Under Our Skin Page #5

the children with Lyme disease

is seeing them get well and cured.

I don't consider it a job.

I consider it to be, more or less,

like a calling than anything.

My practice consists

of over 9,000 children

from every state in America,

from South America,

from almost every province in Canada,

and from every continent abroad.

The practice is growing

at the rate of five to ten

new encounters per day.

They have very complex,

serious illnesses.

However, it's nice to see them get well.

Some of the Lyme-literate physicians

are practicing medicine

that is widely outside

of the standards of medical care.

The small group of physicians feel

that one can diagnose Lyme disease

on clinical grounds alone,

not necessarily relying

on any laboratory data,

and then, furthermore,

long-term antibiotics

are the right treatment.

That has never been shown

in any double-blind,

controlled, randomized trial.

I've worked here for eight years,

and I've seen many patients come and go,

and I've seen the success he's had

in his treatment regiment.

Yes, we do treat aggressively,

but I think that's what works.

In a way, it's like

the perfect storm of diseases,

because of the timing

of a couple different events

in the history of medicine.

1980, the United States said it was okay

for government institutions

and universities to patent

and profit from live organisms.

So the Lyme disease organism

was discovered in 1981,

and all of a sudden,

there was the equivalent

of an Oklahoma land grab,

people looking under their microscopes,

patenting pieces of the organism,

so the people that are credited

for being the Lyme disease experts

no longer shared information

about a new, really dangerous pathogen.

They hoarded the information

because they wanted

to protect future profits.

You have professors,

especially in the biosciences,

are trying to take their discoveries,

often made on the federal nickel,

and take them private.

They patent them.

They start firms.

What's commercialize-able

is driving the research agenda

in too many cases,

not what's medically necessary

and what's medically useful.

The other thing that happened

was the rise of managed care.

Insurance companies and HMOs realized

that if they can get researchers

in universities

to define diseases and write guidelines

for diseases a certain way,

then they could help manage

the escalating medical costs,

and really, what this means is,

the people who previously

protected public health,

so, like, the CDC,

the Centers for Disease Control,

and the NIH and universities,

who didn't have any commercial interests,

all of a sudden, they were

partners with big pharma,

and their motivations completely changed.

We no longer had oversight

and checks and balances

in our scientific system

in the U.S.

It was rife with conflicts,

and just now, 20 years later,

we're beginning to see what happens

when you have unchecked

conflicts in medical care.

Okay, today is July 5th,

and Mandy's having

a little bit of an episode.

It's a feeling of being

trapped within your own body.

So it's like being wrapped up

real tight like a mummy

so you can't move anything

and then having tape across your mouth

so you can't say anything.

But reality is, you got to kill 'em.

You got to kill the little bugs,

because they're taking over.

No, no, I was okay.

I was adapting my life

to what was going on.

Now I want it back, so it's a war.

It got so bad after the tour,

'cause I really did some damage,

wasn't willing to admit it

to myself or anyone.

I'm in Seattle, Washington,

to seek Dr. Klinghardt,

one of the foremost specialists

on Lyme disease.

This is great.

I feel horrible.

It's perfect.

He's the one that I respect the most.

He's the one that I trust.

I've purposely not let myself

fall into the whole trap

of doctor after doctor

and treatment after treatment,

because I'm waiting for the right one.

Come on back, Dana.

Look at this guy.

- Hi.

- I'm so happy.

It's nice to see you too.

So talk to me first.

Give me all the information, -

- I need to be a better doctor to you.

So how do I explain seven years of...

Okay, so you've been ill for seven years.

Yeah.

What have you done in terms of treatment?

When I found out, I started antibiotics.

I did six months, and I was so ill,

and I just didn't see it as an answer.

Lyme disease is one of the many microbes

that has entered our system,

and I feel, as a physician,

that things are getting

to a degree that's serious.

We're watching other mammals die out,

and kind of think,

"Well, I'm glad that's not me."

However, as our environment

becomes increasingly polluted,

so do our bodies,

and then we'll grow the bugs in us

that are not compatible

with human life anymore.

So you have a tremendous amount

of inflammation in the gut?

The Lyme disease, you know,

leads to a suppression

of the immune system,

and then you grow these things in you

that we're always exposed to.

So I'm just gonna first do just a few

neurological tests on you.

So you have a little bit

borderline Babinski reflex.

That's an upper motor neuron sign.

It means, you know,

sort of that significant levels

of toxicity in the spinal cord or brain.

It is a way for me to stage

how close you are

to possibly developing, like,

a more serious thing,

like MS, you know.

Older people often get Parkinson's

after they've had

undiagnosed Lyme, you know,

or Alzheimer's.

Younger people tend to, especially women,

tend to get MS.

That really struck me today

how much I've been

in denial of this illness.

I mean, I've been feeling

really twitchy and just shaky,

a lot of neurological stuff that...

It's like I can't deny it anymore.

It's becoming very visible,

so I think I'm just in time.

You know, as a warning sign,

this is not a mild situation.

You know, sort of like... you have to do...

Within the next few months,

you have to resolve the issues

that you can resolve, yeah?

You have to promise that to me.

I'm ready.

Yeah.

It feels like just emergency.

It's just a panic in my body

that I've learned

to just walk around with.

Yeah, this is Dana.

I am moving into 314.

I finally feel like I can let go of it

and give it to somebody else to take.

There's someone to take my hand

and get me through it.

I really felt like that today.

I can't believe I moved to Seattle.

This is so crazy.

The spirochete that causes Lyme disease

is Borrelia burgdorferi

and related Borrelia.

The model that I have used

to try to understand

all of the possible things

that Lyme disease can do

is the syphilis model.

Stokes, Modern Clinical

Syphilology, 1945,

W.B. Saunders, publisher.

It gets into every organ system

of the body,

and there are chapters on

manifestations in the skin,

manifestations in dead babies,

manifestations in the bone,

manifestations in the brain,

and particularly, dementia,

'cause dementia in syphilis

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes