Sunday 24 January 2010

SYMPTOM FLARES

Patients with Chronic Lyme disease as with many patients with ME/CFS have symptom flares.

With Lyme Disease or Borreliosis, a subject often talked about is symptoms flare ups and herxing (which happens during use of antibiotics) . A few of us however get symptom flares even when we're not on antibiotics - just what is going on?


Marie Kroun, MD Founder and webmaster of LymeRICK did her own study based on patients symptoms charts of those she was treating and therefore able to follow closely. A summary of her observations are below:"It soon became apparent to me that the pattern of symptom fluctuations is the very best clinical indicator of ACTIVE Borrelia infection, i.e. that active Borreliosis fluctuate in two patterns:
1. very active Borrelia infection, i.e. when the new growth is not under control by either the hosts immune-system or by antibiotic treatment => weekly flares at 8-10 (6-14) days or
2. flares come at monthly (3-5 weeks) interval, which indicate that new growth is suppressed / under control either spontaneously by the hosts immune system or by antibiotic treatment.

The observed patterns are very consistent with Brorsons observation, that young "cysts" of Borrelia burgdorferi will revert back to spirochete form in about 9 days, while older "cysts" will take about 4 weeks to revert into spirochete form again!

The weekly symptom relapse pattern is also consistent with old knowledge about fluctuations in "relapsing fever Borreliosis" , so it seems that Lyme borreliosis is not very different from relapsing fever Borreliosis, clinically!

That Borreliosis symptoms fluctuate over time with monthly relapses is not a new observation either. Indeed, the monthly Borrelia relapse pattern during antibiotic treatment, was described by Dr. Burrascano already in the early 1990ies; he also found that monthly flares may continue for more than a year despite continuing the antibiotic treatment, and this finding was also confirmed by my study!"http://lymerick. net/newsite/ viewpage. php?page_ id=3

For those who are statistically minded there's a brillaint study on flares following a Lyme patient during treatment for over a year which tested the theory of Burrascano on the monthly flare. The link is:Lyme Disease: Statistical Evaluation of a Symptom Log and an Empirical Theory of Flare Cycles http://www.lymenet. de/symptoms/ cycles/statistic s.htm

1 comment:

  1. I am living proof. I got multiple em's and and fell deathly ill in 1996. I am now off abx and I am flaring every 5 weeks. I would not be able to know this if my mom had not insisted on paying to get my hair done every 5 weeks. Actually it is a little less than 5 weeks. I am sick and have to go to hairdresser? yuck. return of a new symptom this time rage,

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