Levaquin/Jemsek/mycoplasma

[Guest guest]

Hello Donna,

I work with the Winston Salem CFS/FM/Lyme and we appreciate Dr. J. Jemsek for

helping us with Lyme disease. We have on lady that has had the same problem

with Levaquin as a. This is a patient at the Jemsek Clinic.

Dr. Jemsek is testing for mycoplasma using MDL. I stayed away from recommending

his clinic b/c a staff nurse told me they were not treating mycoplasma. Since

mycoplasma fermentans incognitus was found in HIV in the mid 1980. I had helped

a lady getting her doctor to order lab work and she had positive results for

Lyme, mycoplasma and HHV6. She did not have money and was very sick. I took

her to see Dr. Jemsek and told her I would make sure that he could save her

life. I found him to be very supportive and will to learn about mycoplasma. We

have 36 people tested for Lyme and 30 have tested positive, not all have gone to

the Jemsek Clinic.

Wishing you and your husband better health,

=====================

I've left Mike C's post attached here for the sake of perspective, since

Cheney appears to be the only doc being called a demon for prescribing

Klonopin for " no good reason " , when in fact, he believes it is for a " very

good reason. " You just happen to disagree passionately, which is fine, but

calling someone a demon for " misusing " it, again, in your opinion, is not

going to help any of us here. Present your data, and let people make their

own decisions.

I do wish Cheney would go back to testing for viruses and bacteria like he

used to - he was the ONLY doc I ever saw who tested me for mycoplasma, which

came back positive for m. fermentans. He treated me with abx, (sorry, don't

remember which one or ones, nor for how long - it was several years ago),

but on retest one month after stopping the abx, I came back negative. He

really doesn't believe in the use of L/T abx, so my guess, and my guess

only, would be that if he tests for these things, and gets a positive

response, then he is compelled to treat them, and if he doesn't believe in

L/T abx usage, and if he wasn't comfortable with the efficacy of herbals or

supplements to treat the infections, then he's better off not delving into

these areas. But this is pure speculation, because the reality right now is

that he is knee deep in heart research, and there's only but so much time in

a day to both see patients and research heart, lyme, mycoplasma, etc.

I'm not sure why you say that Dr. Jemsek would benefit from Dr. Cheney going

back to square one, especially since Cheney's in Asheville. Did I miss

something? Jemsek treats both my husband and myself for Lyme. My husband

does not have CFIDS, but he does have Lyme. I started seeing him in early

2003, and while he's been on a pretty steep learning curve these past 3

years, (when I first started seeing him in 2003, and asked him about

mycoplasma, he told me he didn't know anything about it, and blew me off!),

he's still pretty clueless about CFIDS, and totally oblivious to anything

about MCS! But he's a pretty busy guy learning about Lyme still, and

continuing his good work with HIV, and maybe I expect too much of him. At

least that's what my husband tells me when I get irritated with him or any

of my other docs.

I'm glad that no one mentioned fluoroquinolones last weekend, but again, to

keep things in perspective, Jemsek has had my husband on Levaquin for his

Lyme for almost a year now. And when I asked him about tendon damage, he

brushed that off as being a pretty rare problem. My husband is aware of the

discussions on this list regarding this class of abx, and I even e-mailed

him some of your posts, but he's a big boy and capable of making his own

healthcare decisions, whether I agree with them or not. Perhaps he'll take

him off of the Levaquin when we see him in June, (we were just there last

month), and at that point he would have been on it for 13 months. I'm sure

Jemsek is prescribing it for a " good reason, " although I don't agree with

it.

Donna in NC