Re: Kate - Fallon - lyme wars

[Guest guest]

> Steere conveys effortless patrician assurance, like you could drive

up

> to harvard and have him politely and concisely correct any

> uncertainties you might have about the finer points of Hegel,

> astrophysics, or whatevers on your mind.

LOL , funny descritpion

> I think the dormant-cyst-based theory of the diseases

refractoriness

> is being very over-asserted by Stricker;

Me too, as I am friends with nne who did ICHT first, with IV doxy

(two times) and she got well after 17 years of multiple antibiotics

and antimalarials that had helped but still left her sick. So how

you can get well and stay well for 2 years, with a couple weeks

therapy? I guess you could have killed the cysts too, but I tend to

think symptoms mean active infection.

Can you research those glycocalyxe for me? I would appreciate it!

Thanx!

[Guest guest]

, I'm not sure what you mean here:

" I think the dormant-cyst-based theory of the diseases

refractoriness is being very over-asserted by Stricker; it does not

seem correct to me. It would be an excellent model if the disease

were totally responsive to heavy therapy but relapsed afterward, but

that is not the case. "

Can you explain what you mean here? What did you think Stricker was

saying, and what is " the case " that contradicts it?

Thanks,

> > I'm leery of Rocephin also (as is my gallbladder!), however,

agent

> Scha

> > is battling neuroLyme and I know that Dr. Fallon at Columbia is

> coming

> > up with some good data using Rocephin. I don't know what he

combines

> > with it and when. Presumable something to kill off the CWD forms

> > generated.

> >

> > - Kate D.

[Guest guest]

On Thursday, April 28, 2005, at 03:38 PM, Hodologica wrote:

> Do you know if Fallon has been imaging peoples brains as they are

> treated to demonstrate changes? Do you know when the study is supposed

> to come out?

Yes I believe Fallon has been documenting changes. See

http://www.columbia-lyme.org/flatp/brainimg.html

and

-- Oh darn, actionlyme.com has expired. There used to be a news article

on Fallon's work at Columbia.

Maybe this is it (in my files):

INTENSIVE TREATMENT HELPS PEOPLE WITH CHRONIC LYME DISEASE

Report from NIH-funded Columbia Study of Chronic Neurologic Lyme Disease

, New Jersey, November 2, 2004Patients with chronic Lyme

disease retreated

with 10 weeks of intravenous antibiotics showed significant improvement

in cognition

and other symptoms, said Columbia University neuropsychiatrist

Fallon, MD,

principal investigator for a $4.7 million study funded by the National

Institutes of Health.

Fallon presented the results for the first time at the October 22

conference jointly

sponsored by the national New Jersey-based Lyme Disease Association

(LDA) in

conjunction with Columbia University.

To be eligible for the study, patients had to have chronic Lyme disease

with ongoing

memory impairment. All had previously been treated with at least 3

weeks of IV

antibiotics and relapsed. All patients in the study were tested with

cutting-edge brainimaging

techniques, and significant improvement in neurocognitive function was

seen

over the 10-week IV antibiotic retreatment period.

" This is the first randomized controlled trial of chronic neurologic

Lyme disease; the

results support the benefit of a repeated course of longer-term

intravenous antibiotic

therapy for patients with a return of cognitive problems " , said Fallon.

Lyme disease is caused by spiral-shaped bacteria carried by

poppy-seed-sized ticks and is

rapidly spreading throughout the United States. The numbers of cases

reported to the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) increased 40% to

24,000 cases in

2002. The CDC estimates that reported cases represent less than 10% of

true cases

about 240,000 Americans may have contracted new cases in 2002

nationwide.

Almost 300 healthcare professionals from around the country attended

the conference,

which was held in Westchester County, New York, one of the country's

most endemic

areas. Lyme disease is a world-wide emerging infection representing 90%

of all cases of

vector-borne diseases in the US. It is often complicated by

co-infections that make

diagnosis and treatment more complex.

Sherwood Casjens, PhD, University of Utah School of Medicine, and a

renowned

genome team including Fraser, PhD, President, The Institute of

Genomic Research

(TIGR), presented new information that Borrelia burgforferi, the

spiral-shaped bacteria

that cause Lyme disease, are able to freely exchange genetic material

among themselves,

potentially making diagnosis and treatment difficult. The team of

researchers concluded

that frequent recombination may help the bacteria survive in ticks and

in the animals they

feed on, including humans. The research was published in the Sept. 28

issue of The

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

- Kate D.