Lyme Recovery 2013

The notes below were taken from the Lyme Recovery 2013 event.  I highly recommend watching the videos from this event available here for a small charge.  Thanks to Tami Duncan for putting on such a great conference!

Disclaimer: The notes below were taken during the live sessions and have not been thoroughly reviewed for errors.  Nothing in the below is intended to be a recommendation for treatment.  All decisions about your health should be reviewed with your doctor.  Errors and omissions are likely present in this content.

Richard Horowitz, MD - The Science and Practice of Meditation and Lyme Disease and Multiple Systemic Infectious Disease Syndrome

• New Book: Why Can't I Get Better? Solving the Mystery of Lyme and Chronic Disease
• First talk was The Science and Practice of Meditation
  • Motivation of loving, kindness, compassion, wanting to relieve the suffering of others. This motivation for healthcare providers is very important.
  • The mind can be like a wild elephant and often needs to be calmed down.
  • Through meditation, attempt to create great love, great joy, and great compassion.
  • Shared meditation techniques from his own experiences with Tibetan teachers.
  • Physiological effects of meditation are very real and measurable.
  • Even after learning meditation, he still had personal suffering and continued looking at other types of meditation.
  • Mindfulness and awareness are the essence of meditation.
  • Mindfulness meditation often provides short and long-term reduction of chronic pain, helps with anxiety, depression, and mood disorders.
  • Regular practice has been found to improve overall quality of life.
  • Recent study showed mindfulness meditation can impact and reduce stress-induced inflammation.
  • Uses meditation to reduce clinical errors and increase clinical safety. Increases empathy and decreases burnout when working with chronically ill patients.
  • Three basic vehicles of Buddhist meditation - like different cars to get to different destinations.
  • Need to find time to meditate daily.
  • Meditation is the only way that you can wake up and find out who you truly are.
  • One of his teachers said on the meaning of life - Life is like a dream. In a dream, you are running from the monsters and feel like the monsters are going to get you, eat you up, and then you are going to die. Then you wake up from the dream; life is like that.
  • To relax the mind into its nature in the present moment in mindfulness and awareness of whatever is arising (not past or future) and looking at the nature of whatever arises.
  • Everything is impermanent and fragile. We must practice diligently while we have the opportunity.
  • Everyone is the Buddha. There is no difference between us and the Buddha. These are the same but we do not recognize it due to our attempts to grasp thoughts to define our reality.
  • We need to see the underlying reality to understand our true nature.
  • Each action has a consequence. This is karma. We should practice virtue.
  • Happiness is found in open relaxation and letting go.
  • Don't strain yourself in meditation; there is nothing to "do" or "undo".
  • Stay mindful and aware of everything arising in the mind without grasping on too tightly.
  • We are not doing this for ourselves but with the intent of relieving the suffering of others.
  • Every prior enlightened being before us has had the desire of loving and compassion and desire to relieve suffering of others.
  • Did a meditation - people with Lyme, children with autism. We are healers; we are Buddha. There is nothing that we cannot do; we are limitless. Imagine breathing in the black smoke of all beings throughout time and space to relieve their suffering and breath out white light to relieve suffering.
  • It may seem that the suffering in the world is overwhelming. We have a powerful ability to transform an impure world into a pure one.
  • Have faith and trust in yourself and your Buddha nature or essence. Most of us don't have full unconditional faith in ourselves.
  • Remember that you have the Buddha nature. You should have full trust in yourself because you are the Buddha and you are the Christ consciousness.
  • Have full, unconditional faith and trust when you sit down at the meditation cushion.
  • The one who is searching is the one you are looking for. When we say we want to reach our enlightened nature, the irony is that we are already enlightened.
  • Calm Abiding Meditation - contemplate the 4 thoughts that turn the mind towards meditation, have proper motivation and posture, choose an object such as breath or a picture. Don't follow the thoughts of the past, present, or future. A problem with meditation is people start to fall asleep or get agitated when they cannot calm the mind. Key elements are non-distraction, non-conception, and non-meditation. Relaxing the mind and looking what arises. Need to keep the mind tight enough to avoid distraction but not too loose that you can't watch the object of the meditation. Dedicate the merit of the practice at the end of the meditation.
  • Postures - cross-legged on a cushion or in a chair with back straight. Hands folded in lap with right hand over the left or hands on knees with fingers towards the ground. Back straight to allow energy flow. Extend shoulders and elbows; tilt the neck and tuck the chin. Connect the tip of the tongue to the palate to stop the flow of saliva. Eyes gaze towards the tip of the nose at 45 degrees downward or straight ahead. Be free and easy with the posture.
  • Did a meditation - focus on the breath. Can imagine a pea size ball of white light between your eyebrows at third eye and keep your attention there. Expel breath from the body. Hold right thumb on right nostril to blow out air. Each time more forcefully. 3 times. Then close other nostril and do the same. Finally with both nostrils open, repeat the three breaths. Expel all the air from the body to expel stagnant energy. Count to 21 following your natural breath going in and out. Imagine sound OM on breathing in, AH holding the breath, and HUNG while exhaling. Focus on the breath; not following any thoughts of present, past, or future. We are the Buddha.
  • 5 minutes 3 times a day initially is a good starting point for meditation.
  • At times, you want to fix attention on the mind without an object. Be aware of your own awareness and look at your own mind. There is nothing to see; no color, form, etc. If you look for the mind, you can never find it. When people say they are losing their mind, he asks if they have ever found it. Relax the mind in the present moment and look directly at the mind.
  • Two common obstacles to meditation are agitation or dullness. Agitation is to cut thoughts at the root and take the attitude that you are not going to get involved in any thoughts. Relax the posture. Visualize black 4 petaled lotus at the heart with a sphere of light in the center. Moves downward through the body into the earth until you become more calm. If the mind is dull, might need a cooler space, visualize a white 4 petaled lotus right side up with a white sphere of light in the center and eject it up through the body through the top of your head into space and keep your attention focused there.
  • Insight meditation - you ask yourself a question and see whatever you see. You don't keep searching for an answer.
  • You can't ever see thoughts. It is like an ocean and waves that arise and go away. They are empty, no color, no form. When an emotion arises, where does it come from?
  • Patients have fear and anxiety. What is the root cause of the fear? Most of the time, it is that people will not get better and will continue to suffer. There is no ultimate suffering; it is relative suffering. I suffer and I have pain; the "I" is ego. Instead of running from fear and grasping the thought, look at the nature of the thought. If the fear is so real, where did it come from? Where did it go? Does it have color or form? Fear has no color or form; you cannot find where it comes from or where it goes. When you see the empty, clear nature of fear, you become calm.
  • The active thoughts are at the superficial level of the ocean. We need to dive down where things are very calm.
  • As healers, we have unlimited potential. We are not limited. When we heal them and send them love and healing energy, this will have an effect.
  • If there was effort in meditation, that would be ego based. To attain a deep state, it must be effortless. You cannot say "I meditate" as that would be ego.
  • The mind knows how to meditate; you do not have to teach it. It is about non-distraction.
  • There was much more to this talk and it was really profound. Get the recording and watch it and learn these powerful techniques.
• Second talk was Lyme Disease and Multiple Systemic Infectious Disease Syndrome
  • Lyme can cause positive ANA and positive rheumatoid factors; especially with HLA-DR4. Can result on constant Herxheimer reactions.
  • Inflammatory cytokines keep people sick. Makes people tired, joint aches, brain fog, moody, depressed, etc. If you can shutdown inflammatory cytokines and open up detoxification, people feel much better.
  • 40% have low adrenal function.
  • If you can't sleep, you cannot shut off the inflammatory pathways.
  • You can throw all the antibiotics you want at someone but it will not work until you can heal the autonomic nervous system.
  • He has a map that represents the various nails that are in the patient's foot. Each of these potential nails needs to be looked at.
  • His upcoming book is coming out in September 2013 and details everything he has learned. It has questionnaires that provide more insights as to whether or not Lyme may be a factor. Was a four year process.
  • Chronic infections create inflammation. Inflammation leads to free radicals and oxidative stress.
  • Neurotoxins like quinolinic acid or Bbtox1. People do well with Byron White NT Detox, BT Detox, Detox 2, charcoal, glutathione, etc. to detox them.
  • Same inflammatory cytokines found in CFS and Fibromyalgia are found in Lyme.
  • Borrelia miyamotoi may be responsible for illness but may not show up with Lyme tests.
  • Many species of Mycoplasma have been found in ticks.
  • One tick bite can result in many different infections and seriously damage health.
  • Antibiotics don't penetrate well in certain parts of the body like the eye, CNS, ligaments, macrophages, etc. This is a factor in chronic infection.
  • There are many studies that show persistence of Borrelia after treatment.
  • Need to treat biofilms, coinfections, and his 16 point differential diagnosis model.
  • 23, 31, 34, 39, 83-93 are important bands to look at on the Western Blot.
  • Advanced Lab Borrelia culture has been resulting in positive cultures even after antibiotic therapy.
  • Need to combine many different antibiotics to address various forms and also address biofilms.
  • Not looking at Lyme from the point of a simple infection. Uses a functional medicine matrix.
  • Bacterial infections - combine treatments to address all forms of Borrelia, treat biofilms. Mixing tetracyclines and macrolides can be very useful.
  • Uses serrapeptase for biofilms. Also nattokinase or Boluoke.
  • If patients cannot tolerate a lot of antibiotics, you can mix herbs with antibiotic treatment.
  • Did studies on Cowden, Zhang, and White protocols. These are effective about 70% of the time in these patients.
  • Mycoplasma may be a driver for autoimmune presentations.
  • Coinfections need to be considered in very ill patients.
  • EM rash can be seen in other kinds of Borrelia than Borrelia burgdorferi. Borrelia miyamotoi or lonestari.
  • Parasites are very common. Babesia in over 50%; Mepron not as effective and now need at least 2 tsp twice daily mixed with a macrolide. Cryptolepis, Beyond Balance BAB-2, Sida, etc. are very useful for Babesia.
  • 20% of their patients are Babesia WA-1 positive. Used to be West Coast only.
  • New viruses like Heartland viruses are being found.
  • Candida can result in brain fog, etc. and may not be just the Lyme. Addressing Candida is often very helpful. Always use nystatin with antibiotics to keep yeast down.
  • Immune dysregulation results from blebs being secreted by the organisms.
  • Inflammation worse in HLA DR2 or HLA DR4. In Lyme, microglia in the brain are activated. Lyme patients have elevated level of cytokines in the body and CNS. Actos, LDN, glutathione, may be helpful.
  • Antibiotics are useful.
  • Difficult to completely eradicate the infections.
  • Free radicals and oxidative stress are common denominators in many chronic illnesses in the world. Need to mediate the inflammation. Glutathione, alpha lipoic acid.
  • Detox with magnesium, glycine, alpha lipoic, broccoli compounds, glutathione.
  • Glutathione may help with toxins beyond just heavy metals. It may remove quinolinic acid; a Lyme neurotoxin.
  • Detoxification with FIR sauna, colon cleanses, fluids, vitamins, minerals, and herbs, phoschol. Chelation with oral DMSA, DMPS, rectal EDTA. Remove metals and replace minerals. Consider methylation.
  • Food allergies and sensitivities are common on something he missed earlier on. More IgG responses than IgE. Getting sensitive foods out of the diet is very important.
  • Allergies may be related to Candida and leaky gut. Fatigue, headaches, skin presentations, concentration problems, etc. can result from food and other allergies. Likes the ALCAT panel. Treat underlying Candida or leaky gut. Glutamine, aloe vera, IgG 2000, DGL, and other substances are used.
  • 25% deficient in zinc, magnesium, and iodine.
  • Enzymes between meals can help with inflammation.
  • Mitochondrial regeneration helps some patients. CoQ10, phospholipids, carnitine, D-Ribose.
  • 1/3 of patients have been abused physically, emotionally, or sexually.
  • Many patients will not get better until the cause of their psychological dysfunction is addressed. Therapy may be required to address these issues.
  • MS overlap in their patients where Lyme, Chlamydia, and heavy metals were underlying factors.
  • ALS is discussed in his book.
  • Thyroid and adrenal testing and treatment often important.
  • Sleep disorders need to consider sleep apnea, caffeine, nighttime urination, restless leg syndrome and other factors. Lyrica, Trazadone, Xyrem, Gabitril can be helpful.
  • Autonomic Nervous System - check blood pressure several times then test when standing to see if blood pressure drops; could be a sign of POTS. May need salt, fluids, Florinef, Midodrine, hydrocortisone, and other medications.
  • Biltricide, Ivermectin, Pin-X, Alinia are helpful for some patients when parasites are present.
  • Liver function tests are often elevated. Need to check for Hep B, Hep C, Wilson's. Look for source of why liver functions may be elevated. NAC, ALA, Xymogen Liver Protect, Milk Thistle.
  • Severe pain observed in some patients. Difficult to treat when on narcotics. Work to get off of high-dose narcotics. LDN can be very useful for resistant pain.
  • Need regular exercise programs.