• Understanding Lyme Disease

  • By: Tom Fox
  • Podcast
Understanding Lyme Disease By cover art

Understanding Lyme Disease

By: Tom Fox
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  • Summary

  • Have you, a loved one or friend been afflicted with Lyme Disease? There are many different ways to go about diagnosing and treating Lyme incorrectly, and very few ways to do it right. In this special podcast series Scott Endicott, Dr. Ben Locwin and Tom Fox uncover the shortcomings in the current standards and practices and open up a dialog about how we can better help patients with this disease.
    2021
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Episodes
  • Understanding Lyme Disease - Episode 5: Looking Ahead

    Understanding Lyme Disease - Episode 5: Looking Ahead
    Nov 19 2021
    Scott Endicott and Ben Locwin with host Tom Fox are back for part 5 of the Understanding Lyme Disease Podcast series. In this episode, they talk about living with chronic toxicity and co-infectious agents. A Useful Approach to Knowledge The best way to help yourself, and loved ones who have been diagnosed with Lyme disease, is to seek out accurate information to make sure that you get the best treatment options available. The earlier treatment is applied, the more effective it is.  The Next Steps Scott talks about a few innovative initiatives regarding Lyme disease. Focusing on diagnostic criteria and treatment approaches will be a great opportunity to turn the disease around. Currently, there is an increased acceptance of the disease and less stigma so that will go a long way in creating more options and opportunities for treatment. “There's been a much broader acceptance of Lyme in health insurance claims that's actually gone from being a very difficult diagnosis to one that's much more accepted,” Scott tells Tom. On the chronic side of the disease, Scott recommends that persons afflicted with tick bites get doxycycline in their systems as soon as possible. Knowing The Cause The more patients understand about Lyme disease, the more they would be able to apply smarter resources to improve prevention and care. They can be able to manipulate the neutrophils [the disruption of the immune system]. The more they understand about the science behind the causative agents, the easier it will be to fight it.  Resources Scott Endicott | LinkedIn Ben Locwin | LinkedIn | Twitter
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    16 mins
  • Understanding Lyme Disease - Episode 4: Prevention and Immunity

    Understanding Lyme Disease - Episode 4: Prevention and Immunity
    Nov 18 2021
    Scott Endicott and Ben Locwin with host Tom Fox are back for part 4 of the Understanding Lyme Disease Podcast series. In this episode, they talk about the immune system as the body’s first line of defense, how to boost your immunity, and take charge of your health. Prevention Beats Correction Prevention beats correction every time, and the best way to treat Lyme disease is to reduce your chances of contracting it at all. Ben advises listeners to take precautions when entering areas where ticks are common. Wear long-sleeved shirts, long pants, and boots if possible. Use tick repellent, salves, and sprays. If you do happen to find a tick on you, only remove it with tweezers; do not use petroleum jelly or try to burn it off.  Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome Some patients who have been treated for Lyme disease still feel lingering symptoms. This used to be considered Chronic Lyme Disease. Evidence shows that no persistent infection is left within patients so the official term is now Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome.  Building Your Immunity One of the best things a person can do is work on building their self immunity. Improving your diet, exercise, and stress levels are key to your recovery. A consistent exercise regimen especially helps to build back your immunity. "Many of the side effects and symptoms of persistent Lyme or Post Treatment Lyme Disease are psychiatric and mental," Scott tells Tom. Doing your best to fortify your body and mind is going to do wonders with strengthening your immune system. Take Charge of Your Health You need to take charge of your health, both physically and mentally. "Being discerning about your own health and being your own advocate is probably one of your best defenses," Scott says. Do what you can to ease stress: yoga or meditation are good options. Make use of the information that is available; get educated about what's happening around you so you can make decisions about your own medical care.  Resources Scott Endicott | LinkedIn Ben Locwin | LinkedIn | Twitter
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    17 mins
  • Understanding Lyme Disease - Episode 3: Treatment and Innovation

    Understanding Lyme Disease - Episode 3: Treatment and Innovation
    Nov 17 2021
    Tom Fox welcomes back Scott Endicott and Ben Locwin to part 3 of the Understanding Lyme Disease Podcast Series. In this episode, they look at treatment solutions for Lyme disease. The Current Lyme Treatment The current treatment for Lyme disease is more focused on adults. It's a non innovative approach, however, as Ben points out. The current standard treatment is a 100 milligram dosage of Doxycycline twice per day for 10 to 12 days. Patients will typically get three weeks worth of prescription. For children, they are prescribed Amoxicillin as they can't tolerate Doxycycline. This dosage would be 50 milligrams, three times a day. The current treatment protocols are inadequate for the population who have Lyme disease symptoms, Ben tells Tom. Both the infectious disease community and the academic research and physician community are holding fast to their own views on how Lyme disease is to be treated and what works and what doesn't. This poses a challenge, Scott remarks.  The Need For Innovation "The Health and Human Services (HHS) just put together a working group that is actually looking at emergent innovative approaches, and some of those innovative approaches are ones that the Lyme specialists have been using for many years, like PICC lyme antibiotics, essentially intravenous antibiotics in order to arrest very accelerated symptoms and symptoms that have taken patients to a place where there needs to be massive changes to their health or things are going to continue... to just get worse," he adds. This kind of innovation needs to be more normalized, and clinical experts need to remove themselves from their old school way of thinking. When new data is coming in from patient case reports, experts should be able to build new hypotheses, Scott and Ben argue. They shouldn't have such an emotional conviction to past beliefs that they can't be moved by new data. Innovating patient care and treatment is to understand exactly what is clear within the data, and for what isn't clear, to make adjustments. The Next Step Research and medication needs to adapt. What was believed to be effective in the past is no longer so in the present. "Frankly in clinical medicine, the endpoints to show that something is efficacious are either to demonstrate improvements and how a patient feels or functions or survives," Scott says. Measuring survivability is important but if patients are presenting that they don't feel well, or aren't functioning the same, and medical experts turn a blind eye to that, then there will be no innovation in terms of truly tackling the disease. The next step for treatment would be diagnostic testing that gets much closer, and that which puts data back into the hands of clinicians, so they can advise patients properly and with better protocols. Resources Scott Endicott | LinkedIn Ben Locwin | LinkedIn | Twitter
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    14 mins
Hygiene & Healthy Living Science
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