Phage Therapy to Treat ME/CFS and Bacterial Dysbiosis

[MouseGraft]

That is a very interesting idea! I believe this is what Dr Markov does in his clinic, when prescribing phages: he checks that the phages are able to kill the patient's isolated bacteria on agar first, and only if the bacteria appear susceptible does he give the patient phage therapy.

I am not clear, though, on how to do this in a reliable way. When I have grown bacteria on the urine dipslide agar, sometimes they will continue to grow more and more each day (as the days go by, the bacteria will occupy more and more area of the agar). Other times the bacteria will just stop growing on the dipslide agar after the first 24 hours, and remain in a small corner of the agar, even though I continue to incubate the agar at 37°C.

I imagine the way you detect bacterial susceptibility to phages is by observing a cessation in bacterial growth once the phages are added to the agar. But if this cessation in growth can occur anyway just on its own, you would not have a reliable way to observe phage susceptibility.


On the chromogenic agar plates, you do not seem to get continued growth at all. I have noticed you will get some growth around the areas where you have transferred some bacteria, but after around 24 hours of incubation, you do not seem to get any further growth. The bacteria remain localized, and do not grow to expand across the plate. Maybe bacteria find it hard to grow on chromogenic agar?

For the nutrient agar slants/slopes (nutrient agar in a small glass test tube), when I add bacteria this does seem to grow to cover the entire surface. But the surface area in these tests tubes is small, so not an ideal place to test for phage susceptibility. But on nutrient agar, the bacteria do seem to grow well,

If I were to buy some nutrient agar plates, I think this might work. You could watch the bacteria grow bit by bit across the nutrient agar plate. Then while the bacteria are still growing across the plate, you could add the phage solution, and observe whether that halts all growth.



A few days ago a started taking the broad-spectrum gastrointestinal phage product called Pyobacteriophage Complex, made by Microgen. I am taking this orally, rectally (administered into the colon using a colon tube), and intranasally (sprayed into the nose with a nasal spray bottle). I noticed some mild twinges in my intestines after a few hours, and then the next day, I woke up feeling more distanced from my ME/CFS. I had a slight glimpse of what it would be like to be healthy without ME/CFS.

So that was a good start. But then for the next two days I went back to my normal ME/CFS state. My dreams have been quite strange and disturbed in the last two days, suggesting there is something going on in my intestines.

I have just started taking a good probiotic, to replace any bad bacteria that may have been killed by the phages. We will see what happens over the next few days.

Hello! Do you have any update on the phage cocktail? Any effect? Any side effects?

 

[Hip]

Hello! Do you have any update on the phage cocktail? Any effect? Any side effects?

I felt better than normal after the first day taking phages, and found my anhedonia was noticeably improved. I went out for a walk, and found the activity in the street much more interesting than normal, as if I had regained my interest in life. Anhedonia normally makes life look flat and lacking in interest.

And I also seemed more consciously aware of the activities in the street, my brain would tune in to what was happening, rather than my usually vague and brain fogged state of low awareness.

So that was a good start, but it did not last, as the next day I went back to normal, and then found my dreams became a bit strange and hard going over the next few nights. That could bacterial die off, as toxins in the gut tend to produce weird dreams.

I got a few twinges in my intestines for a few days, suggesting something was happening in there.

Then about 5 days after taking the phages, I developed a bit of depression with mental tiredness, but this could have also been due to me slowly coming down with a really nasty cold.

I am just trying to get over my cold, and then I may resume taking more phages.

 

[BrightCandle]

I am not sure if this is interesting or not but my biomesight report (https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/microbiome-16s-dna-analysis.85816/post-2370863) compared to the bacteria list suggests I would not benefit from this at all. The dysfunctions found in my microbiome are not anything it addresses. I actually have lower than average amounts already. Neither the Complex Pyobacteriophage nor Pyobacteriophage Polyvalent would address anything that is obviously wrong in my gut. On the lists I looked today that sell these two products I can't find anything targetting killing my top 10 problem species at all. I will have to do a deeper look into if something is available especially to deal with the ones known to disrupt mitochondria and introduce lactic acid but whatever is wrong in my gut is not what the standard products is trying to treat.

 

[andyman123]

In a weird twist of fate, bacteria phages seems to be related to herpesviruses that, while not responsible for every case, probably make up a substantial amount of me/cfs cases.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duplodnaviria

 

[Rim1]

@Hip
Hello Hip. Do you have any further update on using phages? Or you didn't take them anymore after stopping?
Do you know if phages penetrate the biofilm to reach the bacteria and do they act against the L-forms as well?

 

[Hip]

Hello Hip. Do you have any further update on using phages? Or you didn't take them anymore after stopping?

I have not re-started the phages. I started taking Dr Markov's autovaccines two months ago, and I don't want to re-start the phages at the moment, otherwise I will not be able to tell which treatment is leading to any benefits or side effects.

But I will re-start the phages in a few months I think. I am not expecting any spectacular results with phages, but maybe they might improve my IBS.