The Lyme Q&A Webinar with Dr. Rawls, No. 3
[Lyme Disease Co-infections]
The Lyme Q&A Webinar with Dr. Rawls, No. 3 originally aired on April 24th, 2018. Due to popular demand, we’ve shared the video below. We’ve also added a transcript for your reference; you can read it in full, or click on the individual questions to jump straight to Dr. Rawls’ answers. (The video and transcript from episode No. 1 No.2)
VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION & QUESTIONS ANSWERED
What are coinfections? – 27:53
What are the common ways to get coinfections? Anything other than ticks? – 29:32
Do you need to know which coinfection(s) you have in order seek treatment? – 31:39
How should my physician test me for coinfections? – 34:22
A lot of your protocol is from Stephen Buhner, I listened to a podcast of his and he did not recommend mixing the herbs together, why are
you mixing them together?– 36:08
Are there any herbs that will treat both coinfections and Lyme? – 38:12
Of all the coinfections, which one should you be the most concerned about and is there an order to treating them? – 40:27
How long does it usually take to rid the body of Lyme and coinfections? – 44:58
Are there certain Lyme coinfections that do not respond well to herbal therapy? – 48:19
I have been using your protocol with good success, but am looking to understand how to know when I am done, or what a routine maintenance supplement regimen might look like. – 51:27
I understand you cannot be “cured” of Lyme, but how about the coinfections? – 57:42
How do we get active viruses to go dormant; EBV, HPV, HSP, etc.? – 1:01:40
Babesia – How in the world do you eradicate this nefarious infection?! – 1:05:29
Are there herbs which specifically target candida? – 1:08:15
How can you tell for sure when Lyme and coinfections are gone? – 1:10:15
[00:00:00]
Tim: Good evening everybody, welcome to the Ask Dr. Rawls webinar. This is our third Ask Dr. Rawls webinar, with live Q&A. We are going to be focusing this evening on Lyme disease coinfections. My name’s Tim, I’ll be your moderator this evening; and Dr. Bill Rawls will be joining us in a little bit. Coinfections is the topic we get a lot of questions about here at RawlsMD, so we’ve been wanting to cover this for a long time. We’re going to talk about all the major coinfections, how to know if you’ve got one, and talk through the options for treating them.
So, we got a lot of questions from you all. Thanks everyone who submitted those during registration. We got 1600, more than 1600 questions. We’ve been through those, and we’ve organized them. We’re going to do our best to get through as many as we can tonight. It is a huge topic, so to help us out narrowing this down a little bit, we’ve got a quick poll we’d love your participation in.
The first poll here is, just what aspect of Lyme coinfections are you most interested in learning about? You can just select your top subject here. Make sure that you hit submit so that we can see what the consensus is out there; and that’ll help us tailor our presentation just a little bit more. All right, let’s see here. We’ll go ahead and close the polls, most people have voted. It looks like the majority of people are interested in treatment options. That’s great information for us, thank you for voting, everybody.
Now, the plan for the evening is, Dr. Rawls is going to join us in just a moment. He’ll give a brief presentation, that is going be really important for setting the ground work that’s going to, one, answer a lot of questions that were asked. So, we’re going to knock a lot of questions out there. Also, it’s going to set the foundation that will be important for understanding the rest of the questions that he’s going to answer when we get to the freeform Q&A, afterwards. After that brief presentation, we will jump into the Q&A.
Dr. Rawls is the medical director, and a physician. He’s the medical director, and co-founder, of RawlsMD. He has written, extensively, on a variety of topics from microbiome, to chronic immune dysfunction, conditions like Lyme disease, fibromyalgia, and holistic health. He’s someone who’s been through a lot of trials with chronic illness, himself; so, he really understands where a lot of folks are coming from here. He’s passionate about helping people accelerate that journey toward better health. Once again, he’s the author of the best selling book, Unlocking Lyme, and was also featured on People’s Pharmacy.
Dr. Rawls, if you would go ahead and join us now, we’ll welcome you on here, to share a little bit about your personal story, if you would.
[00:03:00]
Dr. Rawls: Thank you, Tim. Welcome, everybody. Thanks for joining us. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Dr. Bill Rawls. I’ve been a physician for 30 years, but my career got derailed midstream, by Lyme disease. Through that struggle, I experienced every aspect, and every symptom, of chronic Lyme disease. That has given me a level of expertise that’s different than others.
I restored my health with herbal therapy. That was the main thing that helped me get through the whole situation. Since that time, a third of my career has been devoted to helping people understand Lyme disease, and overcome Lyme disease; and, understand how important herbal therapy is in that aspect. So tonight, we’re going to address Lyme coinfections, and how they relate to the human microbiome.
Now, give it back to Tim, for one more question here. Then, we’ll get rolling.
[00:04:08]
Tim: Thanks Dr. Rawls. So yeah, the microbiome is a central part of this conversation, so we thought we’d give you a quick poll, and to see what do you guys think. How many different microbe species are present in an average human microbiome. Just approximate here, just take your best guess. Then once again, hit submit. It looks like the majority of people are saying … 40,000 different species.
Dr. Rawls: Great.
Tim: Followed up by 9,000.
[00:04:36]
Dr. Rawls: That’s great. Super, very good.
Thank you, Tim. Yeah, 30 years ago, when I started medical school, it was an estimated 300 to 400 species; even as recent as 10 years ago, they were only talking about 400 to 1000 microbes. It’s only been in the past 5 years that, the research I’m seeing, is showing closer to 20,000 to 40,000 microbes, that are potential, in our microbiome. So, it’s massive. We all have a hundred trillion microbes, the microbe cells, even though they’re smaller, outnumber ours. They are found, mostly in the colon, but skin, through the gut, body orifices. We’re finding them other interesting places too, and we’re going to talk about that as we go along.
So, understanding the microbiome is really important for understanding coinfections. You start with the microbiome from your mother; whether you’re delivered vaginally, or c-section, can make a difference. You pick up from your surrounding environment. We continue to collect microbes throughout our lifetime. Every time you eat something, drink something, breathe, get scratched out in the yard or by an animal, and certainly insect bites. When we look at ticks, they are nature’s perfect vehicle for transmitting microbes.
Microbes are always entering your body. They’re constantly trying to get at the resources that we have to offer. What they want is nutrients. They want the resources, and nutrients, that are in our body. To them, we’re a nice juicy morsel. None of them are necessarily friendly… but that relationship, with the immune system, is really important, because they are doing everything they can to get the resources from our body. Our immune system is deciding which microbes we might share a little bit with, which microbes we might not want to do that.
[00:07:30]
Virulence is a really important term, when you’re talking about any kind of microbe, in a host relationship. Virulence is the ability, or the potential, for a microbe to cause illness. I think this is really important for understanding these stealth microbes. When you look at that concept of virulence, it really has as much as anything to do with the immune system, and the relationship with the microbe. Certain microbes are more apt to cause illness, than others. Most of the time, that potential is defined by our relationship with the microbe, and whether the immune system knows them.
When you look at the microbes out there, most of the things that most people are exposed to, on a regular basis, humans have been exposed to those microbes for thousands, upon thousands, even millions of years. The immune system has seen it before. We have information, recorded in our genes, that tells the immune system how to deal with that microbe. When you look at that potential, the microbes we call normal flora, are the ones we know the very best. It’s not that they’re not aggressive, they are aggressive. When microbes get in the wrong place in the body, whether our normal flora get in the wrong place, or our immune system is down, they can definitely cause illness; but the immune system knows them better, so we have this comfortable, symbiotic, relationship that they actually provide some good for us. They provide some vitamins, they help us digest food, and they help us help suppress those things out there that are pathogens.
We’re all carrying pathogens, microbes that have the potential to cause illness. We actually have a lot of them, so we really depend on an immune system, and a prevalence of normal flora, to keep those things in check. When you look at this chart, the most virulent microbe out there is Ebola. That would be a 10 on the scale. Ebola make us very ill, because human have never been exposed to it. It stays sequestered in a rare spider, that lives Africa. Occasionally, that spider bites bats; the bats, if kids happen to be playing under the tree where they bats get sick, it gets into human populations and spreads like wildfire, because we have no defenses.
As you move down the ladder, the virulence decreases because our immune system knows these things a little bit better; but certainly not as well as our normal flora. Looking at the top part of the chart, those are the more virulent microbes. It tends to be true that, our heroic therapies like antibiotics, vaccines, and in the case of Ebola, quarantine, are the best tools for those kinds of high virulent microbes. When you move to the bottom part of the scale though, you run into microbes that are part of … become part of our microbiome, and they have potential to cause disease, but as long as they’re suppressed by the immune system … but we’re going to talk about why the heroic therapies, like antibiotics, and vaccines, and other things, don’t work as well as them.
[00:11:00]
You can see these things that we carry, that are carried by ticks, that we associated with Lyme disease, I call them stealth microbes; because they’re really sneaky. They slide in, they infect white blood cells, a lot of times they don’t even make a presence known. You don’t get an acute infection with these things. They distribute throughout the body. They occur in very low concentrations. They’re deep in tissues. They grow very slowly, and so they have just totally different characteristics than some of the higher virulence microbes. Then, they’re not really like our normal flora either, so the immune system would really like to get rid of them. They’re a nuisance, but because they’re so sneaky, yet we have a hard time with that. They have the potential to cause this low grade illness, that can just make us miserable.
So, stealth microbes, masters of manipulating the immune system. Live inside cells, characteristically, which protects them from antibiotics and the immune system. Living inside white blood cells enables them to manipulate the immune system. They live deep, in the deepest part of the body. They grow slowly, and occur in low concentrations.
So, one more question, Tim.
[00:12:00]
Tim: Another quick poll here, to keep you guys on your toes. What is the most common coinfection, would you guess? Before we dive into the classic coinfections Dr. Rawls is about to cover here. The majority of people so far, I won’t spoil it actually. I’ll wait till a few more have voted. All right, let’s see what we’ve got here. It looks like the majority of people say Bartonella is the most common, followed my Mycoplasma, and Babesia. Dr. Rawls, what do you think?
[00:12:44]
Dr. Rawls: All right. So, these are the classic coinfections, Mycoplasma, Bartonella, Babesia, Rickettsia, Ehrlichia, Anaplasma, and Chlamydia’s out there. Actually, the most common is Mycoplasma, 75% at least. Bartonella’s next, Babesia. Ehrlichia, and Anaplasma, are a little more common than Rickettsia. Chlamydia’s very common too. I think what’s important to recognize is, a lot of the time these don’t come with ticks. They are present. We know that a large number of the population carry any number of these microbes at any given time, without having any symptoms.
Mycoplasma is chiefly spread respiratory, and sexual, depending on the species. Bartonella, fleas, lice, cat scratches, depending on the species; there are multiple species of each one of these. Babesia, typically ticks, but other insects. Rickettsia, Anaplasma, or Ehrlichia, various different modes. Chlamydia, commonly present, we’re finding that this one is a really common microbe that people gotten from respiratory, and sexual contact, that is present in this thing we call chronic Lyme. There are many other tick borne microbes, and that’s really significant.
When we start talking about coinfections, I think we’re just scratching the surface here. There’re a lot of things that we don’t know about. We know that they different species of ticks can carry hundreds of different microbes; and that makes sense. If we carry 40,000 different species of microbes, it would make sense that ticks probably carried hundreds of different microbes. Especially, considering that ticks are nature’s perfect vehicle for transmitting microbes. Yeah, you would think there would be a lot of them. There are many species, and there’re other routes. Many of these things are present. So, when you collectively put these things together, they can be present.
One of the really interesting things that I found, in my story, and virtually all the people that I talk to, is it’s very unusual that someone gets sick from a tick bit. It’s rare that someone gets a tick bite, they get acutely ill, and they stay acutely ill; and then gradually go into chronic illness. That’s very unusual. It happens, sometimes more virulent microbes, like Rickettsia, can cause acute illness, and people do get chronically ill; but they probably have other microbes on board. What more typically happens is, people don’t remember a tick bite, and they’ve had multiple exposures through their life time. They picked up Borrelia and other microbes, and other factors come together. Their house burned down, and they lost their job, and their wife left them, and they’ve got all this stress. They lived in a moldy home, where they’ve got other kinds of toxins. All these things come together to disrupt immune function.
So… it’s like a pot simmering on the stove, everybody has these. We all have pathogens. If you disrupt immune system functions, then they start becoming unleashed. They start becoming active, and sooner or later, they’re taking over the immune system, and it’s like a boiling pot. When the lid blows off, that’s the tipping point that people start getting this chronic illness, that the misery just never goes away. Then, on top of that, you’ve got other things like most people are carrying, Epstein-Barr, Cytomegalovirus, HHV-6, and a host of other viruses. They become reactivated. They become part of the boiling pot. Then, pathogens in the gut, and Candida in the gut, and we have disruption of the gut-blood barrier; and eventually systemic inflammation, with disruption of the blood-brain barrier. Then, it’s just all consuming, that you have all these symptoms at the same time; and the body is basically falling apart.
I think there’s a very, very, strong connection to other kinds of illnesses. I look at chronic Lyme, and all the coinfections, in this boiling pot scenario, and it looks very similar to other kinds of things. There’s a lot of crossover in symptoms between Lyme, and Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s, and multiple sclerosis, and all the autoimmune diseases, many, many, common symptoms. I think the differences are, the spectrum of microbes, how that immune dysfunction came together, and the person’s genetics, of how these disease scenarios may progress out. It’s a strong connection.
[00:18:00]
So, again, what we know about, we’re learning new things everyday. It’s really exciting to see the studies coming out, as we do get better at finding these microbes, and the presence of them. It starts fitting this story together better, and better, of what we’re dealing with. There are two studies that I pulled very recently, that were really, really, interesting to me. Who would’ve ever thought that we’d all have a lot of microbes in the brain. They have, over the years, done some autopsy specimens of Alzheimer’s, and they found Borrelia, and some of the other chronic Lyme. We found connections with Chlamydia, and Mycoplasma, to rheumatoid arthritis and MS. So, we’re starting to make these connections.
These two studies, one on Alzheimer’s, and one on multiple sclerosis, two independent studies, in independent countries, were really interesting. They’re using a new type of testing, that they’re looking for segments of RNA of bacteria, that are different than humans. So they took tissue samples from autopsy brains, from Alzheimer’s patients, looking for microbes, just to see what was there. Are there microbes in the brain, is that part of it? What they found was really surprising. They didn’t find just a few species, they found whole entire groups. In fact, they found the representation of our entire microbiome, present in the brain; very low concentrations, but still there. From the mouth, from the gut, from the skin, they were all there. A lot of potential pathogens. Interestingly, they found … one of the ones the incriminated for inflammation was not Borrelia, or one of the coinfections, but P. acnes, the microbe that is actually associated with acne; and they found Strep, and they found Staph. They felt that these things were part of the inflammatory process.
Also interesting, though, is in that study, and in the multiple sclerosis study, which they found a similar spectrum of microbes, they did controls. People who had died, but not of these particular illnesses. What they found was, they found that same spectrum. Lower concentrations, the different spectrum, not the same amount of pathogens. There wasn’t that eruption of pathogens, it was mainly normal flora. But that’s pretty amazing, that in these studies, that we’re finding that, yes, we all do have bred microbes in our tissues, of a wide variety. If your immune system goes down, that’s when these things start becoming active. I think we’re going to be seeing more and more connections between these kinds of things, and chronic illness.
So we have to start looking, and saying, “Okay, what’s causing that immune disruption? Why are people developing chronic immune dysfunction?” It gets back to our modern world. The artificial food we eat. All the toxins that we’re exposed to from using petroleum. Stress, this just low grade stress, that all of us are under; and, not being active, sitting all day. Microbes can certainly contribute… I have seen cases of people who do get sick, just from a tick bite, just from getting the wrong microbe, or combinations of microbes. When you look at solutions, you’ve got to look at that big picture.
That’s why, as I said, with these … with the heroic therapies like antibiotics, they work great for highly virulent microbes; for like a really bad Pneumonia, with fast growing microbes. When you look at these stealth microbes, that are living inside cells, and are well protected. They’re living in the brain, which is isolated from antibiotics. You end up hitting your normal flora a whole lot harder with antibiotics, for the time that you have to use then, than you are going to get those microbes. That, ultimately, is going to disrupt the gut flora; which will break down, that will compromise that gut-blood barrier even more, and eventually compromise the gut-brain barrier even more, so more microbes coming in the brain, cause overgrowth of Candida. It’s like a race. If you use antibiotics, can you kill that pathogen that you’re targeting, before you’re killing all of your other flora, and causing disruption? With one pathogen that’s highly concentrated, like in a Pneumonia, you might well win that race; but with these stealth microbes, it is much more difficult.
[00:23:18]
That’s where herbs come in. Herbs are substances from plants, leaves, stems, barks, roots, berries, high concentrations… it’s very much like our ancient forage food diet. Plants are putting out a broad spectrum of chemicals to protect themselves. One of the things that they’re protecting themselves, is a wide spectrum of different kinds of microbes. When we’re talking about herbal therapy, every herb, every herb, does have some microbial properties, but some are better than others. The advantage of that is that, the plants have worked out that friend vs foe problem a long time ago. So, when you are using herbal therapy, you’re suppressing these stealth microbes. Now, I wouldn’t use herbs to treat an acute Pneumonia; but for the stealth pathogens, suppressing them long term. The advantage is, the herbs are not going to disrupt the normal flora. In fact, they tend to support the normal gut flora.
They boost the immune system, they reduce inflammation. They allow the immune system to go back and do it’s job, because ultimately, the only thing that can control these things, the only thing, is your immune system. So, herbs you can use long term. I have been using herbs now for 10 years, a broad spectrum of herbs. Things just keep getting better every year. I am so much more healthy than I was at age 50, now at age 60, it’s remarkable. I am thankful for it everyday.
Again, there’re a lot of herbs that we can use. Some of the things that have become classics, for Lyme disease, are Japanese knotweed, Andrographis, Cat’s claw, Sarsaparilla. These are some that Stephen Buhner, you may have heard of him, he’s an author that’s done a lot of writing about using herbs in Lyme therapy. He coined these, basically, as things that are good starters to use. They’re very forgiving, they cover a lot of basis, and they cover a lot of microbes. This thing that some herbs cover some microbes, and some herbs cover other microbes, really isn’t the case. These herbs give nice broad spectrum coverage, but sometimes it is nice to add other things on; or, hit them a little bit harder with different herbs, or certainly rotate.
I’ve done a lot of rotation over the years. It is a wise choice. There are again, a lot of herbs, Crytolepis, Bidens, Neem, Anamu and Mullaca, from South America, Houttuynia, Oregano, Teasel, Garlic, I mean the list just goes on, and on. Again, I like to get people away from thinking about, “Okay. I’ve got to have this set of herbs for this microbes.” If you look at the evidence out there, and if you read Stephen Buhner’s work, you’ll see that there’s a lot of overlap with all of these herbs, with all of the different microbes. Even though many of the microbes are different, because the plant has such a wide spectrum of chemical substances within the plant, you get a lot of really comprehensive coverage.
So with that, we’ll dive right into the questions. Now, Tim’s reviewed the questions, but I have not. I yet don’t know what’s coming. So we’ll do our best with it.
[00:27:30]
Tim: That’s right. All right we’re going jump right in here. Just a reminder folks, we did get a ton of questions at the registration process, but if you have anything else, feel free to add those to the list. You can send them in to our chat moderators. Just do your best to keep them brief, because we have so many. Remember we can’t treat, or diagnose, so just more general nature is easier for us to be able to answer.
All right Dr. Rawls, let’s just set the foundation here, make sure everyone’s on the same page, because we did have some questions. What are coinfections? Just a quick summary of what are coinfections.
[00:28:02]
Dr. Rawls: Well, coinfections, it’s pretty loose definition, actually. If you look at it one way, coinfections would be infections that come with a tick bite. If you get bitten by a tick, and you don’t get one species, but you get several species of microbes all at once. I think that happens pretty commonly. Again, I think there are things that we don’t know about. In the same respect, I think more commonly, people have microbes in their system. We know that anywhere from a quarter, to three quarters, of the population are carrying Mycoplasma, and likely Chlamydia too.
These microbes are very, very, common. They stay dormant in tissues, and so they show up as … when someone does testing, when somebody’s looking for Lyme disease, they show up; but they didn’t necessarily come with the tick. Though, they can be carried by ticks. The same is true with Bartonella, Babesia, and all the rest of them. They can be acquired at different tick bites. Someone may get bitten by a tick years before, and not have symptoms, or not have significant symptoms, and then develop symptoms with another tick bite.
[00:29:32]
Tim: Jacqueline would like to know, “What are the most common ways to get coinfections? You spoke about ticks, of course, are there any others, other than ticks, that are important to consider?”
[00:29:43]
Dr. Rawls: We’re constantly getting microbes, every time you breathe, every time you eat something. There are a lot of ways. We’ve been playing this game with microbes for all of eternity, and microbes are constantly trying to get into our body. Typically, you can eat or drink them. You can breathe them in air droplets, you can get contamination from touching something, and then putting hands in your mouth; or getting your hands on food. You can get them from transfusions. You can get them from casual, or certainly intimate, contact with other people.
We’re finding that most of these microbes can be transferred through the placenta. So, they can be passed in utero. That is not as common, I think, as most people think. So there’re a lot of ways that you can get them. You can get them from IV drugs. What you’re going to find is, that microbes specialize. They may be able to transfer multiple ways, but it’s like, Syphilis likes sexual contact best. It’s really specialized in that mode. It does things to help itself do it, to transfer that way. Where, Borrelia, they’re both spirochetes, Borrelia really prefers ticks. It has honed that transfer method over millions, and millions, of years. That isn’t to say, it can’t spread sexually, or across the placenta if it gets a chance. All of these things are opportunists, and they are going to go for every opportunity.
[00:31:32]
Tim: That’s interesting about them both being spirochetes, but totally different preferences for the main transmission there. Another question, very commonly asked, people wanted to know, “Do you need to know which coinfections you have, in order to seek treatment?”
[00:31:48] Dr. Rawls: Yeah, that’s kind of a loaded question. First of all, when you look at testing, most of our testing is designed to pick up acute infection; when these microbes are being mobilized in the blood, and when the reaction by the immune system is most acute. Most of the people being tested are, have chronic Lyme disease, and by that time, these microbes are deep in tissues.
So, there are new testing methods coming. I mentioned the one with the Alzheimer’s brains, which is very sensitive, by you have to have tissue for that, and you have to have a lot of tissue to find them. They were only able to do it because of the autopsy specimens. So, when you look for these things, just in blood, they’re not really in the blood very much. We may get to the point where we can pick up even the most microscopic portions of these microbes; but right now, testing in live people, who have chronic illness, is very difficult.
Beyond that, again, we’re finding new microbes every day. So, there are things that we don’t know about. The cool thing about the herbs is, you get such broad spectrum coverage, and you can take multiple herbs to provide even more coverage. I typically took anywhere from five to even ten different kinds of herbs at one time. They were doing slightly different things, and providing slightly different coverage. That’s the nice thing about herbs, you can do that. They’re complimentary, they work together. It doesn’t enhance the side effects. Whereas, if you do that with synthetic drugs that are foreign to us, you enhance the side effects… so it’s more difficult to combine drugs, than it is to combine herbs.
I, personally, don’t really see the need for as much testing. I think it’s valuable. I think we all want to know as much as we can know, but I certainly don’t think that this idea of, “I’ve got to test for this microbe, to treat this microbe with one things; and test for this microbe, to treat this microbe with one thing.” That’s really dysfunctional thinking, that tends to not get people well.
[00:34:21]
Tim: Great, and you kind of started leading into the next question here, from Karen. Are there any tests that people should do, or are there any good ones out there, or in general? How else would they know if they got coinfections?
[00:34:36] Dr. Rawls: Sure. I put a lot of information, about testing, in my book, and I think that is valuable. Most physicians are still practicing under the idea of the idea of testing for a microbe, and treating that microbe. Again, the microbe testing is hit or miss, and there are certainly things we don’t know about there. We’re not talking about … the coinfections may initiate this thing. Right? The coinfections may get the ball rolling. They’re part of that pot boiling over. Once you get that thing going, it’s all these pathogens and opportunists, in the body, that have been contained by the immune system, that are no longer contained anymore.
It’s not just the coinfections. You’ve got systemic inflammation, pathogens throughout the body becoming active. You compromise that gut-blood barrier, so there are microbes crossing over from the gut, into our system, then into the brain. So, it’s not, again, it’s a disruption of the microbiome, more than it is an infection with a microbe.
[00:36:03]
Tim: Great. Speaking of Stephen Buhner, you mentioned earlier, that he influenced you a lot on those main herbs. Tammy from Iowa, is wondering, she thought she heard him say not to combine, or mix the herbs. Do you recommend mixing them, and if so, why?
Dr. Rawls: I didn’t get that from Stephen Buhner. Yeah, he mixes a lot of herbs. He uses a pretty broad spectrum of herbs. The way that he has written his information, he has separated out each of the known coinfections; and then offered a selection of herbs for each one of those things. It’s mildly different for each one, but I think if you really pay attention, for each of his recommendations, you’re going to see a lot of the same herbs; because all these microbes have very, very, similar characteristics.
The stealth microbe characteristics, living inside cells, and the way they go about manipulating the immune system, is all very similar. There’re mild differences, but I have certainly… I think most herbalists would recommend combining herbs, even Stephen Buhner. I found that you don’t necessarily … I mean if you followed all of Stephen Buhner’s recommendations, you’d probably be taking 50 to 100 things a day, if you considered the possibility that you had all the coinfections at one time, which is certainly possible.
A lot of people have more than one, they have several. Along with this whole disruption of the microbiome, if you were following all of his recommendations, you would be taking 50 to 100 different things. Which isn’t practical for most people. But, yes, I definitely found that combining herbs, you do get synergy. I’ve done that for my entire course, and I continue to do that now.
[00:36:24]
Tim: Great. So, that leads perfectly into, “Are there any herbs that will treat both coinfections, and Lyme?” I’m guessing you’ll say those four core ones, combined together, do a pretty good job. Would that be true?
[00:38:30] Dr. Rawls: Well, yeah. Generally, what I recommend is, starting with a core, so that’s a good place to start. These are herbs that have been very, very, widely used by a broad spectrum of different Lyme patients. I mean, every person with Lyme disease is slightly different; because they do have a slightly different microbiome, a slightly different collection of potential pathogens, slightly different immune dysfunction. So, starting with a core, I think is a really nice idea. Starting with that particular core is good, because so many people have used it, and gotten good benefit.
Then I recommend that people get to know other herbs, and other antimicrobial herbs, and gradually add things to that core. Then gradually circulate other herbs. I haven’t stuck with one absolute regiment through my entire course. I felt like, at some times, I was starting to develop tolerance. Early on, it took me about five years to recover totally, because I was so affected, and it took me a long time to figure things out. There were times where I’d been on the same herbs for six months, or a year, and I felt like that I was developing tolerance to them. I just wasn’t getting the same benefit. I started adding other herbs on, or started circulating other herbs around, and back to benefit again.
So, there’s nothing wrong at all with starting with a core, and then circulating around. Most of the herbs that we’re talking about here, have fairly low potential for harm. They’re generally very well tolerated, much better tolerated than antibiotics. So, I think it is very reasonable to do that.
[00:40:26]
Tim: And of all the coinfections, which would you be most concerned about? Is there a specific order to treating them? From April.
[00:40:36] Dr. Rawls: Yeah, that’s always hard to know. If you look at which ones are more virulent, top of the list would be Rickettsia. Rickettsia infects blood vessels, and with really acute, bad infections, people can get extremely ill and even lose limbs. That makes it the most virulent of all the microbes. That being said, somewhere between a third and two thirds of people that get Rickettsia never know that they got it. They don’t have any symptoms at all. Now, whether that’s the particular persons immune system, just has more genetic memory of that microbe, or happens to be particularly strong, or it might be that certain strains of Rickettsia, and other microbes, are worse than others.
Babesia is another one that’s a little bit more of a problem. Anaplasma and Ehrlichia, are a little bit related to Rickettsia, but they don’t infect blood vessels, so they don’t cause quite the same problem. Ehrlichia, Rickettsia, Anaplasma, are more apt to cause acute infection. If you had asked me five years ago, I would’ve said, “Well, they’re mainly cause people to get sick, and we don’t see them as much in chronic illness.” But we’re finding that they’re showing up as coinfections, that people get them, don’t get symptomatic, or get symptomatic and end up with that pot boiling over. Then it’s beyond the Rickettsia, or Anaplasma.
Babesia’s another one, it’s a protozoa. There is a lot being said about Babesia. It really sounds like a terrifying microbe, but quite frankly, when I was in medical school, and we were studying infectious disease, of all the bad actors out there, malaria was the big one. It’s little sister, or brother, was Babesia; and Babesia hardly got a footnote. It’s because most people that get Babesia, never know they get Babesia, they don’t get sick. It can, under certain situations, cause a very similar scenario to malaria. It can cause high fevers, it can stay sequestered in the spleen, and liver.
Typically it acts like malaria, it can stay dormant for weeks, months, and then you get this flare up. It can be cyclic, that people get the same recurrent, acute, symptoms, with a high fever, and muscle aches, and all the other things that come with it. It can be hard to get rid of, in those situations. The most frightening situation with Babesia, is people that have had their spleen out. They can get much more acutely ill. That’s the biggest situation to worry about Babesia.
Bartonella, there’re a lot of people out there that think that most of Lyme disease, or the more symptomatic part of Lyme disease, is actually Bartonella. Bartonella tends to cause stretch marks, and it can make people really ill. I’ve seen some young people with it, that have been really ill; but then, there are a lot of people that get Bartonella, and carry it, and never know it. That’s this unusual stealth nature about these microbes. It makes it very, very, frustrating, to understand them sometimes, and completely contain them.
[00:44:30]
Tim: Thanks, Dr. Rawls. Just a quick note to everybody out there, just got word that we are a bit overwhelmed with chats. There are so many of you out there, asking questions. We want to answer as many as we can…this is an extended Q&A, so we’re going to get to a lot of things, and there are a lot of overlapping questions. Hopefully, we’ll be able to answer most of yours. Also, please do remember, our support staff are not medically trained, and this isn’t a medical practice; so, if you could help us out by avoiding technical medical questions, of treatment and diagnosis, that would be much appreciated. Thank you.
On to the next question, Dr. Rawls, “Anything you can say, in general, about how long it usually takes to rid the body of Lyme, and coinfections?”
[00:45:07]
Dr. Rawls: I think that depends on the immune system. It depends on how bad you get clobbered in the first place. I did not get immediately sick from a tick bite. I took obstetrics call, every second to third night, and was sleep deprived for about 15 to 20 years; and that, and bad food, chronic stress from just pushing too hard, and I gradually ended up with this boiling pot situation, and was miserable. It took me several years for me to figure out that it was Lyme disease.
Along the way, I happened to get another tick bite, and had the bullseye rash, which really clued me in to exactly what was going on. It took me about five years to get well. But, it was an up and down course. After I started the herbs intensely, I started crawling out of the hole within three months. It was up and down, and I had relapses. I just kept getting up, trying to figure out what I did wrong, and moving forward.
What we’re trying to do, with all the content that we’ve put out, is help people go through that process faster. It depends partially on, how bad you are in the first place, how bad your immune dysfunction is, what spectrum of microbes that you have present. Also, how willing you are to do the things you need, to get your immune system back online. Again, the only thing, the only thing, that can control these microbes, is your immune system. When we talk about biofilms, and cystforms , and all of this sort of thing, the only thing that will control them properly, is your immune system, the only thing.
So, what you want to do, is get your immune system working. That means getting your gut back in order, and doing what you need to do to get one a better diet, get your gut straightened out. Reduce toxins in your environment. Enhance the ability of your body to get toxins, and clear out all the junk that’s been built up. Gradually becoming active again. Getting enough sleep, so many people are held back by not sleeping. I mean that was a big thing that held me back, for years. Your brain gets inflamed, and if you can’t sleep, you’re not going to get well. You need eight hours of good sleep, and four hours of deep sleep, every night, of that eight hours, four hours of deep sleep every night, to get well.
It’s not going to happen, until that’s happening. Sleep is a big thing that you have to focus on. Then, you enhance all that with the herbal therapy. People who do that very, very, intently, that are moderately ill, can see a difference within six months. Other people may take years. I do have faith that anybody can improve their situation.
[00:48:18]
Tim: Darcy would like to know if there are any certain Lyme coinfections that do not respond well to herbal therapy. It sounds like herbal therapy can help with a lot of them, but are there any in particular to say that do not respond to herbal therapy?
[00:48:34] Dr. Rawls: In my opinion, Stephen Buhner’s opinion, quite a number of other people, I think the world is turning more and more to herbal therapy. It’s pretty clear that antibiotics don’t work. The CDC has basically, again, abandoned Lyme disease. They don’t recognize chronic Lyme, or neurolyme. They’re recommending a short course of antibiotics, that’s it. They’re suggesting that, if you have ongoing symptoms, it’s not Lyme disease.
Many of the Lyme doctors are still doing IV antibiotics, though there have been many studies now, multiple studies, that show long term use of IV, or oral, antibiotics do not get people well in most cases. There are isolated cases where people do recover their immune system, and they do get well with antibiotics; but that’s not what the studies are showing. There’s more and more evidence that herbal therapy is a good course.
Once again, it’s not the individual microbe. When we’re talking about individual microbes, like Rickettsia, like Babesia, where you’re seeing the biggest problem with these things, and where they hurt people the most, is with acute infection. If these things get in the body, and they don’t cause that acute infection, that makes someone really ill, they can just be there hanging out. I mean, you have to understand, “What’s the purpose of these microbes? What do they want from us?” They want nutrients, then they want to hand around long enough to have an opportunity to spread to another host, intimate contact, tick bit, whatever.
There’s no advantage to the microbe to making someone deathly ill. When you see someone that’s really ill from a microbe, like in an Ebola infection, or bad Rickettsia infection, that’s a badly mismatched host/microbe relationship. It’s not the way that nature intended. For most of these microbes, their strategy is not to make us miserably ill, but to get in the body, and use our resources until they have an opportunity to spread to another host. If your immune system is strong, that works out fine; but they all have a natural aggressiveness, and if your immune system isn’t strong, then you end up with this pot boiling over scenario, that is one microbe any longer, but many, a whole spectrum of microbes.
[00:51:30]
Tim: Thank you. Sandra says she’s been using your protocol, with good success, “But I’m looking how to know when I’m done, what a routine maintenance supplement regiment might look like? I’d love to eventually phase down from taking so many supplements.”
[00:51:47] Dr. Rawls: Yeah. It’s a hard question to answer. I think everybody has looked at this thing like antibiotics, that, “Okay, I’ve got this infection, and I take the antibiotic for three months, or two weeks, or whatever; and I get rid of the infections, it’s gone. Then I go about my life.” When you’re looking at these low grade stealth microbes, at the lower half of that pyramid, it just doesn’t work that way.
There’s fairly good evidence, now, that it is very difficult to completely eradicate these microbes from the body. There have been cases where people have been treated for nine months, and they’re still finding Borrelia, and other microbes in their system. So, we know the antibiotics don’t eradicate the microbes completely. Our strategy is a healthy immune system, and containing the microbes, more than anything else. That’s a lifetime thing.
I threw that study of Alzheimer’s in there, as an illustration that we all have microbes. So, keeping an immune system healthy is the way that you live well, into your later years, without illness. I seem to be getting a little better every year. Which is really odd… compared to the way that I felt when I was in my 50s. My goal, with our program, is to make amateur herbalists out of everybody. I’m hoping that people will continue using herbal therapy, learning about other herbs, trying other things. Trying the tinctures, taste the herbs, try different things, explore. It becomes part of your life. I do it twice a day, every day. I have for 10 years. I’ve barely missed a day; because I’ve come around to looking at herbs very differently than I think a lot of people do. In this case, we’re looking at herbs as our therapy, our medicine. When you look at herbs from another point of view, these plant substances have been with us for a long time.
If you look back at human history, for 200,000 years, for a vast majority of human history, humans foraged food. They ate two thirds plant matter, and one third animal matter. What plants did they eat? They ate limbs, and stems, and roots, and wild berries, and basically they ate herbal therapy for 200,000 years. They were eating all these things, and all of these phytochemicals were constantly part of their life. They were constantly getting an infusion of these things. They didn’t necessarily like them, or want them, because they were bitter, but that’s all there was to eat. So, most humans on Earth ate a lot of that stuff. So, when you look at herbs, the herbs are the same thing as the ancient foraged foods.
When we started doing grains, about 5,000 years ago, and started cultivating food, we cultivated all the bitterness out. We wanted our food to taste good. When we did, we cultivated out all those protective phytochemicals that had been part of our ancient diet for so long. We’ve done that really acutely for the past hundred years. I think the fact that we’re not getting all of these ancient phytochemicals is a huge part of why we’re seeing so much chronic illness. These microbes are not new to us. Lyme disease did not start in 1976 in Lyme, Connecticut. Borrelia, Babesia, all of these microbes have been infecting humans and other vertebrates for thousands, upon thousands, of years, for millions of years. We’ve been playing this same dance with it. It’s only been recently that we’ve started seeing these cases popping up so much.
Doctors have been describing EM rashes, and tick-borne illnesses, for hundreds of years; but people weren’t getting sick, like they getting now. It’s because we’ve got all this pressure on our immune system, and we’re not getting this really important natural protection from nature anymore. When I look at herbal therapy, I look at it as filling a really important deficiency in the modern diet. My answer is, yes. Everyone should be embracing herbs. They should be learning about herbs, they should be trying different herbs. Maybe you don’t need to take the quantities that you took early on, I don’t take as much as I did for the five-year period that I was really recovering intensely. I still take a selection of herbs everyday. I take immune modulators, adaptogens, some antimicrobials, everyday.
[00:57:22]
Tim: Awesome. I hope that’s helpful for you Sandra. Since you asked about the protocol, we’ve got a lot of other questions about Dr. Rawls’ protocol. Just want to mention, that’s not the purpose of this webinar. Thanks for sticking with us here, and we got a few more questions to answer. We’re going to turn toward some more treatment questions, since that was the most requested topic.
So, the next one here, Dr. Rawls, from David, “I understand that Lyme can not be fully cured, so to speak, but what about coinfections?” I guess by cured, he means completely eliminated.
[00:58:00]
Dr. Rawls: Yeah, it depends on what you defined cured. In one respect, you can define cure as not having symptoms anymore, and having a normal life. That’s the definition that I generally use, not to say you can’t have relapses. Do I think after 10 years of herbal therapy, that I’ve eradicated these microbes from my body? I’m no longer getting symptoms, but I’m not going to bet on that I don’t have them anymore.
When you look at these stealth microbes, there’s fairly good evidence that we don’t absolutely eliminate them. Whether that’s a flaw in the immune system, or whether that is just the nature, the stealth nature, of the microbes. There’s also some evidence that the immune system actually keeps some microbes around, as a reference point; so if it is exposed to them again, it knows them better. Those are still things that we’re learning about. Because our testing is fair, at best, and once that microbe is completely dormant in tissues, it’s somewhat hard to find, it is a very, very, difficult question to answer completely. I don’t know that we’re going to be able to answer it in the very near future.
Probably the answers are going to come out as they start doing more and more of these studies where they’re looking at autopsy specimens, and biopsying tissues, and looking for the spectrum of microbes in tissues. I think we’re going to see a lot more of that. I think we’re going to start learning more about what spectrum of microbes are associated with different illnesses. The MS study, and the Alzheimer’s study, those two independent studies where they looked at Brian specimens, there was a different spectrum of microbes, in the MS patients, compared to the other study that was with the Alzheimer’s patients. We’re still really early in what that means though. I think in another 20 years, we’re going to have a better understanding of how spectrums of microbes come together, to cause illness. That might help us design our therapies a little bit better. Right now, you can do a lot of things, just looking at using herbs, and using other things to boost the immune system, and restore the immune system
There’s a lot more coming. I’ve seen so much research in the past three years. I’ve been just pulling all the studies that I can find. Oddly, most of them are coming from outside the United States, U.K., Australia, other parts of the world. Not as much in this country, we’re so pharmaceutically dominated. If it’s not something a drug can treat, we don’t really look at it. Fortunately, that research is going on worldwide, and it is being published in our journals; which is really good.
[01:01:26]
Tim: Yeah. It’ll be exciting to see what comes with the future research here. Now, I want to dive into a few more specifics on some individual coinfections. I know you covered these a lot in Unlocking Lyme. For the next 10 minutes or so, why don’t we start with viruses, reactivated viruses. So, anything you can tell folks, to help them out with how to get those to be dormant once again.
[01:01:53] Dr. Rawls: Well, the herbs have a lot of activity. There are a lot of good herbs, our immune modulating herbs, like reishi mushrooms, and some of the adaptogens, are really nice for Epstein-Barr virus, and many others, and herb called isatis. that’s really good for Epstein-Barr and suppressing these viruses again. It’s difficult to know how much of the herb is actually inhibiting the virus, probably some; and how much it’s just boosting the immune system to help suppress the virus again.
We know that at least 95% of the world’s population carries Epstein-Barr virus. Most of us get it when we’re very young. It seems as if you get it when you’re very young, you don’t have any symptoms from it. If you don’t get it when you’re very young, and you get hit with it as a teenager, and your immune system is a little bit down from being a college student, or whatever stresses, then you can get mononucleosis, of course. It has been associated with a range of cancers and other problems.
It’s mainly the herpes viruses that we know about now. There are eight different herpes type viruses. A lot of people, when I say herpes, they think of the genital herpes. That’s type I and type II herpes simplex; but Epstein-Barr, Cytomegalovirus, that causes zoster and chicken pox, is a herpes virus. We know that there are eight different ones that commonly infect humans, HHV6 A and B are common, and 7. Most of those don’t cause much, in the way of symptoms. A large portion of the population are carrying several of these viruses, but your immune system gets clobbered, and… other things are churning around, that disrupt your immune system, and you end up having reactivation of these viruses. So, you can have basically the same symptoms that you would have with an acute virus.
Interestingly though, when these things are reactivated, when they become chronic, the drugs that normally work for acute infection, don’t work for them; because the virus is using a different mechanism that bypasses the way the drugs work. So, chronic infections, the drugs don’t really do very much for these viruses. Except in the case of zoster, or shingles, there are a few drugs that can help. Epstein-Barr virus, Cytomegalovirus, a few others, don’t seem to be affected as much by the drugs; therefore, relying on the herbs can be really important.
[01:05:07]
Tim: Thanks.
[01:05:09]
Dr. Rawls: We wrote a great blog about that, I put a lot of information that’s posted on the website, if anybody’s interested in some more depth about Epstein-Barr.
[01:05:19]
Tim: Yeah, good reminder. So, that’s RAWLSMD.com, just search EBV, or Epstein-Barr virus, and that should show up in the blog search bar. We touched on Babesia earlier, Dr. Rawls. You mentioned that as one that’s potentially more dangerous, especially if you are missing a spleen. Shelia here asks, “How can we eradicate this nefarious infection?” Any other words of wisdom here?
[01:05:44] Dr. Rawls: Well again, an awful lot of people have Babesia, and about two thirds of people who get infected with Babesia, never get any symptoms. For whatever reason, sometimes it clobbers people, and acts very much like malaria, and if your immune system is really down, and it ends up getting in your spleen, and your liver, you can have a fit getting rid of it. There are some herbs that are a little bit stronger antimicrobial. It does have some … it’s a protozoa, like malaria, so there are things that work.
Traditionally, the things that have been used, are the things that were originally used for malaria. Peruvian bark, cinchona bark, was where quinine came from. That can have value. We’re finding that an herb called, mimosa pudica, it’s not the mimosa tree, it’s a low growing ground plant called a touch me plant. Mimosa I think has some activity. The classic Buhner solutions are cryptolepis, sida acuta, alchornea, Bidens pilosa, so there are some really nice herbs.
But this thing of acutely getting rid of any of these infections, isn’t our strategy here. Basically what we’re trying to do, is wear them down. You’re basically making the life of the microbe miserable, so it has a harder time doing what it wants to do. At the same time, boosting the immune system, so the immune system can get back to doing its job. It can take a good bit of time to wear these microbes down. So, with that, some of the other… the cryptolepis, and alchornea, and some of those, are generally better herbs than artemisia, and Peruvian bark, which have more toxicity. I think Buhner’s recommendations for Babesia are good. He’s got a lot of them though, I don’t think you have to take all of them. Those top ones, I think are quite sufficient.
[01:08:13]
Tim: Great, thank you. How about Candida? What herbs would you recommend for specifically targeting Candida?
[01:08:22] Dr. Rawls: Sure. Those primary herbs are really good, andrographis, and cat’s claw are very good for Candida. An herb that we use a lot for the gut, is berberine or berberine-containing herbs. Berberine is especially good for Candida. You’ve got to stop feeding the Candida, if you’re eating sugar, and starch, from grain, you’re going to keep feeding the Candida, and it’s going to be really hard to get rid of.
The problem with the drugs like Diflucan, and the other antifungals, they will work, they will suppress Candida, but they also suppress favorable yeast in the gut. Normally, everybody has other kinds of yeast, besides Candida; and they help suppress the Candida. With the antifungals, you strip everything down across the board, so as soon as you stop the antifungal, here comes the Candida right back. So, the herbs have a better job of normalizing the entire microbiome of the gut… and boosting the immune system. Berberine and berberine -containing herbs, there are quite a number of herbs that contain berberine. The one that’s most available, health food stores, and that sort of thing, is goldenseal. You can get that in a tincture. Coptis, an herb from China, is also very good. Oregon grape has berberine. Barberry has berberine. Lesser amounts than goldenseal, and probably Coptis, are the top selections on that. Just a berberine extract can be very beneficial.
[01:10:11]
Tim: All right, great. The last question here Dr. Rawls, “How can you tell for sure when Lyme and the coinfections are gone?”
[01:10:20] Dr. Rawls: Yeah. Like I’ve said before, you can’t; and our goal here is normalizing immune function, and restoring normal health. Again, if you want to stay healthy, if you’ve had your immune system slammed by Lyme disease, and you’ve got this history of this microbiome imbalance, you’re going to be sensitive for a long time, possibly the rest of your life. You really can’t let your guard down, once you get back to a level of normal health, or even satisfactory health. You’ve got to stay with a diet, you’ve got to be particular about your sleep.
I live a normal life now. I’m very particular about my sleep. I’m very particular about what I eat. I still have some food sensitivities that I have to deal with. But, I’m living a normal life, possibly a better life than a lot of people at age 60. So, you have to stay vigilant, you have to keep at this thing. The other side of that though, is I’ve given up a lot of foods. I can’t eat the processed foods, and all the other things that people eat. I love food. It’s real food, vegetables, just good natural foods, have become a central part of my life, that has enhanced my life. I’ve learned how to mediate. I’m particular about my sleep. I am particular about how I go about life, but my life is better for it. These things, these skills that I have learned, have made my life better. It is more enjoyable than it was before I became ill, because it’s just so… I’m so much more centered, than I was before. That’s worthwhile, that’s a goal. It’s worth working for. No doubt.
[01:12:37]
Tim: Awesome, thanks Dr. Rawls. That was the last question.
Dr. Rawls: No more, really?
Tim: I know we’ve got a lot more here, but I know it’s late, so we want to let people go, and share this book offer with everyone that stuck around. Thanks for answering all those, Dr. Rawls, always really informative.
Dr. Rawls: Yep. Thanks very much, and thanks everybody for coming.
Tim: We’ve done two other Lyme Q&As before. You can find those at RawlsMD.com, just search: ask Dr. Rawls. You can find the replays there, especially if you’re looking for more general questions. We really tried to focus on coinfections tonight. Hopefully we did a good job of that, and helped you guys out, coinfection questions.
Then also, we’ve got a Lyme support directory, where we’ve pulled together Lyme support groups all over the country, and even other countries. If you’re looking for some live, in-person interactions, support, in your area, go there and check that out. That’s also at RawlsMD.com, or you can just do live support directory.com. If you don’t have a group in your area, you can start one, and put it on here.
I think that is all for the night. Thanks again, everyone, for being here, and your patience with the chats. I hope you got a lot out of the webinar presentation. We’ll see you on the next webinar. Goodnight.
What are coinfections? – 27:53
What are the common ways to get coinfections? Anything other than ticks? – 29:32
Do you need to know which coinfection(s) you have in order seek treatment? – 31:39
How should my physician test me for coinfections? – 34:22
A lot of your protocol is from Stephen Buhner, I listened to a podcast of his and he did not recommend mixing the herbs together, why are
you mixing them together?– 36:08
Are there any herbs that will treat both coinfections and Lyme? – 38:12
Of all the coinfections, which one should you be the most concerned about and is there an order to treating them? – 40:27
How long does it usually take to rid the body of Lyme and coinfections? – 44:58
Are there certain Lyme coinfections that do not respond well to herbal therapy? – 48:19
I have been using your protocol with good success, but am looking to understand how to know when I am done, or what a routine maintenance supplement regimen might look like. – 51:27
I understand you cannot be “cured” of Lyme, but how about the coinfections? – 57:42
How do we get active viruses to go dormant; EBV, HPV, HSP, etc.? – 1:01:40
Babesia – How in the world do you eradicate this nefarious infection?! – 1:05:29
Are there herbs which specifically target candida? – 1:08:15
How can you tell for sure when Lyme and coinfections are gone? – 1:10:15
[00:00:00]
Tim: Good evening everybody, welcome to the Ask Dr. Rawls webinar. This is our third Ask Dr. Rawls webinar, with live Q&A. We are going to be focusing this evening on Lyme disease coinfections. My name’s Tim, I’ll be your moderator this evening; and Dr. Bill Rawls will be joining us in a little bit. Coinfections is the topic we get a lot of questions about here at RawlsMD, so we’ve been wanting to cover this for a long time. We’re going to talk about all the major coinfections, how to know if you’ve got one, and talk through the options for treating them.
So, we got a lot of questions from you all. Thanks everyone who submitted those during registration. We got 1600, more than 1600 questions. We’ve been through those, and we’ve organized them. We’re going to do our best to get through as many as we can tonight. It is a huge topic, so to help us out narrowing this down a little bit, we’ve got a quick poll we’d love your participation in.
The first poll here is, just what aspect of Lyme coinfections are you most interested in learning about? You can just select your top subject here. Make sure that you hit submit so that we can see what the consensus is out there; and that’ll help us tailor our presentation just a little bit more. All right, let’s see here. We’ll go ahead and close the polls, most people have voted. It looks like the majority of people are interested in treatment options. That’s great information for us, thank you for voting, everybody.
Now, the plan for the evening is, Dr. Rawls is going to join us in just a moment. He’ll give a brief presentation, that is going be really important for setting the ground work that’s going to, one, answer a lot of questions that were asked. So, we’re going to knock a lot of questions out there. Also, it’s going to set the foundation that will be important for understanding the rest of the questions that he’s going to answer when we get to the freeform Q&A, afterwards. After that brief presentation, we will jump into the Q&A.
Dr. Rawls is the medical director, and a physician. He’s the medical director, and co-founder, of RawlsMD. He has written, extensively, on a variety of topics from microbiome, to chronic immune dysfunction, conditions like Lyme disease, fibromyalgia, and holistic health. He’s someone who’s been through a lot of trials with chronic illness, himself; so, he really understands where a lot of folks are coming from here. He’s passionate about helping people accelerate that journey toward better health. Once again, he’s the author of the best selling book, Unlocking Lyme, and was also featured on People’s Pharmacy.
Dr. Rawls, if you would go ahead and join us now, we’ll welcome you on here, to share a little bit about your personal story, if you would.
[00:03:00]
Dr. Rawls: Thank you, Tim. Welcome, everybody. Thanks for joining us. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Dr. Bill Rawls. I’ve been a physician for 30 years, but my career got derailed midstream, by Lyme disease. Through that struggle, I experienced every aspect, and every symptom, of chronic Lyme disease. That has given me a level of expertise that’s different than others.
I restored my health with herbal therapy. That was the main thing that helped me get through the whole situation. Since that time, a third of my career has been devoted to helping people understand Lyme disease, and overcome Lyme disease; and, understand how important herbal therapy is in that aspect. So tonight, we’re going to address Lyme coinfections, and how they relate to the human microbiome.
Now, give it back to Tim, for one more question here. Then, we’ll get rolling.
[00:04:08]
Tim: Thanks Dr. Rawls. So yeah, the microbiome is a central part of this conversation, so we thought we’d give you a quick poll, and to see what do you guys think. How many different microbe species are present in an average human microbiome. Just approximate here, just take your best guess. Then once again, hit submit. It looks like the majority of people are saying … 40,000 different species.
Dr. Rawls: Great.
Tim: Followed up by 9,000.
[00:04:36]
Dr. Rawls: That’s great. Super, very good.
Thank you, Tim. Yeah, 30 years ago, when I started medical school, it was an estimated 300 to 400 species; even as recent as 10 years ago, they were only talking about 400 to 1000 microbes. It’s only been in the past 5 years that, the research I’m seeing, is showing closer to 20,000 to 40,000 microbes, that are potential, in our microbiome. So, it’s massive. We all have a hundred trillion microbes, the microbe cells, even though they’re smaller, outnumber ours. They are found, mostly in the colon, but skin, through the gut, body orifices. We’re finding them other interesting places too, and we’re going to talk about that as we go along.
So, understanding the microbiome is really important for understanding coinfections. You start with the microbiome from your mother; whether you’re delivered vaginally, or c-section, can make a difference. You pick up from your surrounding environment. We continue to collect microbes throughout our lifetime. Every time you eat something, drink something, breathe, get scratched out in the yard or by an animal, and certainly insect bites. When we look at ticks, they are nature’s perfect vehicle for transmitting microbes.
Microbes are always entering your body. They’re constantly trying to get at the resources that we have to offer. What they want is nutrients. They want the resources, and nutrients, that are in our body. To them, we’re a nice juicy morsel. None of them are necessarily friendly… but that relationship, with the immune system, is really important, because they are doing everything they can to get the resources from our body. Our immune system is deciding which microbes we might share a little bit with, which microbes we might not want to do that.
[00:07:30]
Virulence is a really important term, when you’re talking about any kind of microbe, in a host relationship. Virulence is the ability, or the potential, for a microbe to cause illness. I think this is really important for understanding these stealth microbes. When you look at that concept of virulence, it really has as much as anything to do with the immune system, and the relationship with the microbe. Certain microbes are more apt to cause illness, than others. Most of the time, that potential is defined by our relationship with the microbe, and whether the immune system knows them.
When you look at the microbes out there, most of the things that most people are exposed to, on a regular basis, humans have been exposed to those microbes for thousands, upon thousands, even millions of years. The immune system has seen it before. We have information, recorded in our genes, that tells the immune system how to deal with that microbe. When you look at that potential, the microbes we call normal flora, are the ones we know the very best. It’s not that they’re not aggressive, they are aggressive. When microbes get in the wrong place in the body, whether our normal flora get in the wrong place, or our immune system is down, they can definitely cause illness; but the immune system knows them better, so we have this comfortable, symbiotic, relationship that they actually provide some good for us. They provide some vitamins, they help us digest food, and they help us help suppress those things out there that are pathogens.
We’re all carrying pathogens, microbes that have the potential to cause illness. We actually have a lot of them, so we really depend on an immune system, and a prevalence of normal flora, to keep those things in check. When you look at this chart, the most virulent microbe out there is Ebola. That would be a 10 on the scale. Ebola make us very ill, because human have never been exposed to it. It stays sequestered in a rare spider, that lives Africa. Occasionally, that spider bites bats; the bats, if kids happen to be playing under the tree where they bats get sick, it gets into human populations and spreads like wildfire, because we have no defenses.
As you move down the ladder, the virulence decreases because our immune system knows these things a little bit better; but certainly not as well as our normal flora. Looking at the top part of the chart, those are the more virulent microbes. It tends to be true that, our heroic therapies like antibiotics, vaccines, and in the case of Ebola, quarantine, are the best tools for those kinds of high virulent microbes. When you move to the bottom part of the scale though, you run into microbes that are part of … become part of our microbiome, and they have potential to cause disease, but as long as they’re suppressed by the immune system … but we’re going to talk about why the heroic therapies, like antibiotics, and vaccines, and other things, don’t work as well as them.
[00:11:00]
You can see these things that we carry, that are carried by ticks, that we associated with Lyme disease, I call them stealth microbes; because they’re really sneaky. They slide in, they infect white blood cells, a lot of times they don’t even make a presence known. You don’t get an acute infection with these things. They distribute throughout the body. They occur in very low concentrations. They’re deep in tissues. They grow very slowly, and so they have just totally different characteristics than some of the higher virulence microbes. Then, they’re not really like our normal flora either, so the immune system would really like to get rid of them. They’re a nuisance, but because they’re so sneaky, yet we have a hard time with that. They have the potential to cause this low grade illness, that can just make us miserable.
So, stealth microbes, masters of manipulating the immune system. Live inside cells, characteristically, which protects them from antibiotics and the immune system. Living inside white blood cells enables them to manipulate the immune system. They live deep, in the deepest part of the body. They grow slowly, and occur in low concentrations.
So, one more question, Tim.
[00:12:00]
Tim: Another quick poll here, to keep you guys on your toes. What is the most common coinfection, would you guess? Before we dive into the classic coinfections Dr. Rawls is about to cover here. The majority of people so far, I won’t spoil it actually. I’ll wait till a few more have voted. All right, let’s see what we’ve got here. It looks like the majority of people say Bartonella is the most common, followed my Mycoplasma, and Babesia. Dr. Rawls, what do you think?
[00:12:44]
Dr. Rawls: All right. So, these are the classic coinfections, Mycoplasma, Bartonella, Babesia, Rickettsia, Ehrlichia, Anaplasma, and Chlamydia’s out there. Actually, the most common is Mycoplasma, 75% at least. Bartonella’s next, Babesia. Ehrlichia, and Anaplasma, are a little more common than Rickettsia. Chlamydia’s very common too. I think what’s important to recognize is, a lot of the time these don’t come with ticks. They are present. We know that a large number of the population carry any number of these microbes at any given time, without having any symptoms.
Mycoplasma is chiefly spread respiratory, and sexual, depending on the species. Bartonella, fleas, lice, cat scratches, depending on the species; there are multiple species of each one of these. Babesia, typically ticks, but other insects. Rickettsia, Anaplasma, or Ehrlichia, various different modes. Chlamydia, commonly present, we’re finding that this one is a really common microbe that people gotten from respiratory, and sexual contact, that is present in this thing we call chronic Lyme. There are many other tick borne microbes, and that’s really significant.
When we start talking about coinfections, I think we’re just scratching the surface here. There’re a lot of things that we don’t know about. We know that they different species of ticks can carry hundreds of different microbes; and that makes sense. If we carry 40,000 different species of microbes, it would make sense that ticks probably carried hundreds of different microbes. Especially, considering that ticks are nature’s perfect vehicle for transmitting microbes. Yeah, you would think there would be a lot of them. There are many species, and there’re other routes. Many of these things are present. So, when you collectively put these things together, they can be present.
One of the really interesting things that I found, in my story, and virtually all the people that I talk to, is it’s very unusual that someone gets sick from a tick bit. It’s rare that someone gets a tick bite, they get acutely ill, and they stay acutely ill; and then gradually go into chronic illness. That’s very unusual. It happens, sometimes more virulent microbes, like Rickettsia, can cause acute illness, and people do get chronically ill; but they probably have other microbes on board. What more typically happens is, people don’t remember a tick bite, and they’ve had multiple exposures through their life time. They picked up Borrelia and other microbes, and other factors come together. Their house burned down, and they lost their job, and their wife left them, and they’ve got all this stress. They lived in a moldy home, where they’ve got other kinds of toxins. All these things come together to disrupt immune function.
So… it’s like a pot simmering on the stove, everybody has these. We all have pathogens. If you disrupt immune system functions, then they start becoming unleashed. They start becoming active, and sooner or later, they’re taking over the immune system, and it’s like a boiling pot. When the lid blows off, that’s the tipping point that people start getting this chronic illness, that the misery just never goes away. Then, on top of that, you’ve got other things like most people are carrying, Epstein-Barr, Cytomegalovirus, HHV-6, and a host of other viruses. They become reactivated. They become part of the boiling pot. Then, pathogens in the gut, and Candida in the gut, and we have disruption of the gut-blood barrier; and eventually systemic inflammation, with disruption of the blood-brain barrier. Then, it’s just all consuming, that you have all these symptoms at the same time; and the body is basically falling apart.
I think there’s a very, very, strong connection to other kinds of illnesses. I look at chronic Lyme, and all the coinfections, in this boiling pot scenario, and it looks very similar to other kinds of things. There’s a lot of crossover in symptoms between Lyme, and Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s, and multiple sclerosis, and all the autoimmune diseases, many, many, common symptoms. I think the differences are, the spectrum of microbes, how that immune dysfunction came together, and the person’s genetics, of how these disease scenarios may progress out. It’s a strong connection.
[00:18:00]
So, again, what we know about, we’re learning new things everyday. It’s really exciting to see the studies coming out, as we do get better at finding these microbes, and the presence of them. It starts fitting this story together better, and better, of what we’re dealing with. There are two studies that I pulled very recently, that were really, really, interesting to me. Who would’ve ever thought that we’d all have a lot of microbes in the brain. They have, over the years, done some autopsy specimens of Alzheimer’s, and they found Borrelia, and some of the other chronic Lyme. We found connections with Chlamydia, and Mycoplasma, to rheumatoid arthritis and MS. So, we’re starting to make these connections.
These two studies, one on Alzheimer’s, and one on multiple sclerosis, two independent studies, in independent countries, were really interesting. They’re using a new type of testing, that they’re looking for segments of RNA of bacteria, that are different than humans. So they took tissue samples from autopsy brains, from Alzheimer’s patients, looking for microbes, just to see what was there. Are there microbes in the brain, is that part of it? What they found was really surprising. They didn’t find just a few species, they found whole entire groups. In fact, they found the representation of our entire microbiome, present in the brain; very low concentrations, but still there. From the mouth, from the gut, from the skin, they were all there. A lot of potential pathogens. Interestingly, they found … one of the ones the incriminated for inflammation was not Borrelia, or one of the coinfections, but P. acnes, the microbe that is actually associated with acne; and they found Strep, and they found Staph. They felt that these things were part of the inflammatory process.
Also interesting, though, is in that study, and in the multiple sclerosis study, which they found a similar spectrum of microbes, they did controls. People who had died, but not of these particular illnesses. What they found was, they found that same spectrum. Lower concentrations, the different spectrum, not the same amount of pathogens. There wasn’t that eruption of pathogens, it was mainly normal flora. But that’s pretty amazing, that in these studies, that we’re finding that, yes, we all do have bred microbes in our tissues, of a wide variety. If your immune system goes down, that’s when these things start becoming active. I think we’re going to be seeing more and more connections between these kinds of things, and chronic illness.
So we have to start looking, and saying, “Okay, what’s causing that immune disruption? Why are people developing chronic immune dysfunction?” It gets back to our modern world. The artificial food we eat. All the toxins that we’re exposed to from using petroleum. Stress, this just low grade stress, that all of us are under; and, not being active, sitting all day. Microbes can certainly contribute… I have seen cases of people who do get sick, just from a tick bite, just from getting the wrong microbe, or combinations of microbes. When you look at solutions, you’ve got to look at that big picture.
That’s why, as I said, with these … with the heroic therapies like antibiotics, they work great for highly virulent microbes; for like a really bad Pneumonia, with fast growing microbes. When you look at these stealth microbes, that are living inside cells, and are well protected. They’re living in the brain, which is isolated from antibiotics. You end up hitting your normal flora a whole lot harder with antibiotics, for the time that you have to use then, than you are going to get those microbes. That, ultimately, is going to disrupt the gut flora; which will break down, that will compromise that gut-blood barrier even more, and eventually compromise the gut-brain barrier even more, so more microbes coming in the brain, cause overgrowth of Candida. It’s like a race. If you use antibiotics, can you kill that pathogen that you’re targeting, before you’re killing all of your other flora, and causing disruption? With one pathogen that’s highly concentrated, like in a Pneumonia, you might well win that race; but with these stealth microbes, it is much more difficult.
[00:23:18]
That’s where herbs come in. Herbs are substances from plants, leaves, stems, barks, roots, berries, high concentrations… it’s very much like our ancient forage food diet. Plants are putting out a broad spectrum of chemicals to protect themselves. One of the things that they’re protecting themselves, is a wide spectrum of different kinds of microbes. When we’re talking about herbal therapy, every herb, every herb, does have some microbial properties, but some are better than others. The advantage of that is that, the plants have worked out that friend vs foe problem a long time ago. So, when you are using herbal therapy, you’re suppressing these stealth microbes. Now, I wouldn’t use herbs to treat an acute Pneumonia; but for the stealth pathogens, suppressing them long term. The advantage is, the herbs are not going to disrupt the normal flora. In fact, they tend to support the normal gut flora.
They boost the immune system, they reduce inflammation. They allow the immune system to go back and do it’s job, because ultimately, the only thing that can control these things, the only thing, is your immune system. So, herbs you can use long term. I have been using herbs now for 10 years, a broad spectrum of herbs. Things just keep getting better every year. I am so much more healthy than I was at age 50, now at age 60, it’s remarkable. I am thankful for it everyday.
Again, there’re a lot of herbs that we can use. Some of the things that have become classics, for Lyme disease, are Japanese knotweed, Andrographis, Cat’s claw, Sarsaparilla. These are some that Stephen Buhner, you may have heard of him, he’s an author that’s done a lot of writing about using herbs in Lyme therapy. He coined these, basically, as things that are good starters to use. They’re very forgiving, they cover a lot of basis, and they cover a lot of microbes. This thing that some herbs cover some microbes, and some herbs cover other microbes, really isn’t the case. These herbs give nice broad spectrum coverage, but sometimes it is nice to add other things on; or, hit them a little bit harder with different herbs, or certainly rotate.
I’ve done a lot of rotation over the years. It is a wise choice. There are again, a lot of herbs, Crytolepis, Bidens, Neem, Anamu and Mullaca, from South America, Houttuynia, Oregano, Teasel, Garlic, I mean the list just goes on, and on. Again, I like to get people away from thinking about, “Okay. I’ve got to have this set of herbs for this microbes.” If you look at the evidence out there, and if you read Stephen Buhner’s work, you’ll see that there’s a lot of overlap with all of these herbs, with all of the different microbes. Even though many of the microbes are different, because the plant has such a wide spectrum of chemical substances within the plant, you get a lot of really comprehensive coverage.
So with that, we’ll dive right into the questions. Now, Tim’s reviewed the questions, but I have not. I yet don’t know what’s coming. So we’ll do our best with it.
[00:27:30]
Tim: That’s right. All right we’re going jump right in here. Just a reminder folks, we did get a ton of questions at the registration process, but if you have anything else, feel free to add those to the list. You can send them in to our chat moderators. Just do your best to keep them brief, because we have so many. Remember we can’t treat, or diagnose, so just more general nature is easier for us to be able to answer.
All right Dr. Rawls, let’s just set the foundation here, make sure everyone’s on the same page, because we did have some questions. What are coinfections? Just a quick summary of what are coinfections.
[00:28:02]
Dr. Rawls: Well, coinfections, it’s pretty loose definition, actually. If you look at it one way, coinfections would be infections that come with a tick bite. If you get bitten by a tick, and you don’t get one species, but you get several species of microbes all at once. I think that happens pretty commonly. Again, I think there are things that we don’t know about. In the same respect, I think more commonly, people have microbes in their system. We know that anywhere from a quarter, to three quarters, of the population are carrying Mycoplasma, and likely Chlamydia too.
These microbes are very, very, common. They stay dormant in tissues, and so they show up as … when someone does testing, when somebody’s looking for Lyme disease, they show up; but they didn’t necessarily come with the tick. Though, they can be carried by ticks. The same is true with Bartonella, Babesia, and all the rest of them. They can be acquired at different tick bites. Someone may get bitten by a tick years before, and not have symptoms, or not have significant symptoms, and then develop symptoms with another tick bite.
[00:29:32]
Tim: Jacqueline would like to know, “What are the most common ways to get coinfections? You spoke about ticks, of course, are there any others, other than ticks, that are important to consider?”
[00:29:43]
Dr. Rawls: We’re constantly getting microbes, every time you breathe, every time you eat something. There are a lot of ways. We’ve been playing this game with microbes for all of eternity, and microbes are constantly trying to get into our body. Typically, you can eat or drink them. You can breathe them in air droplets, you can get contamination from touching something, and then putting hands in your mouth; or getting your hands on food. You can get them from transfusions. You can get them from casual, or certainly intimate, contact with other people.
We’re finding that most of these microbes can be transferred through the placenta. So, they can be passed in utero. That is not as common, I think, as most people think. So there’re a lot of ways that you can get them. You can get them from IV drugs. What you’re going to find is, that microbes specialize. They may be able to transfer multiple ways, but it’s like, Syphilis likes sexual contact best. It’s really specialized in that mode. It does things to help itself do it, to transfer that way. Where, Borrelia, they’re both spirochetes, Borrelia really prefers ticks. It has honed that transfer method over millions, and millions, of years. That isn’t to say, it can’t spread sexually, or across the placenta if it gets a chance. All of these things are opportunists, and they are going to go for every opportunity.
[00:31:32]
Tim: That’s interesting about them both being spirochetes, but totally different preferences for the main transmission there. Another question, very commonly asked, people wanted to know, “Do you need to know which coinfections you have, in order to seek treatment?”
[00:31:48] Dr. Rawls: Yeah, that’s kind of a loaded question. First of all, when you look at testing, most of our testing is designed to pick up acute infection; when these microbes are being mobilized in the blood, and when the reaction by the immune system is most acute. Most of the people being tested are, have chronic Lyme disease, and by that time, these microbes are deep in tissues.
So, there are new testing methods coming. I mentioned the one with the Alzheimer’s brains, which is very sensitive, by you have to have tissue for that, and you have to have a lot of tissue to find them. They were only able to do it because of the autopsy specimens. So, when you look for these things, just in blood, they’re not really in the blood very much. We may get to the point where we can pick up even the most microscopic portions of these microbes; but right now, testing in live people, who have chronic illness, is very difficult.
Beyond that, again, we’re finding new microbes every day. So, there are things that we don’t know about. The cool thing about the herbs is, you get such broad spectrum coverage, and you can take multiple herbs to provide even more coverage. I typically took anywhere from five to even ten different kinds of herbs at one time. They were doing slightly different things, and providing slightly different coverage. That’s the nice thing about herbs, you can do that. They’re complimentary, they work together. It doesn’t enhance the side effects. Whereas, if you do that with synthetic drugs that are foreign to us, you enhance the side effects… so it’s more difficult to combine drugs, than it is to combine herbs.
I, personally, don’t really see the need for as much testing. I think it’s valuable. I think we all want to know as much as we can know, but I certainly don’t think that this idea of, “I’ve got to test for this microbe, to treat this microbe with one things; and test for this microbe, to treat this microbe with one thing.” That’s really dysfunctional thinking, that tends to not get people well.
[00:34:21]
Tim: Great, and you kind of started leading into the next question here, from Karen. Are there any tests that people should do, or are there any good ones out there, or in general? How else would they know if they got coinfections?
[00:34:36] Dr. Rawls: Sure. I put a lot of information, about testing, in my book, and I think that is valuable. Most physicians are still practicing under the idea of the idea of testing for a microbe, and treating that microbe. Again, the microbe testing is hit or miss, and there are certainly things we don’t know about there. We’re not talking about … the coinfections may initiate this thing. Right? The coinfections may get the ball rolling. They’re part of that pot boiling over. Once you get that thing going, it’s all these pathogens and opportunists, in the body, that have been contained by the immune system, that are no longer contained anymore.
It’s not just the coinfections. You’ve got systemic inflammation, pathogens throughout the body becoming active. You compromise that gut-blood barrier, so there are microbes crossing over from the gut, into our system, then into the brain. So, it’s not, again, it’s a disruption of the microbiome, more than it is an infection with a microbe.
[00:36:03]
Tim: Great. Speaking of Stephen Buhner, you mentioned earlier, that he influenced you a lot on those main herbs. Tammy from Iowa, is wondering, she thought she heard him say not to combine, or mix the herbs. Do you recommend mixing them, and if so, why?
Dr. Rawls: I didn’t get that from Stephen Buhner. Yeah, he mixes a lot of herbs. He uses a pretty broad spectrum of herbs. The way that he has written his information, he has separated out each of the known coinfections; and then offered a selection of herbs for each one of those things. It’s mildly different for each one, but I think if you really pay attention, for each of his recommendations, you’re going to see a lot of the same herbs; because all these microbes have very, very, similar characteristics.
The stealth microbe characteristics, living inside cells, and the way they go about manipulating the immune system, is all very similar. There’re mild differences, but I have certainly… I think most herbalists would recommend combining herbs, even Stephen Buhner. I found that you don’t necessarily … I mean if you followed all of Stephen Buhner’s recommendations, you’d probably be taking 50 to 100 things a day, if you considered the possibility that you had all the coinfections at one time, which is certainly possible.
A lot of people have more than one, they have several. Along with this whole disruption of the microbiome, if you were following all of his recommendations, you would be taking 50 to 100 different things. Which isn’t practical for most people. But, yes, I definitely found that combining herbs, you do get synergy. I’ve done that for my entire course, and I continue to do that now.
[00:36:24]
Tim: Great. So, that leads perfectly into, “Are there any herbs that will treat both coinfections, and Lyme?” I’m guessing you’ll say those four core ones, combined together, do a pretty good job. Would that be true?
[00:38:30] Dr. Rawls: Well, yeah. Generally, what I recommend is, starting with a core, so that’s a good place to start. These are herbs that have been very, very, widely used by a broad spectrum of different Lyme patients. I mean, every person with Lyme disease is slightly different; because they do have a slightly different microbiome, a slightly different collection of potential pathogens, slightly different immune dysfunction. So, starting with a core, I think is a really nice idea. Starting with that particular core is good, because so many people have used it, and gotten good benefit.
Then I recommend that people get to know other herbs, and other antimicrobial herbs, and gradually add things to that core. Then gradually circulate other herbs. I haven’t stuck with one absolute regiment through my entire course. I felt like, at some times, I was starting to develop tolerance. Early on, it took me about five years to recover totally, because I was so affected, and it took me a long time to figure things out. There were times where I’d been on the same herbs for six months, or a year, and I felt like that I was developing tolerance to them. I just wasn’t getting the same benefit. I started adding other herbs on, or started circulating other herbs around, and back to benefit again.
So, there’s nothing wrong at all with starting with a core, and then circulating around. Most of the herbs that we’re talking about here, have fairly low potential for harm. They’re generally very well tolerated, much better tolerated than antibiotics. So, I think it is very reasonable to do that.
[00:40:26]
Tim: And of all the coinfections, which would you be most concerned about? Is there a specific order to treating them? From April.
[00:40:36] Dr. Rawls: Yeah, that’s always hard to know. If you look at which ones are more virulent, top of the list would be Rickettsia. Rickettsia infects blood vessels, and with really acute, bad infections, people can get extremely ill and even lose limbs. That makes it the most virulent of all the microbes. That being said, somewhere between a third and two thirds of people that get Rickettsia never know that they got it. They don’t have any symptoms at all. Now, whether that’s the particular persons immune system, just has more genetic memory of that microbe, or happens to be particularly strong, or it might be that certain strains of Rickettsia, and other microbes, are worse than others.
Babesia is another one that’s a little bit more of a problem. Anaplasma and Ehrlichia, are a little bit related to Rickettsia, but they don’t infect blood vessels, so they don’t cause quite the same problem. Ehrlichia, Rickettsia, Anaplasma, are more apt to cause acute infection. If you had asked me five years ago, I would’ve said, “Well, they’re mainly cause people to get sick, and we don’t see them as much in chronic illness.” But we’re finding that they’re showing up as coinfections, that people get them, don’t get symptomatic, or get symptomatic and end up with that pot boiling over. Then it’s beyond the Rickettsia, or Anaplasma.
Babesia’s another one, it’s a protozoa. There is a lot being said about Babesia. It really sounds like a terrifying microbe, but quite frankly, when I was in medical school, and we were studying infectious disease, of all the bad actors out there, malaria was the big one. It’s little sister, or brother, was Babesia; and Babesia hardly got a footnote. It’s because most people that get Babesia, never know they get Babesia, they don’t get sick. It can, under certain situations, cause a very similar scenario to malaria. It can cause high fevers, it can stay sequestered in the spleen, and liver.
Typically it acts like malaria, it can stay dormant for weeks, months, and then you get this flare up. It can be cyclic, that people get the same recurrent, acute, symptoms, with a high fever, and muscle aches, and all the other things that come with it. It can be hard to get rid of, in those situations. The most frightening situation with Babesia, is people that have had their spleen out. They can get much more acutely ill. That’s the biggest situation to worry about Babesia.
Bartonella, there’re a lot of people out there that think that most of Lyme disease, or the more symptomatic part of Lyme disease, is actually Bartonella. Bartonella tends to cause stretch marks, and it can make people really ill. I’ve seen some young people with it, that have been really ill; but then, there are a lot of people that get Bartonella, and carry it, and never know it. That’s this unusual stealth nature about these microbes. It makes it very, very, frustrating, to understand them sometimes, and completely contain them.
[00:44:30]
Tim: Thanks, Dr. Rawls. Just a quick note to everybody out there, just got word that we are a bit overwhelmed with chats. There are so many of you out there, asking questions. We want to answer as many as we can…this is an extended Q&A, so we’re going to get to a lot of things, and there are a lot of overlapping questions. Hopefully, we’ll be able to answer most of yours. Also, please do remember, our support staff are not medically trained, and this isn’t a medical practice; so, if you could help us out by avoiding technical medical questions, of treatment and diagnosis, that would be much appreciated. Thank you.
On to the next question, Dr. Rawls, “Anything you can say, in general, about how long it usually takes to rid the body of Lyme, and coinfections?”
[00:45:07]
Dr. Rawls: I think that depends on the immune system. It depends on how bad you get clobbered in the first place. I did not get immediately sick from a tick bite. I took obstetrics call, every second to third night, and was sleep deprived for about 15 to 20 years; and that, and bad food, chronic stress from just pushing too hard, and I gradually ended up with this boiling pot situation, and was miserable. It took me several years for me to figure out that it was Lyme disease.
Along the way, I happened to get another tick bite, and had the bullseye rash, which really clued me in to exactly what was going on. It took me about five years to get well. But, it was an up and down course. After I started the herbs intensely, I started crawling out of the hole within three months. It was up and down, and I had relapses. I just kept getting up, trying to figure out what I did wrong, and moving forward.
What we’re trying to do, with all the content that we’ve put out, is help people go through that process faster. It depends partially on, how bad you are in the first place, how bad your immune dysfunction is, what spectrum of microbes that you have present. Also, how willing you are to do the things you need, to get your immune system back online. Again, the only thing, the only thing, that can control these microbes, is your immune system. When we talk about biofilms, and cystforms , and all of this sort of thing, the only thing that will control them properly, is your immune system, the only thing.
So, what you want to do, is get your immune system working. That means getting your gut back in order, and doing what you need to do to get one a better diet, get your gut straightened out. Reduce toxins in your environment. Enhance the ability of your body to get toxins, and clear out all the junk that’s been built up. Gradually becoming active again. Getting enough sleep, so many people are held back by not sleeping. I mean that was a big thing that held me back, for years. Your brain gets inflamed, and if you can’t sleep, you’re not going to get well. You need eight hours of good sleep, and four hours of deep sleep, every night, of that eight hours, four hours of deep sleep every night, to get well.
It’s not going to happen, until that’s happening. Sleep is a big thing that you have to focus on. Then, you enhance all that with the herbal therapy. People who do that very, very, intently, that are moderately ill, can see a difference within six months. Other people may take years. I do have faith that anybody can improve their situation.
[00:48:18]
Tim: Darcy would like to know if there are any certain Lyme coinfections that do not respond well to herbal therapy. It sounds like herbal therapy can help with a lot of them, but are there any in particular to say that do not respond to herbal therapy?
[00:48:34] Dr. Rawls: In my opinion, Stephen Buhner’s opinion, quite a number of other people, I think the world is turning more and more to herbal therapy. It’s pretty clear that antibiotics don’t work. The CDC has basically, again, abandoned Lyme disease. They don’t recognize chronic Lyme, or neurolyme. They’re recommending a short course of antibiotics, that’s it. They’re suggesting that, if you have ongoing symptoms, it’s not Lyme disease.
Many of the Lyme doctors are still doing IV antibiotics, though there have been many studies now, multiple studies, that show long term use of IV, or oral, antibiotics do not get people well in most cases. There are isolated cases where people do recover their immune system, and they do get well with antibiotics; but that’s not what the studies are showing. There’s more and more evidence that herbal therapy is a good course.
Once again, it’s not the individual microbe. When we’re talking about individual microbes, like Rickettsia, like Babesia, where you’re seeing the biggest problem with these things, and where they hurt people the most, is with acute infection. If these things get in the body, and they don’t cause that acute infection, that makes someone really ill, they can just be there hanging out. I mean, you have to understand, “What’s the purpose of these microbes? What do they want from us?” They want nutrients, then they want to hand around long enough to have an opportunity to spread to another host, intimate contact, tick bit, whatever.
There’s no advantage to the microbe to making someone deathly ill. When you see someone that’s really ill from a microbe, like in an Ebola infection, or bad Rickettsia infection, that’s a badly mismatched host/microbe relationship. It’s not the way that nature intended. For most of these microbes, their strategy is not to make us miserably ill, but to get in the body, and use our resources until they have an opportunity to spread to another host. If your immune system is strong, that works out fine; but they all have a natural aggressiveness, and if your immune system isn’t strong, then you end up with this pot boiling over scenario, that is one microbe any longer, but many, a whole spectrum of microbes.
[00:51:30]
Tim: Thank you. Sandra says she’s been using your protocol, with good success, “But I’m looking how to know when I’m done, what a routine maintenance supplement regiment might look like? I’d love to eventually phase down from taking so many supplements.”
[00:51:47] Dr. Rawls: Yeah. It’s a hard question to answer. I think everybody has looked at this thing like antibiotics, that, “Okay, I’ve got this infection, and I take the antibiotic for three months, or two weeks, or whatever; and I get rid of the infections, it’s gone. Then I go about my life.” When you’re looking at these low grade stealth microbes, at the lower half of that pyramid, it just doesn’t work that way.
There’s fairly good evidence, now, that it is very difficult to completely eradicate these microbes from the body. There have been cases where people have been treated for nine months, and they’re still finding Borrelia, and other microbes in their system. So, we know the antibiotics don’t eradicate the microbes completely. Our strategy is a healthy immune system, and containing the microbes, more than anything else. That’s a lifetime thing.
I threw that study of Alzheimer’s in there, as an illustration that we all have microbes. So, keeping an immune system healthy is the way that you live well, into your later years, without illness. I seem to be getting a little better every year. Which is really odd… compared to the way that I felt when I was in my 50s. My goal, with our program, is to make amateur herbalists out of everybody. I’m hoping that people will continue using herbal therapy, learning about other herbs, trying other things. Trying the tinctures, taste the herbs, try different things, explore. It becomes part of your life. I do it twice a day, every day. I have for 10 years. I’ve barely missed a day; because I’ve come around to looking at herbs very differently than I think a lot of people do. In this case, we’re looking at herbs as our therapy, our medicine. When you look at herbs from another point of view, these plant substances have been with us for a long time.
If you look back at human history, for 200,000 years, for a vast majority of human history, humans foraged food. They ate two thirds plant matter, and one third animal matter. What plants did they eat? They ate limbs, and stems, and roots, and wild berries, and basically they ate herbal therapy for 200,000 years. They were eating all these things, and all of these phytochemicals were constantly part of their life. They were constantly getting an infusion of these things. They didn’t necessarily like them, or want them, because they were bitter, but that’s all there was to eat. So, most humans on Earth ate a lot of that stuff. So, when you look at herbs, the herbs are the same thing as the ancient foraged foods.
When we started doing grains, about 5,000 years ago, and started cultivating food, we cultivated all the bitterness out. We wanted our food to taste good. When we did, we cultivated out all those protective phytochemicals that had been part of our ancient diet for so long. We’ve done that really acutely for the past hundred years. I think the fact that we’re not getting all of these ancient phytochemicals is a huge part of why we’re seeing so much chronic illness. These microbes are not new to us. Lyme disease did not start in 1976 in Lyme, Connecticut. Borrelia, Babesia, all of these microbes have been infecting humans and other vertebrates for thousands, upon thousands, of years, for millions of years. We’ve been playing this same dance with it. It’s only been recently that we’ve started seeing these cases popping up so much.
Doctors have been describing EM rashes, and tick-borne illnesses, for hundreds of years; but people weren’t getting sick, like they getting now. It’s because we’ve got all this pressure on our immune system, and we’re not getting this really important natural protection from nature anymore. When I look at herbal therapy, I look at it as filling a really important deficiency in the modern diet. My answer is, yes. Everyone should be embracing herbs. They should be learning about herbs, they should be trying different herbs. Maybe you don’t need to take the quantities that you took early on, I don’t take as much as I did for the five-year period that I was really recovering intensely. I still take a selection of herbs everyday. I take immune modulators, adaptogens, some antimicrobials, everyday.
[00:57:22]
Tim: Awesome. I hope that’s helpful for you Sandra. Since you asked about the protocol, we’ve got a lot of other questions about Dr. Rawls’ protocol. Just want to mention, that’s not the purpose of this webinar. Thanks for sticking with us here, and we got a few more questions to answer. We’re going to turn toward some more treatment questions, since that was the most requested topic.
So, the next one here, Dr. Rawls, from David, “I understand that Lyme can not be fully cured, so to speak, but what about coinfections?” I guess by cured, he means completely eliminated.
[00:58:00]
Dr. Rawls: Yeah, it depends on what you defined cured. In one respect, you can define cure as not having symptoms anymore, and having a normal life. That’s the definition that I generally use, not to say you can’t have relapses. Do I think after 10 years of herbal therapy, that I’ve eradicated these microbes from my body? I’m no longer getting symptoms, but I’m not going to bet on that I don’t have them anymore.
When you look at these stealth microbes, there’s fairly good evidence that we don’t absolutely eliminate them. Whether that’s a flaw in the immune system, or whether that is just the nature, the stealth nature, of the microbes. There’s also some evidence that the immune system actually keeps some microbes around, as a reference point; so if it is exposed to them again, it knows them better. Those are still things that we’re learning about. Because our testing is fair, at best, and once that microbe is completely dormant in tissues, it’s somewhat hard to find, it is a very, very, difficult question to answer completely. I don’t know that we’re going to be able to answer it in the very near future.
Probably the answers are going to come out as they start doing more and more of these studies where they’re looking at autopsy specimens, and biopsying tissues, and looking for the spectrum of microbes in tissues. I think we’re going to see a lot more of that. I think we’re going to start learning more about what spectrum of microbes are associated with different illnesses. The MS study, and the Alzheimer’s study, those two independent studies where they looked at Brian specimens, there was a different spectrum of microbes, in the MS patients, compared to the other study that was with the Alzheimer’s patients. We’re still really early in what that means though. I think in another 20 years, we’re going to have a better understanding of how spectrums of microbes come together, to cause illness. That might help us design our therapies a little bit better. Right now, you can do a lot of things, just looking at using herbs, and using other things to boost the immune system, and restore the immune system
There’s a lot more coming. I’ve seen so much research in the past three years. I’ve been just pulling all the studies that I can find. Oddly, most of them are coming from outside the United States, U.K., Australia, other parts of the world. Not as much in this country, we’re so pharmaceutically dominated. If it’s not something a drug can treat, we don’t really look at it. Fortunately, that research is going on worldwide, and it is being published in our journals; which is really good.
[01:01:26]
Tim: Yeah. It’ll be exciting to see what comes with the future research here. Now, I want to dive into a few more specifics on some individual coinfections. I know you covered these a lot in Unlocking Lyme. For the next 10 minutes or so, why don’t we start with viruses, reactivated viruses. So, anything you can tell folks, to help them out with how to get those to be dormant once again.
[01:01:53] Dr. Rawls: Well, the herbs have a lot of activity. There are a lot of good herbs, our immune modulating herbs, like reishi mushrooms, and some of the adaptogens, are really nice for Epstein-Barr virus, and many others, and herb called isatis. that’s really good for Epstein-Barr and suppressing these viruses again. It’s difficult to know how much of the herb is actually inhibiting the virus, probably some; and how much it’s just boosting the immune system to help suppress the virus again.
We know that at least 95% of the world’s population carries Epstein-Barr virus. Most of us get it when we’re very young. It seems as if you get it when you’re very young, you don’t have any symptoms from it. If you don’t get it when you’re very young, and you get hit with it as a teenager, and your immune system is a little bit down from being a college student, or whatever stresses, then you can get mononucleosis, of course. It has been associated with a range of cancers and other problems.
It’s mainly the herpes viruses that we know about now. There are eight different herpes type viruses. A lot of people, when I say herpes, they think of the genital herpes. That’s type I and type II herpes simplex; but Epstein-Barr, Cytomegalovirus, that causes zoster and chicken pox, is a herpes virus. We know that there are eight different ones that commonly infect humans, HHV6 A and B are common, and 7. Most of those don’t cause much, in the way of symptoms. A large portion of the population are carrying several of these viruses, but your immune system gets clobbered, and… other things are churning around, that disrupt your immune system, and you end up having reactivation of these viruses. So, you can have basically the same symptoms that you would have with an acute virus.
Interestingly though, when these things are reactivated, when they become chronic, the drugs that normally work for acute infection, don’t work for them; because the virus is using a different mechanism that bypasses the way the drugs work. So, chronic infections, the drugs don’t really do very much for these viruses. Except in the case of zoster, or shingles, there are a few drugs that can help. Epstein-Barr virus, Cytomegalovirus, a few others, don’t seem to be affected as much by the drugs; therefore, relying on the herbs can be really important.
[01:05:07]
Tim: Thanks.
[01:05:09]
Dr. Rawls: We wrote a great blog about that, I put a lot of information that’s posted on the website, if anybody’s interested in some more depth about Epstein-Barr.
[01:05:19]
Tim: Yeah, good reminder. So, that’s RAWLSMD.com, just search EBV, or Epstein-Barr virus, and that should show up in the blog search bar. We touched on Babesia earlier, Dr. Rawls. You mentioned that as one that’s potentially more dangerous, especially if you are missing a spleen. Shelia here asks, “How can we eradicate this nefarious infection?” Any other words of wisdom here?
[01:05:44] Dr. Rawls: Well again, an awful lot of people have Babesia, and about two thirds of people who get infected with Babesia, never get any symptoms. For whatever reason, sometimes it clobbers people, and acts very much like malaria, and if your immune system is really down, and it ends up getting in your spleen, and your liver, you can have a fit getting rid of it. There are some herbs that are a little bit stronger antimicrobial. It does have some … it’s a protozoa, like malaria, so there are things that work.
Traditionally, the things that have been used, are the things that were originally used for malaria. Peruvian bark, cinchona bark, was where quinine came from. That can have value. We’re finding that an herb called, mimosa pudica, it’s not the mimosa tree, it’s a low growing ground plant called a touch me plant. Mimosa I think has some activity. The classic Buhner solutions are cryptolepis, sida acuta, alchornea, Bidens pilosa, so there are some really nice herbs.
But this thing of acutely getting rid of any of these infections, isn’t our strategy here. Basically what we’re trying to do, is wear them down. You’re basically making the life of the microbe miserable, so it has a harder time doing what it wants to do. At the same time, boosting the immune system, so the immune system can get back to doing its job. It can take a good bit of time to wear these microbes down. So, with that, some of the other… the cryptolepis, and alchornea, and some of those, are generally better herbs than artemisia, and Peruvian bark, which have more toxicity. I think Buhner’s recommendations for Babesia are good. He’s got a lot of them though, I don’t think you have to take all of them. Those top ones, I think are quite sufficient.
[01:08:13]
Tim: Great, thank you. How about Candida? What herbs would you recommend for specifically targeting Candida?
[01:08:22] Dr. Rawls: Sure. Those primary herbs are really good, andrographis, and cat’s claw are very good for Candida. An herb that we use a lot for the gut, is berberine or berberine-containing herbs. Berberine is especially good for Candida. You’ve got to stop feeding the Candida, if you’re eating sugar, and starch, from grain, you’re going to keep feeding the Candida, and it’s going to be really hard to get rid of.
The problem with the drugs like Diflucan, and the other antifungals, they will work, they will suppress Candida, but they also suppress favorable yeast in the gut. Normally, everybody has other kinds of yeast, besides Candida; and they help suppress the Candida. With the antifungals, you strip everything down across the board, so as soon as you stop the antifungal, here comes the Candida right back. So, the herbs have a better job of normalizing the entire microbiome of the gut… and boosting the immune system. Berberine and berberine -containing herbs, there are quite a number of herbs that contain berberine. The one that’s most available, health food stores, and that sort of thing, is goldenseal. You can get that in a tincture. Coptis, an herb from China, is also very good. Oregon grape has berberine. Barberry has berberine. Lesser amounts than goldenseal, and probably Coptis, are the top selections on that. Just a berberine extract can be very beneficial.
[01:10:11]
Tim: All right, great. The last question here Dr. Rawls, “How can you tell for sure when Lyme and the coinfections are gone?”
[01:10:20] Dr. Rawls: Yeah. Like I’ve said before, you can’t; and our goal here is normalizing immune function, and restoring normal health. Again, if you want to stay healthy, if you’ve had your immune system slammed by Lyme disease, and you’ve got this history of this microbiome imbalance, you’re going to be sensitive for a long time, possibly the rest of your life. You really can’t let your guard down, once you get back to a level of normal health, or even satisfactory health. You’ve got to stay with a diet, you’ve got to be particular about your sleep.
I live a normal life now. I’m very particular about my sleep. I’m very particular about what I eat. I still have some food sensitivities that I have to deal with. But, I’m living a normal life, possibly a better life than a lot of people at age 60. So, you have to stay vigilant, you have to keep at this thing. The other side of that though, is I’ve given up a lot of foods. I can’t eat the processed foods, and all the other things that people eat. I love food. It’s real food, vegetables, just good natural foods, have become a central part of my life, that has enhanced my life. I’ve learned how to mediate. I’m particular about my sleep. I am particular about how I go about life, but my life is better for it. These things, these skills that I have learned, have made my life better. It is more enjoyable than it was before I became ill, because it’s just so… I’m so much more centered, than I was before. That’s worthwhile, that’s a goal. It’s worth working for. No doubt.
[01:12:37]
Tim: Awesome, thanks Dr. Rawls. That was the last question.
Dr. Rawls: No more, really?
Tim: I know we’ve got a lot more here, but I know it’s late, so we want to let people go, and share this book offer with everyone that stuck around. Thanks for answering all those, Dr. Rawls, always really informative.
Dr. Rawls: Yep. Thanks very much, and thanks everybody for coming.
Tim: We’ve done two other Lyme Q&As before. You can find those at RawlsMD.com, just search: ask Dr. Rawls. You can find the replays there, especially if you’re looking for more general questions. We really tried to focus on coinfections tonight. Hopefully we did a good job of that, and helped you guys out, coinfection questions.
Then also, we’ve got a Lyme support directory, where we’ve pulled together Lyme support groups all over the country, and even other countries. If you’re looking for some live, in-person interactions, support, in your area, go there and check that out. That’s also at RawlsMD.com, or you can just do live support directory.com. If you don’t have a group in your area, you can start one, and put it on here.
I think that is all for the night. Thanks again, everyone, for being here, and your patience with the chats. I hope you got a lot out of the webinar presentation. We’ll see you on the next webinar. Goodnight.
