ME/CFS & Lyme Disease | Antiviral Treatment

Hi everyone, I hope this finds you all in good health and vitality.

Today’s health Bunker article will cover the topics of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and their links to other illnesses like Lyme Disease. If you watched the mainstream BBC news recently, you may have seen that the government released a story in October last year saying;

“Most people who now think they may have had Lyme disease, in fact have a syndrome that is more in keeping with chronic fatigue syndrome.” said Dr. Sarah Logan, from London’s Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

This is the type of rhetoric that makes me realize that governments, here in the UK, the United States and the rest of the world, along with medical establishments, and pharmaceutical companies have either no idea what they are talking about or there is another agenda. Or both.

Sufferers of these illnesses have at some time of another been told more than once by a ‘medical professional’ or by so-called ‘friends’ these magic phrases;

‘Could it all be in your head’? Or ‘It’s only a tick bite, antibiotics clear it up straight away’.

Both translate to mean, we’re all making it up!

If you have ME or Chronic Fatigue as well as a host of other health complaints, in my opinion, have a Lyme test. Please keep in mind that people with Lyme Disease or symptoms of Lyme Disease could still show a ‘false negative’ result. Especially with an NHS blood test, which is at best 50% accurate. But you will never have a ‘False Positive’.

The name Lyme Disease is a little misleading, so, we will give a brief explanation, we will also list the symptoms of ME and CFS. Health Bunker will show some ‘mainstream’ research as to where these syndromes may have sprung from.

What is Lyme Disease?
What is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) & Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)?

ME/CFS is not Lyme, nor am I saying everyone with ME/CFS has Lyme Disease. But ME/CFS is a symptom of the body’s deteriorating energy resources, because of the constant fight with diseases like Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) and other multiple infections.

What Is Lyme Disease? (Overview)

In previous articles, Health Bunker has gone into a lot of detail about Lyme Disease control and prevention. It may be an idea to read those first, here’s a link to those articles. (Link). Conventional medical advice tells us that; If we walk through wooded areas, without spraying insect repellent on ourselves we may leave ourselves open to an infected tick bite.

If you are lucky enough to find and remove a tick, which is minute, then go straight to the doctors, who with even more luck gives you the right antibiotic treatment, you may escape any damage. This does happen I am sure. What is unknown though, is if these people start to suffer other Lyme disease symptoms further down the line, that’s not linked back to the tick bite.

Sufferers fall into a number of categories and the symptoms vary and change. Around 50% of all sufferers never get bitten or get the telltale ‘red rash’ called ERYTHEMA MIGRANS. The list of symptoms could be in the hundreds when Chronic Lyme Disease becomes embedded.

The name Lyme Disease is a slightly misleading, Borrelia burgdorferi is a spirochete which is a spiral-shaped bacteria. This infection if left untreated gradually wears the sufferer down allowing other infections that would not normally cause big issues, to run riot through a weakened system creating long-lasting problems.

Lyme disease is a multi-layered illness covering various parasitical, viral and bacterial infections. This goes on to start a domino effect, and symptoms start to increase. They could lead to organ failure, arthritis, eating disorders, and mental health disorders, and many more.

In short, the name Lyme Disease explains multiple, symptoms, syndromes, diseases and organ damage. Lyme Disease is not just one thing.

What is ME/CFS?

How can you go from being the most energetic person on the planet to the most tired, sleepy, and exhausted person on the planet? Are we lazy? Is it all just in my head?

People say to me ‘chronic fatigue, I’ve been really tired I know what it’s like’! No, you don’t. Imagine every last drop of energy has been squeezed out of your body, and every inch of your body hurts. Every minute of every day, for months and years. That’s what it’s like. ME/CFS is human Kryptonite.

Is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) the Same as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)?

The short answer is yes they are the same, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) is the term UK medical experts first called it back in the 80s when it was also known as ‘Yuppie Flu’ for those old enough to remember.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) was used in the United States. In 1988 the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) noticed that people were becoming ill with flu-like symptoms and not returning to full health in the usual recovery time.

ME/CFS is a modern-day illness, some people recover to near full strength some are debilitated for the rest of their lives. Medical experts (I use that term loosely), acknowledge that ME/CFS is probably caused by an unknown (or non-admitted) infectious disease.

How is ME/CFS diagnosed?

Today ME/CFS affects up to 30m people globally, 250,000 in the UK alone suffer from this syndrome and diagnosis is a joke. There is no specific test for ME/CFS, it’s basically guesswork. 75-85% are women, and most of them are undiagnosed. My view is this is the tip of the iceberg. Most patients are misdiagnosed and placed on painkillers like opioids, or antidepressants. Because obviously it’s all in our head!

Conventional treatment methods are, let’s try this for a bit, then something else for a while, wasting time more time making symptoms worse and never getting anywhere.

Antiviral Treatment for ME/CFS

Treatment for ME/CFS is limited to antiviral drugs that are made for the Herpes and Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) (link). These 2 drugs come with additional side effects too. Valacyclovir, for EBV and Valganciclovir, for HHV6 and CMV.

This is basically guesswork with limited results, no one I have spoken to who has ME/CFS and have had either of these 2 drugs or other conventional treatments have ever told me they worked. Or my symptoms reduced.

Patients sometimes felt better in the early stages of treatment, only to drop like a stone. Treatment for Lyme Disease is much the same, a lot of guesswork from the medical experts.

ME/CFS Symptoms List;

Orthostatic Intolerance, POTS; When bending, sitting, reclining or just standing, a sensation of light-headedness, nausea, fainting and sometimes an increase in heart rate. There are about 20 symptoms.

Immune System; Swollen throat glands, tender lymph nodes, fevers, constant flu symptoms.

Autonomic, Central Nervous System and Endocrine Symptoms; temperature regulation, cold or hot intolerances; I had cold hands and feet for years. I also had bouts of sweating profusely, while I felt ice cold.

Digestion and Gastrointestinal Problems; Nausea and abdominal pain; Food sensitivities, gluten intolerances, bloating, and acid reflux.

Sleep; Constant sleep issues, waking in the night, not getting back to sleep, feeling like I haven’t been to sleep.

Cognitive Issues; such as confusion, retrieval of words, poor working memory, spatial instability, and disorientation; I suffered confusion, difficulty retrieving words, and spells of being disorientated.

Headaches; Throbbing, pulsing, flashing, with different levels of severity. I actually had a headache every day from 2006-2018 at different levels of pain. I only realized when the headaches stopped.

Pain; Constant day and night, stiff, sore muscles and joint pains.

Muscle Fatigability; Weakness, fasciculation, very poor coordination and ataxia (speech issues); I had random muscle fatigue mainly in legs and calves. Muscle contractions and twitches. A feeling of muscle, tendon, and bone being brittle or snap, or break. Speech issues, stuttering words randomly.

Sensitivities; I was sensitive to, light, noise, touch, smells, chemicals, and food. Music was a love I had, but I couldn’t listen to music and I’ve never really got it back. Food was a big issue, sometimes I felt very close to going into shock, chemicals could lay me up for a day.

This is a top-level view of top-level symptoms if we had time to drill down, there are literally dozens of minor symptoms. I have added some of my own personal symptoms just for effect. Most of my symptoms have now gone or are going. I am left with general fatigue which has also become lighter.

Some sufferers tend to do a great job hiding symptoms some crash like a stone. This may be due to where in the body we become infected or how much of the body is infected and what the extent of damage is.

ME/CFS, Macrophagic Myofasciitis (MMF), and Aluminium Overload

As well as infections, heavy metals play a huge part in ME/CFS along with MMF. A story in Science Daily about how a team of scientists has investigated a case of ‘vaccine-related’ chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF) in a person with ‘aluminium overload’.

Here are Aluminium overload symptoms;

Confusion
Muscle weakness
Bone pain, deformities, and fractures
Seizures
Speech problems
Slow growth in children.

Can you see any similarities here?

Vaccine-Related Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; Demonstrating Aluminium Overload, Keele University Study 2008

A team led by Dr. Chris Exley found that there is a possible link to ME/CFS after a vaccine. (full story)

‘The CFS in a 43-year-old man, with no history of previous illness, followed a course of five vaccinations, each of which included an aluminium-based adjuvant. The latter are extremely effective immunogens in their own right and so improve the immune response to whichever antigen is administered in their presence. While the course of vaccinations was cited by an industrial injuries tribunal as the cause of the CFS in the individual’

Health Bunker

Parasites also play a role in Lyme Disease, ME/CFS as do heavy metal overloads. A complete detox of these infections and toxins is required to start your road to recovery. ME/CFS is another modern-day illness that is incurable and virtually untreatable with modern pharmaceutical medicines.

ME/CFS like Lyme and a number of other diseases have appeared as if by magic from nowhere, and are growing at an alarming rate. What is really strange is that these diseases are scoffed at, the sufferers basically told they’re making it all up as well as being more or less ignored.

Globally up to 30m people suffer from ME/CFS, now that’s a big number, millions more from Lyme, MS, MMF, Fibromyalgia, the 80+ Autoimmune Diseases and many more.

Is there only Health Bunker who can see what’s happening?

For more information contact us via the website.

Eat Well. Be Well.

Health Bunker
It’s Your Life. Own it!

*Disclaimer – Please note, we are not Doctors or trained medical professionals. We are not giving medical advice. Check with your Doctor or health practitioner before trying anything.

References

https://www.meassociation.org.uk/2009/10/lyme-disease-and-mecfs/
https://www.prohealth.com/library/ask-the-doctor-can-me-cfs-be-caused-by-lyme-disease-37544
https://www.prohealth.com/library/new-parasite-found-in-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-cfids-16154

BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-49998344

Dr. Rath Foundation
https://www.dr-rath-foundation.org/2018/08/the-hidden-history-of-lyme-disease-links-to-biological-warfare-research/

Lyme Disease UK
https://lymediseaseuk.com/

CDC – institute of medicine
https://www.cdc.gov/me-cfs/healthcare-providers/diagnosis/iom-2015-diagnostic-criteria.html
https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/index.html

WIKI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythema_migrans

Parasites and Vectors
https://parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13071-019-3495-7

ME Association
https://www.meassociation.org.uk/2019/10/telegraph-most-people-complaining-of-lyme-disease-are-actually-suffering-from-chronic-fatigue-say-experts-12-october-2019/

New Scientist
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2219479-chronic-lyme-disease-may-be-a-misdiagnosis-of-chronic-fatigue-syndrome/

News Medical
https://www.news-medical.net/health/Chronic-Fatigue-Syndrome-History.aspx

NHS
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/ataxia/
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/postural-tachycardia-syndrome/
https://www.nbt.nhs.uk/our-services/a-z-services/bristol-chronic-fatigue-syndromeme-service/what-do-terms-cfs-me-mean