John Caudwell

[justy]

I have non specific autoimmune antibodies - my Lyme/M.E Dr believes this is a downstream effect of so many years with undiagnosed chronic bacterial infections. I have 'met' quite a few other people with Lyme and non specific positive ANA - also those who were told they have Lupus but recover with treatment for Lyme.

 

[digital dog]

I didn't know you could have non-specific antibodies. Was the undiagnosed bacterial infection Lyme? Perhaps all of us should try a course of antibiotics for Lyme?

 

[MadeleineKM]

@duncan Can you explain a bit what you mean? I didnt quite understand and my mind is to foggy to read thru the link again. Last time I read it I thought it was about some HLA gene that possibly made us have a wrong reaction to Borrelia witch allowed the spirochete to florish and multiple in the body which it is not suppose to do, plus that we could get an innflamation response that make us ill together with Borrelia. The way I read it it might opens up for possible medications that makes us fight the Borrelia, not loose our sensitivity for it. Its just the wrong body reaction from having this gene? Or have I completely misunderstood, we are now four people in our family ill with Lyme so every research that might put things a step forward is very interesting to us and if this is not something to care about its good to know

 

[duncan]

@MadeleineKM , if I am reading the article you provided correctly - and that's a big if - the theory it espouses suggests Lyme is eradicated with a typical course of antibiotics.

The problem of chronicity seems then to rest in the patient. I want to point out here that we do not know how they defined chronic Lyme; this could mean their sample was comprised of people with or without Lyme - we just don't know based on this article.

Anyway, the theory suggests that those patients who are infected with Lyme, and are cured with a normal abx protocol, carry the allele HLA-DR11. Those that do not recover, and go on to develop chronic Lyme, carry a different allele: the allele HLA-DR4. It seems to me that they are suggesting Lyme is in fact eradicated in chronic Lyme patients, it's just that those people unfortunate enough to have the HLA-DR4 allele - even though freed of Bb - get stuck in this endless autoimmune cycle that is commonly referred to as chronic Lyme. Incidentally, the people behind this article seem fond of calling Chronic Lyme "TRLA" - Treatment Refractory Lyme Disease...And I don't know why the acronym isn't TRLD.

So, the authors seem to believe some people can get Lyme, have Lyme be eradicated, but have it trigger an autoimmune response because of the patients genetic wiring, specifically because of the HLA-DR4 allele.

My two cents? I'd like to know more details about their cohort - was everyone confirmed with a Lyme infection? And, they are assuming Lyme has been completely eradicated with conventional therapy - in light of the recent three persisters studies from Lewis, Zhang, and Embers, I think this a dangerous assumption.

I hope I read the article right.

 

[Dufresne]

OK, that's interesting.

One tell-tale sign that a given disease may involve autoimmunity is when several of its comorbid illnesses (the other illnesses that are frequently found to co-occur with the disease) are autoimmune.

In the case of ME/CFS, this disease has quite a few comorbid conditions that frequently co-occur with it, and several of these comorbidities are autoimmune, or suspected to be autoimmune, namely the following ME/CFS comorbidities: POTS, orthostatic hypotension, Sjögren's syndrome, Hashimoto's.


I don't know offhand what the common comorbidities of Lyme disease are, but if one or more of these comorbid diseases found in Lyme were autoimmune, it would provide suggestive evidence that Lyme might involve autoimmunity.

Does anyone know of any studies which have identified the common comorbidities of Lyme disease?



Incidentally, finding autoimmune aspects to a disease does not rule out the idea that an ongoing chronic infection may be driving the autoimmunity.

For example, in the case of the autoimmune disease of type I diabetes, this involves an autoimmune attack on and destruction of the beta cells in the pancreas which secrete insulin. Now in type I diabetes, patients have been found to be infected with coxsackievirus B — the same virus that is found in ME/CFS patients.

There is ongoing research to try to determine whether this coxsackievirus B infection may be the cause of the autoimmunity in type I diabetes (though at this stage, the evidence for coxsackievirus B driving the autoimmunity is not very strong).

These are exactly my thoughts on Lyme, ME/CFS, and autoimmunity.

Although I've had brain fog and various other symptoms and sensitivities all my life, I didn't develop PEM until I was 31. However what I find interesting is that the PEM grew in seriousness right alongside my ankylosing spodylitis over a couple years. Following a low carb diet keeps the A.S. symptoms negligible, which I think works because it limits some bacterial toxin in the gut. I only wish I had such a solution for my PEM.

And I do have Lyme and babesia, which is not just the matter of testing positive for them; I can connect specific symptoms to each bug.

Concerning Allen Steere: I'm pretty sure his working on an autoimmune component in Lyme disease is for no other reason than to explain why people with "eradicated" borrelia still have sore knees. He's a piece of shit.

 

[MadeleineKM]

@duncan thank you so much, I now understand more and I see that I misunderstood the article. The other articles suggested in the end from this researcher also confirms this. But even though she has this autoimmune vision for Lyme disease she can maybe explain some part in why some get ill and others dont in the same way. Since healthy people also can have spirochetes and be able to control it. Some is more easily treated while others are a lot more difficult to treat. I would like to see more reaserch on the genes and discovering a way that the body itself can fight the spirochete/bacterias would be the best but maybe that would never be possible