According to a recent publication by the CDC there are two categories of diagnosis for "Lyme Disease"¹:

1. Lyme Disease

Caused by Borrelia bergdorferi and in many cases accompanied by the "Lyme-causing co-infections" which include these genuses: Babesia, Bartonella, Ehrlichia, Mycoplasma, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Anaplasma, and Tularemia.

Per the Center for Disease Control and Prevention:

Lyme disease is a well-known condition caused by infection with the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi. Features of early infection include erythema migrans (an erythematous skin lesion with a bull's-eye or homogeneous appearance), fever, headache, and fatigue. If left untreated, the spirochete can disseminate throughout the body to cause meningitis, carditis, neuropathy, or arthritis. The recommended treatment for Lyme disease is generally a 2-4-week course of antibiotics.

If you are dealing with an infection caused one or more of the above genuses of microorganisms, we can not help you, you will need to seek other alternatives.

It is our understanding that some organizations are developing phage preparations for these anaerobic pathogens and we hope that therapeutic phage preparations are available in short order. It is a terrible disease that affects many people.

2. "Chronic Lyme Disease"

For these types of diagnoses there is significant complexity -- there are many theories and potentially incorrect diagnoses regarding the cause and treatment of Chronic Lyme Disease. Many patients are diagnosed by symptoms alone, others may be diagnosed by credible laboratories that detect the presence of antibodies for the Lyme bacteria and Lyme co-infections in the blood. Fair enough, there is, or has been, an active infection of Borrelia or the Lyme co-infections.

Per the Center for Disease Control and Prevention:

Chronic Lyme disease, on the other hand, is a diagnosis that some health care providers use to describe patients with a variety of conditions such as fatigue, generalized pain, and neurologic disorders. Many of these patients have experienced significant debilitation from their symptoms and have not found relief after consultation with conventional medical practitioners. As a result, some seek treatment from practitioners who might identify themselves as Lyme disease specialists ("Lyme literate" doctors) or from complementary and alternative medicine clinics, where they receive a diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease.

A diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease might be based solely on clinical judgment and without laboratory evidence of B. burgdorferi infection, objective signs of infection, or a history of possible tick exposure in an area with endemic Lyme disease. There is a belief among persons who support the diagnosis and treatment of chronic Lyme disease that B. burgdorferi can cause disabling symptoms even when standard testing is negative, despite evidence that the recommended two-tiered serologic testing is actually more sensitive the longer B. burgdorferi infection has been present. Some practitioners use tests or testing criteria that have not been validated for the diagnosis of Lyme disease(1). A significant concern is that after the diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease is made, the actual cause of a patient's symptoms might remain undiagnosed and untreated.

Patients given a diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease have been prescribed various treatments for which there is often no evidence of effectiveness, including extended courses of antibiotics (lasting months to years), IV infusions of hydrogen peroxide, immunoglobulin therapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, electromagnetic frequency treatments, garlic supplements, colloidal silver, and stem cell transplants. At least five randomized, placebo-controlled studies have shown that prolonged courses of IV antibiotics in particular do not substantially improve long-term outcome for patients with a diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease and can result in serious harm, including death.

Based on communications with one of the major laboratories in the United States, it is common to find situations where certain types of antibody-based tests yield "false positives" meaning (their definition) the antibodies are present but the infection is no longer active. This can be true for Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme co-infections and for the more "traditional" species like Staphylococcus or Pseudomonas. The only way to truly determine if the infection is truly active is to use the traditional microbiology techniques, where the pathogen is isolated and identified using traditional techniques. Further, phages are highly effective techniques for this process.

Our Opinion

Sometimes patients who have a legitimate, or otherwise, diagnosis of Chronic Lyme Disease, fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue are actually suffering from a toxin overload that is produced by a particular strain of bacteria. By clearing the treatable bacterial infections and utilizing various techniques to help reduce the toxin loads, there can be much improvement in the patient's overall condition.

Our Experience with Chronic Infections

Patients who have or who have had Lyme and Lyme co-infections may have serious damage to their immune systems, making them more susceptible to infection. Chronic infections are biofilms, they are colonies of a number of bacteria that together form colonies in various parts of the body - the sinuses, urinary tract, prostate and elsewhere that are inherently more resistant to antibiotics. While in-vitro lab tests may show sensitivity to various antibacterials, such infections typically do not respond to antibiotics. Dr. Tim Lu (MIT), a professor at MIT, explains why biofilms are antibiotic resistant, and why bacteriophage therapy can be effective:

Dr. Tim Lu - Biofilms and Phage Therapy

A classic example of a patient who had a Western Blot test that detected antibodies for Borrelia bergdorferi: Laura Roberts nearly died from her "non-Lyme co-infection", due to a deadly strain of MRSA which was detected by the lab. There are other similar cases.

To reiterate, if your infection is a biofilm containing Borrelia or any of the Lyme co-infections, phage therapy from our clinic is NOT going to help you. If the infection is caused by one of the treatable genuses (Staphylococcus spp., Streptococcus spp., Enterococcus spp., E. coli, Proteus spp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., Clostridium difficile (C.Diff), Klebsiella spp., Morganella spp. and several others) there is a good chance we can - but NO GUARANTEE. You will need to test for the presence of these treatable pathogens and even if they are cleared, sometimes symptoms will persist.

Our Approach

Test to see if you have one of the treatable genuses of pathogenic bacteria. If you do, we can usually treat it and perhaps your symptoms will be reduced or eliminated. Based on our experience, it is common even for people who come to our clinic with a Lyme Disease diagnosis to experience dramatic improvement after treating infections like Staphylococcus aureus. Indications that you may be a good candidate for phage therapy is either chronic sinusitis and/or intestinal disorders caused by bacterial infection or dysbiosis.

References

1 Serious Bacterial Infections Acquired During Treatment of Patients Given a Diagnosis of Chronic Lyme Disease - United States Weekly / June 16, 2017 / 66(23);607-609 -- CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention)