Re: Lyme Disease in blood

From: Mark Greenfield (nospam_at_nospam.com)
Date: 07/11/04 

Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2004 20:26:19 +0100

Actually it's a bit easier than that, as they also burrow into your
blood cells, borrelia is pleomorphic and can exist in at least three
different morphologic forms: spirochaetal, spherolplast (or l-form), and
the recently discovered cystic form. L-forms and cystic forms do not
contain cell walls and can therefore evade the immune system and thus
beta lactam antibiotics will not affect them. Hence it's a bit of a
bugger to treat.

After about 24 hours from the blood sample being taken the cysts start
to emerge from the blood cells, (baring in mind this is the blood from
someone who has already had over 8 months of high dose oral and IV
antibiotics) probably a defensive mechanism similar to e-coli, and form
the more familiar corkscrew spirochaete shape. I've got a great (well
that's maybe an overstatement :) 20 minute video of the little devils in
my blood, with a long shot of a fully formed sp entering a new blood
cell.

You'll probably see in the news over the next year or so that lots of
people with ME, CFS and even Gulf War Syndrome actually have very active
borrelia infections, which have previously gone undiagnosed due to the
unreliable ELISA and western blot blood tests. PCR is gradually helping
but is still not available on the NHS.

I'd be happy to send anyone a slide once I get up and running if anyone
is interested. I'd wear some gloves though :)

Thanks again for all your help and advice everyone, sorry I haven't
replied sooner but I'm housesitting at the moment and can't access the
PC very often.

Thanks again

mark

>Sorry for your problems with Lyme disease. Finding spirochetes circulating
>in your blood is not likely. Just trying to culture them from blood is
>difficult. Nadelmen, el al say, " Borrelia burgdorferi, the etiologic agent
>of Lyme disease, has rarely been successfully cultured from blood." in
>http://www.actionlyme.com/Wormser.htm. Benach, et. al. found the spirochete
>in the blood 2 of 36 patients with Lyme disease in
>http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dop
>t=Abstract&list_uids=6828119 probably by culturing.
>
>So actually seeing the spirochete is highly unlikely even at the height of
>the infection let alone after treatment when the bug will be in the tissues.
>To have any chance at all you would need a good deal of blood and filter off
>all the blood cells and other stuff larger than the spirochete and
>concentrate the spirochete in a centrifuge and not kill it in the process.
>
>A good dark field oil immersion scope with 100x oil immersion objective with
>an iris and oil immersion dark feild condenser would be necessary to see
>spirochetes and they need to be alive to be sure of identifying them. They
>are so small all you see is a line at 1,000 magnifications. This would be a
>very slow and painful search because the feild of view is small.
>
> 

-- 
Mark Greenfield

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