The Cause of Lyme Disease
Ticks move from animal, or plant to human. A person strokes a pet, brushes past a bush and a tick attaches itself. The tick then makes its way up the trouser leg, arm, back or hair, they are so small that we do not feel them. Adult ticks only measure 2-3.5mm, making them virtually invisible to the naked eye.
Ticks are basically external parasites meaning they live or feed on a host, or both. In this case the ticks feed on blood. Once the tick finds a favourable feeding spot, they have sensors to find heavily blooded areas, they first secrete saliva which has an aesthetic property numbing the area.
This means you will not feel the bite, they then insert their feeding tubes. The tick will then fall off bloated with blood. Ticks can carry a multitude of other infections and depending on how infected they are will depend on how much the bite will effect each individual. The effects are also dependent on the person’s health and immune function at the time.
Correct tick removal is essential, if scratched off the tick will break off and become lodged. Ticks are found in heavily wooded areas, so for disease control and prevention (CDC) proper clothing is required to prevent Lyme disease when entering these areas.
Diagnosis of Lyme Disease
Blood tests are a troubling subject, because of several reasons. Accuracy of test result, total lack of knowledge in the NHS, reluctance from UK doctors to send patients for a blood test, no governmental funding, and the tests are not fit for purpose because borrelia is a stealth infection that hides throwing up many false negatives. The NHS offer two tests, initially if it is considered appropriate by the Doctor you will get an Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA). If the test is positive, your blood will be sent to a national laboratory for a repeat ELISA test and then a western blot test.
With the reluctance of UK doctors to send patients for a Lyme test, and even if they do the tests are only 50% accurate at best. There are more accurate blood tests, these are independent laboratories, based in Europe. The NHS does not recognise the results these tests produce, even if they are positive. If a Lyme blood test is negative that does not mean you don’t have Lyme disease. But a positive blood test is definite.
Once an NHS blood test is negative, UK doctors go with the results and start treatment based on the symptoms that present themselves. For instance, many patients are sometimes told it’s a mental issue, and they are placed on antidepressants.
How to Treat Lyme Disease
Now we get to the even more controversial subject of treatments. Public Health England (NHS) treats Lyme with a short course of antibiotics. But the treatment plan is only if the doctor has sent a patient for a blood test immediately, and the test comes back positive. This part hardly ever happens.
If this does happen in a speedy fashion, the patient will then start a course of antibiotics. If the patient has been undiagnosed for a period, then these antibiotics may help short term, but the patient is now in a chronic state, and the infections come with even more venom.
This is because when the antibiotics kill Borrelia, in their death throws, the spirochetes instantly release thousands of eggs, and once the antibiotics leave the system, the eggs hatch and the cycle starts again.
I am yet to meet a person for whom antibiotics have worked completely, and if they have, they generally still have other chronic issues that are not categorised as associated with Lyme disease. Antibiotics, especially in long-term use, come with many side effects as well, which can add to the symptom list. Antibiotics are mould spore and they leave mould residue in the body causing all kinds of problems. Parasites are probably the major issue and heavy metal toxicity not addresses or dealt with by the NHS.
