they do not get at the root of the cause.
Sometimes - antimicrobials, of various sorts, (from doxycycline to Tindamax to Malarone) work much better for these patients.
Immune compromise, mediated by one infection ( not to discount the role of genetics, stress and other factors) can "activate" heretofore quiescent germs. This explains why patients relapsing with Lyme often experience a rip-roaring relapse of a previously controlled co-infections, like Babesia.
The process may be associated with multiple breakdowns of normal imune function. For example: cytokines become dysregulated, T cell and B cells malfunction, autoantibodies are made. Autoantibodies, the cause of autoimmune disorders, play a huge role in the disease complex.
Bottom line: sometimes it is best not to worry what it is: are bands present or not? Is it fibro or CFS. Not to say you should stop trying to figuring it out.
It comes down to this: either the illness responds to anti-microbial agent or it doesn't.
This begs the question: which antibiotics/anti-malarials or anti-parastic agents. If you don't pick the right ones you won't know if the illness is anti-microbial responsive.
That's the tricky part. That's what you pay us to figure out.