Dr. Devlin and I recently enjoyed a wonderful convention in Fort Lauderdale, FL designed to bring doctors up to date on the latest research about Lyme disease and its associated co-infections. It was sponsored by the International Lyme and Associated Disease Society (ILADS), and was very well attended by about 600 doctors from around the world. That attendance speaks to the growing magnitude of the problem of tick-borne infectious diseases, which ILADS experts estimate to be growing at a rate of 300,000 new cases in the US alone last year.
Lyme disease and its co-infections pose a particularly interesting problem. For political reasons that remain hidden and mysterious, the mainstream medical establishment refuses to recognize the chronic forms of the diseases. Medical doctors who do recognize the conditions are subject to scrutiny and may be singled out for punishment. Part of the dilemma is that the mainstream relies on very poor testing to determine the presence of Lyme. This test is estimated to miss over half of the cases. This leaves many people undiagnosed, which often translates into them being labeled as “head cases” and subsequently treated with open-ended courses of anti-depressants and addictive and debilitating opiates. This approach renders them still sick with infection, still in pain, and left to drift in a zombie-like dependence on medications.
Fortunately, there are better tests currently available, and there is a very exciting and accurate urine test for Lyme in the works that should be available within a year or two. There is also some new research that details the various metamorphoses that the spirochetes that cause Lyme undergo to avoid being killed off, either by the immune system or antibiotic drugs. We also received a lot of information about silver hydrosol, the one treatment that kills Lyme borrelia in all its forms. Read on to learn more.
Silver Hydrosol and Lyme
Perhaps the biggest take-home message from the conference was that, even if the disease is properly diagnosed in its chronic (long-term) form, it’s still damnably difficult to treat. The standard approach seems to be to use at least three antibiotics concurrently for six or more months at a time. Three antibiotics are often used to treat the three forms that the bacteria were thought to transform themselves into, seemingly at will, along with the associated tick-borne conditions. Additionally, toxic anti-fungal drugs are often employed for the duration in an effort to prevent fungi from over-running the body in the absence of all the beneficial bacteria sacrificed to the antibiotic regimens. The whole treatment approach is reminiscent of the chemo, surgery and radiation program used in the attempt to destroy cancer. One wonders whether the treatment or the disease causes more harm. Sometimes these plans drag on for years without much progress being made. Many ILADS doctors then turn to questionable functional medicine testing for heavy metals, food allergies, etc., when the treatment fails to improve the condition. I call these tests questionable, because their results may have nothing to do with the symptoms being experienced, and may add expense and possibly more potentially harmful and unnecessary treatments being added to the plan.
Needless to say, not everyone is on board with the aggressive and frequently unsuccessful approach outlined above. We talked to a few doctors who’ve been using silver hydrosol on some of the most difficult cases that have eluded cure in spite of years on antibiotics. Silver hydrosol is an updated form of colloidal silver, which has been used to kill bacteria for a long time. The hydrosol results from a new manufacturing process that consistently yields uniform eight nanometer-sized particles of charged silver. Typical colloidal silver manufacturing processes yield particles of varying size, some of which are too large to be effective and fit into the minute spaces available to the smaller particles. In addition, many products are contaminated with silver salts and silver-protein particles. Silver’s antibiotic properties are not a new understanding. All infants born in the US receive drops of silver nitrate in their eyes shortly after birth to prevent infection.
Unlike antibiotics, which rely on disrupting bacterial metabolism, bacteria have not figured out how to elude silver hydrosol. The silver ions appear to destroy bacteria membranes and DNA while leaving host cells untouched. The silver hydrosol seems to work against all of the known forms that the tricky spirochetes morph into under different conditions. What’s more, silver hydrosol can pass through red and white blood cell membranes to get at bacteria that hide within both of those cell types. The bacteria can transform themselves into hibernating “round bodies” (formerly thought of as cysts) that are not subject to the actions of antibiotics. Silver seems to be lethal to this form as well. The doctors I’ve spoken to have tried everything else from antibiotics to herbs, and feel that silver hydrosol is the most effective treatment currently available for the treatment of Lyme and its co-infections, including the very hard to treat Bartonella.
Of course, silver also has its limitations. It doesn’t stay in its active form for very long once in the body. If swallowed straight to the stomach, it can treat stomach bacteria, but is quickly rendered neutral. When taken orally, it’s recommended to swish it in the mouth for 30 seconds or more so that it is absorbed directly into the blood and lymphatic systems through the capillaries under the tongue and the mucous membranes inside the cheeks. The current estimate is that it’s active for about nine seconds in the blood, and up to 15 minutes in the lymphatic system. Unfortunately, though that won’t get the job done when trying to treat something as entrenched as Lyme disease.
