I present a doctor calling himself "LymeMD". His blogspot profile:

"Lyme doctor in Germantown. I am Board Certified in Family Practice. I have over 22 years of experience as a practicing physician in Maryland. New patients will be accepted based on availability."

I am sure he means it well, and after reading his post about the fantasy diagnosis of post-Lyme syndrome, I know he gets many important aspects of this disease right. Sorry LymeMD, I am using you an an example to show patients that they can not fully rely on anyone but themselves to educate themselves about this deadly disease. Everyone makes mistakes, me too of course. I was shocked and very disappointed to read this posting:

http://lymemd.blogspot.se/2010/03/co-morbidity.html

In it, LymeMD mentions several neurological problems typically caused by Lyme disease that he however considers not caused by this bacterial infection. When the bacterial infection in the brain damages the Myelin around the nerves and the neurons themselves, all kinds of typical neuroborreliosis symptoms develop, such as chronic insomnia, narcolepsy, fatigue and restless legg syndrome. LymeMD thinks that these problems are "non-Lyme" and he says that even when the patient tests positive for Lyme, he'll consider those signs and symptoms not related to Lyme at all and will look into other causes and medications, which is of course a Very Bad Thing™. Instead of agressively addressing that what is causing the brain damage, LymeMD will say: "That's not Lyme", and prescribe a variety of symptom relievers that do not address the underlying issue. He says that even his Lyme-knowledgeable patients are surprised to hear his wisdom regarding this. No wonder!

LymeMD is a believer in the "auto-immune" theory of neurological syndromes. He considers Guillan Barre "auto-immune", even when he admits it is heavily associated with bacterial infections, and even when the patient has Lyme as well. He holds similar misconceptions on MS and ALS. The coin has never dropped with him, even though he concedes that some MS can be caused by Lyme. Another example is how he considers ALS in Lyme patients only a curious coincidence and not a direct consequence of the damage the bacteria did to the CNS. Perhaps he just does not want to come forward with a controversial point of view, because he seems to understand that Lyme can cause syndromes such as Parkinsons, as he mentions here.

LymeMD's main example of co-morbidity that can accompany Lyme is chronic fatigue, perhaps the most typical sign of Lyme neuroborreliosis. He however states that fatigue is usually unrelated to Lyme, and he therefore will spare no effort or expense trying to find a different cause, not resting before one is found. He says that for example sleep apnea could be the cause of the fatigue. And sleep apnea is a "brain disease" he says. Nothing to do with the ongoing destruction in the brain due to an infestation with spirochetes of course! Notwithstanding how genuinely LymeMD cares for his patients, I would run, not walk from a LLMD with such an approach.

LymeMD appears to have difficulties with logical thinking. When presented with a Lyme-positive patient who complains about neurological problems typical for a serious late-stage Lyme neuroborreliosis, LymeMD will first lecture the patient on how all these things are likely not Lyme, for "it is common to have all kinds of co-morbidities that have nothing to do with Lyme". So LymeMD can order myriads of tests and prescribe all kinds of symptom relievers - all the while saying: "This is not Lyme". Meaning, you won't get (sufficient) antibiotics to address the ongoing neurological damage caused by the CNS infection.

LymeMD seems not to grasp the full severity and implications of a neurological infection as devastating as Neuroborreliosis. Not accepting insurance, he drives up healthcare insurance premiums and he denies his patients the medical help they so urgently require. He fattens the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry and he subjects his patients to unnecessary tests and the side effects of superfluous medications. Again, I am sure this is not his goal and purpose, but it occurs nevertheless.

Doctors like to fence with, and hide behind their knowledge, their monopoly, the source of their power over our lives and death. They learnt the names, symptoms and treatments of hundreds of syndromes by heart. They are good at memorising facts, even when those facts aren't facts but idées fixes. The medical field is one of extreme hierarchy. There is not a doctor in the world who can get away with rejecting whatever is handed down as gospel by a handful of Big Pharma funded boffins in mainly US universities. US universities have had their best days. Did you know that Chinese researchers found that Ceftriaxone ("Rocephin") - preferred intravenous antibiotic for Lyme neuroborreliosis - does not penetrate the blood-brain barrier at all and therefore usually is not a proper treatment choice for neuro-Lyme? It only works in the presence of Meningitis. If you have neuro-Lyme in the absence of significant Meningitis - and that is often only the case in the pre-treatment phase and the initial days of treatment - you're out of luck. That explains why treatment failure is so common, using Cephalosporins. Someone please inform the "LLMD's":

Zhonghua Nei Ke Za Zhi. 1989 Jun;28(6):340-2, 381.
[The penetration of cephalosporins across the blood-brain barrier and its clinical significance].
[Article in Chinese]
Zhang YY, Wu PJ, Zhang Q.
Abstract

"The penetration of Cefuroxime (CXM), Ceftazidime (CTZ), Cefotaxime (CTX), Ceftizoxime (CZX), and Ceftriaxone (CTRX) across the blood-brain barrier was studied in 119 patients with or without meningitis after an intravenous injection of 2 grams. Cephalosporins were undetectable or their concentrations very low in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), when there was no inflammation in the meninges. On the contrary, the mean CSF concentrations of cephalosporins were 2.21-5.36 micrograms/ml and the CSF/serum ratios 3.73-31.80% in acute stage of purulent meningitis."

PMID:2582913

LymeMD thinks that Ceftriaxone penetrates the blood-brain barrier, presumably because it cures Meningitis and because it makes neuro-Lyme a little bit better. However they never realized that it is the Meningitis (inflammation of the capillary vessels that form the blood-brain-barrier) that opens the bbb. Meaning, without a damaged bbb, no penetration of Cephalosporins into the brain parenchyma.

Doctors keep clinging to their intricate, highly profitable web of imaginary illnesses. Every symptom becomes a separate disease in their world, because that paves the way for yet another group of "experts", more specialized symptom relievers, more tests and of course more patient advocacy groups and related charities, books and websites. Everybody profits, except the patient. We can't see the forest (CNS infections) anymore for the trees: Literally thousands of slightly differentiated symptoms, all given fancy names, all having disease-with-unknown-etiology status with their own Wikipedia page to lend them credibility.

None of these "illnesses" have a known cause, because they keep ignoring what is right under their nose: Neurological infections.

This is why this site is called "owndoc". People must educated themselves, because in the overwhelming majority of cases, your doctor is not going to have what it takes to cure you. Medical doctors do not have a knack for science or logical thinking, otherwise they would have become researchers or engineers instead of learning a lot of rather boring generic-medical stuff by heart and applying it in the most bureaucratic way possible. Doctors, wary and cynical, are always in a hurry to see their next patient, and in some cases eager to get their commission for yet another test or symptom reliever. They are irredeemably indoctrinated into the system of "every symptom a disease" and that will never change until different people get medical degrees and the entire medical-industrial-political system is rebuilt from the ground up. Buyer beware.

After careful consideration, I came to the conclusion that LymeMD is merely sprinkling keywords around to attract new patients to his blog. He takes care never to take a strong position, such as with Rife machines:

http://lymemd.blogspot.se/2008/06/what-is-rife-machine-should-i-buy-one.html

He is ambivalent about Rife machines, saying the technology behind them make sense and perhaps some people should try them. I have investigated Rife machines to the very bottom, spending countless hours on research and I can say with great confidence that none of them work against Lyme, because it would take very long specialist work with a Rife microscope (that do not exist anymore in a working state) to find the mortal resonance frequency (MOR) for a Borrelia bacterium, and every Borrelia strain would have its own MOR. Rife and his associates never published the MOR for Bb, since that bacterium had not been discovered yet by Dr. Burgdorfer. Even worse: The published MOR's for the other pathogens are fraudulent, they are fake, due to the fact that Rife's associates wanted to steal his technology. I will write an in-depth article about Rife machines later.

More from his blog:

http://lymemd.blogspot.se/2008/06/i-have-lyme-should-my-kids-be-tested.html

He says that if you have Lyme, you should not test your kids because "if they test positive, antibiotic therapy is not going to prevent future symptoms". This is of course an obvious falsehood. Early detection and treatment is essential to prevent a lifetime of suffering, with Lyme. There are indications that Lyme is a communicable (contagious, transmissible) disease. Spirochetes have been detected in saliva, tears and semen.

http://lymemd.blogspot.se/2008/06/treatment-plans.html

Here he mentions "vitamin D toxicity", and the need to avoid sunshine and diary in that case. It would be interesting to know how on earth his patients would have developed vit. D toxicity, because that is impossible, except when enormous doses of vit. D are supplemented. The only place he could have gotten that nonsense from is from the "Marshall protocol", a treatment philosophy that doesn't make sense and hasn't produced a cure. He indeed mentions it in another blog posting. Here he says that some Lyme patients have toxic serum levels of 1,25 vit. D, but he does not substantiate this with research or percentages. All I can say as a chronic neuro-Lyme patient is that the more sunshine I get, the better I feel and the shorter my flus last. YMMV.

Similarly to the unsubstantiated vit. D claims, he mentions neurotoxins as an issue to be addressed - with highly toxic chemicals such as Cholestyramide ("Questran"). The problem is, Lyme neurotoxins have never been proven, as I wrote about. I guess doctors like to make things nice and complicated. What with first addressing the basics, such as raising the dosages of the antibiotics prescribed to levels recommended by microbiologists?

A common mistake he makes is to put his patients on probiotics while they are on antibiotics as well. That is useless, since as long as there are MIC levels of antibiotics in the GI tract, the probiotic bacteria will be killed off before they get a chance to entrench themselves. Probiotics only make sense when pulsing antibiotics, and LymeMD doesn't believe in pulsing, according to his blog. The only way a person on long-term antibiotics will aquire a normal gut flora again is for the probiotic bacteria to aquire genetic mutations that confer resistance to those antibiotics. This is best done by pulsing (to give the bacteria a chance to mutate before they get lysed) and eating unwashed leafy salads. Probiotic supplements do not contain the fecal bacteria essential for a healthy gut flora.

http://lymemd.blogspot.se/2008/07/do-you-have-to-take-flagyl.html

"Cysts show up in the brain tissue of people with brain Lyme. So I can't say it is they are not disease causing. Nobody really knows."

Cysts are spirochetes that have enveloped themselves into a protein bubble. They have been demonstrated to be able to grow, multiply and emerge from those Borrelia cysts. So it testifies of tremendous ignorance, stating that "nobody really knows".