Raw Garlic and Lyme Disease

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Camille

Posted March 23, 2013. By Camille St. Claire I’ve been getting a lot of questions about raw garlic and Lyme disease. So here’s the deal:

When you chop or mince garlic, a magical property is released. That property is called Allicin. Allicin and other essential volatile compounds in garlic have anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-fungal activities. Perfect for Lyme disease patients! Studies have shown that allicin is so powerful it is effective against the antibiotic resistant bacteria MRSA which can be rampant in hospitals.

Allicin breaks down to more than 100 bioactive compounds that interact and combine with one another. As these compounds combine, they form thousands of new therapeutic combinations that microbes can’t easily circumvent. Garlic stimulates natural killer cells, the infection-fighting white blood cells of the immune system. It is also an excellent source of potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium, manganese, zinc, and selenium.

Don’t worry about the smell for now. Sometimes I will chop garlic, put it in a tablespoon of something (like unsweetened applesauce) and swallow, chase with lots of water. That seems to minimize the smell. But again, smell or no smell, think about what we are going for here, 100% Recovery! There is no question garlic needs to be part of a serious wellness regime. I juiced 7 cloves of garlic a day when I was in the acute phase of Lyme disease and then I would eat at least 2 or 3 more raw cloves each day. Needless to say, my body became a very inhospitable host to pathogens.

After long conversations with researchers out of Stanford University on the subject of garlic, I am not convinced that you can get the power of allicin, AKA raw garlic, from any supplement. I know there are a lot of garlic supplements out there and I know there are a lot of claims. But I don’t buy it. I stuck with raw garlic for my Lyme disease and Lyme symptoms.

If people around you complain about the raw garlic smell, politely smile and say, this is what I have to do for now. If they love you they will want you well and not be petty about a garlic smell. Try to get as much in as possible. Do take it with food so it doesn’t bother your stomach. Because it is so powerful raw garlic could cause you to herx. But remember, herxing is good!

So try to get in as much raw garlic as possible to recover from Lyme disease and Lyme symptoms. Aim for a whole bulb in different ways each day. Cooked garlic is OK too, but you’re not going to get as much out of it. Raw garlic packs the MOST powerful punch!

Too your good health! 100% Recovery from Lyme disease!! Garlic is an inexpensive helper in your Lyme disease treatment plan!

Garlic is powerful against lyme symptoms!

Garlic is powerful against Lyme disease and Lyme symptoms!

PS Sign up for the Free 100% Recovery Newsletter if you would like recipes etc. and more tricks on how to get raw garlic into your diet. For those of you who’ve already signed up, sorry I haven’t gotten a newsletter out yet! Coming soon!! And of course I’d never share your e-mail, etc. This is just about getting people well from Lyme disease!!

Posted in Lyme Symptoms | Tagged Diet | 10,808 Comments

Hollywood Stars, Don’t Quit Too Soon and Lyme Disease

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Camille

Posted March 23, 2013. OK so Hollywood and Beverly Hills types can get Lyme disease and suffer with Lyme symptoms too. We know that. But here’s what this article about the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Yolanda Foster illustrates. Don’t quit your medications too soon! Whether you have elected to go the herbal route for your Lyme symptoms and Lyme disease or you are taking antibiotics for your Lyme symptoms and Lyme disease (or a combination, as I did) just make sure you don’t stop too soon. Critical, critical, critical!! If you are feeling better, and feel like your Lyme symptoms are gone and you are sick and tired of taking so many pills…. wait 2-3 months before stopping! I know this sounds crazy, but Lyme disease is crazy. (Especially if you have had Lyme disease or Lyme symptoms for a long time.) The borrelia and other possible co-infections you might have can lay dormant and trick you. You think you’re well, you stop the Lyme disease medication, then months or years or weeks later, BAM it’s back. Take a lesson from the Beverly Hills Housewife, make sure you’re really done. Don’t be a chronic Lyme disease case!

“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” starYolanda Foster knew something was wrong with her when she watched this third season of the show. While Yolanda was watching, she picked up on some small things, like the way she was talking to Kim Richards while attending Kyle’s clothing store opening party. And it sounds like the reunion special was no different for Yolanda, as she is still dealing with the illness. And it appears that Brandi picked up on this while filming the special, where the women got together to talk about the season’s events. According to a new Wetpaint Entertainment report released on March 22, “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Yolanda Foster was still having memory problems at the reunion thanks to her lyme disease.

“Her brain still wasn’t functioning when she shot the reunion,” Brandi revealed during a recent interview when she was asked about the reunion special. “She couldn’t remember what she had just said, and she couldn’t remember a lot of things.” Obviously, Yolanda shared her opinion several times throughout the season, which made her a target for criticism on the reunion. But Brandi didn’t think it was fair; she willingly protected Yolanda throughout the reunion. “They were going at her,” Brandi said, “And I just stepped in and I was, like, ‘Hold up! … Leave her alone,’ and it got a little ugly.”

Are you surprised that Yolanda is still battling her lyme disease? And do you think it is shocking that it affected her so much during the reunion?

Beverly Hills Lyme disease Lyme symptoms

If you’re reading this Yolanda, all the folks with Lyme disease wish you well and happiness and good health! And sorry you’ve been going through this!!

Posted in Lyme Symptoms | 12,967 Comments

Hell, Keep Going and Lyme Disease

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Camille

Posted March 22, 21013. Winston Churchill was a smart guy. I know you’re in agony from your Lyme disease and Lyme symptoms, I know your joints are killing you, I know you feel like a thousand needles are stabbing you, I know you can’t work, I know you have no energy to fight for disability, I know you feel like you cannot take one more pill, I know it’s not fair. I know you’re in Hell. But here’s something else I know, you gotta keep going. I made it out of Hell and I’m cheering you on.

lyme disease lyme symptoms and churchill

lyme disease lyme symptoms and winston churchill

Posted in Lyme Symptoms | Tagged Inspiration | 7,297 Comments

Manganese and Lyme Disease! Very Interesting!

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Camille

Posted March 21, 2013. Is this why Lyme disease patients are all supplementing with Magnesium and Manganese? Fascinating article below! So encouraging there are breakthroughs in Lyme disease research. My nephew is going to graduate school at Harvard and is going to study Lyme disease!! Read on!

Scientists reveal quirky feature of Lyme disease bacteria

Unlike most organisms, they don’t need iron, but they crave manganese

Scientists have confirmed that the pathogen that causes Lyme Disease—unlike any other known organism—can exist without iron, a metal that all other life needs to make proteins and enzymes. Instead of iron, the bacteria substitute manganese to make an essential enzyme, thus eluding immune system defenses that protect the body by starving pathogens of iron.

To cause disease, Borrelia burgdorferi requires unusually high levels of manganese, scientists at Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and the University of Texas reported. Their study, published March 22, 2013, in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, may explain some mysteries about why Lyme Disease is slow-growing and hard to detect and treat. The findings also open the door to search for new therapies to thwart the bacterium by targeting manganese.

“When we become infected with pathogens, from tuberculosis to yeast infections, the body has natural immunological responses,” said Valeria Culotta, a molecular biologist at the JHU Bloomberg School of Public Health. The liver produces hepcidin, a hormone that inhibits iron from being absorbed in the gut and also prevents it from getting into the bloodstream. “We become anemic, which is one reason we feel terrible, but it effectively starves pathogens of iron they need to grow and survive,” she said.

Borrelia, with no need for iron,has evolved to evade that defense mechanism. In 2000, groundbreaking research on Borrelia‘s genome by James Posey and Frank Gherardini at the University of Georgia showed that the bacterium has no genes that code to make iron-containing proteins and typically do not accumulate any detectable iron.

Culotta’s lab at JHU investigates what she called “metal-trafficking” in organisms—the biochemical mechanisms that cells and pathogens such as Borrelia use to acquire and manipulate metal ions for their biological purposes.

“If Borrelia doesn’t use iron, what does it use?” Culotta asked.

Borrelia and Lyme disease

To find out, Culotta’s lab joined forces with Mak Saito, a marine chemist at WHOI, who had developed techniques to explore how marine life uses metals. Saito was particularly intrigued because of the high incidence of Lyme Disease on Cape Cod, where WHOI is located, and because he specializes in metalloproteins, which contain iron, zinc, cobalt, and other elements often seen in vitamin supplements. The metals serve as linchpins, binding to enzymes. They help determine the enzymes’ distinctive three-dimensional shapes and the specific chemical reactions they catalyze.

It’s difficult to identify what metals are within proteins because typical analyses break apart proteins, often separating metal from protein. Saito used a liquid chromatography mass spectrometer to distinguish and measure separate individual Borrelia proteins according to their chemical properties and infinitesimal differences in their masses. Then he used an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer to detect and measure metals down to parts per trillion. Together, the combined analyses not only measured the amounts of metals and proteins, they showed that the metals are components of the proteins.

“The tools he has are fantastic,” Culotta said. “Not too many people have this set of tools to detect metalloproteins.”

The experiments revealed that instead of iron, Borrelia uses that element’s next-door neighbor on the periodic chart, manganese, in certain Borrelia enzymes. These include an amino peptidase and an important antioxidant enzyme called superoxide dismutase.

Superoxide dismutase protects the pathogens against a second defense mechanism that the body throws against them. The body bombards pathogens with superoxide radicals, highly reactive molecules that cause damage within the pathogens. Superoxide dismutase is like an antioxidant that neutralizes the superoxides so that the pathogens can continue to grow.

The discoveries open new possibilities for therapies, Culotta said. “The only therapy for Lyme Disease right now are antibiotics like penicillin, which are effective if the disease is detected early enough. It works by attacking the bacteria’s cell walls. But certain forms of Borrelia, such as the L-form, can be resistant because they are deficient in cell walls.”

“So we’d like to find targets inside pathogenic cell that could thwart their growth,” she continued. “The best targets are enzymes that the pathogens have, but people do not, so they would kill the pathogens but not harm people.” Borrelia‘s distinctive manganese-containing enzymes such as superoxide dismutase may have such attributes.

In search of new avenues of attack, the groups are planning to expand their collaborative efforts by mapping out all the metal-binding proteins that Borellia uses and investigating biochemical mechanisms that the bacteria use to acquire manganese and directs it into essential enzymes. Knowing details of how that happens offers ways to disrupt the process and deter Lyme Disease.

###

The authors of the new study are J. Daphne Aguirre, Hillary Clark, Christine Vazquez, Shaina Palmere, and Culotta (JHU Bloomberg School of Public Health); Saito and Matthew McIlvin (WHOI); Denise Grab (JHS School of Medicine); Janakiram Seshu (University of Texas); and P. John Hart (University of Texas Health Science Center).

This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Posted in Lyme Symptoms | Tagged lyme, Research | 7,163 Comments

Juicer vs. Blender and Lyme Disease

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Camille

Posted March 20, 2013. By Camille St. Claire This is for my dear E!

The Juicer vs. The Blender

I get asked so often by people with Lyme disease about whether it is better to use a high quality juicer, like the Angel, https://lymesymptoms.com/lyme-diet/ or just put everything in the blender (the one I like is the Blendtec, although Vitamix is good too). Here is the difference: With the juicer you are getting just the phytonutrients from the produce, not the fiber. In a high quality juicer where there is low friction and low to no heat, these phytonutrients will be preserved and subsequently absorbed rapidly into your bloodstream. If you are using a lower quality, cheaper juicer, the phytonutrients are oxidized quickly and your juice will not be as beneficial.

When you drink the cold pressed juice on an empty stomach it is like getting an IV infusion of vitamins and minerals. Because there is no fiber in the juice, the phytonutrients pass right into the bloodstream. It takes about 10 minutes for full absorption.

When I had Lyme disease and Lyme symptoms, I started each morning with a cold pressed juice on an empty stomach. That juice always had a lot of garlic. Yeah, I know, hard core. But don’t forget, I was very serious about my recovery from Lyme disease.

If you are really struggling with Lyme disease and Lyme symptoms, it may be difficult for you to eat and therefore impossible for your stomach to process all the fiber that would go along with all the produce you put in the juicer. By using the juicer instead of the blender, you can essentially bypass the digestive system and get all these powerhouse immune supporting elements into your system which is so beleaguered by Lyme disease. And even if you are as healthy as a horse, your immune system will benefit tremendously by juicing!

Though I am 100% recovered from Lyme disease and have been for quite some time now, I still often start the day with a tall glass of green cold pressed juice, on an empty stomach.

So when to use the blender? Later in the day you can blend up a protein drink or something and add some spinach or romaine or whatever fruit you want (remember if you are still dealing with the Lyme disease, watch the sugar intake). And of course it’s good to have raw salads and greens during the day.

So the answer is, use both! Use the juicer and use the blender at different points in the day. But again, if you are still sick with Lyme disease and dealing with Lyme symptoms, prioritize the juicer so you can quickly get those phytonutrients into your system. Start strengthening up your immune function right away! This is an oft used and successful supplemental method for fighting cancer. Juicing can be very powerful.

Drink your juice immediately after jucing, then clean your machine! Lyme disease does not have to be a life sentence!

PS I’m starting a weekly newsletter for those interested in full recovery. I’m going to share tips and ideas to get you to 100% Recovery from Lyme disease. Sign up if you’re interested!

To your good health! BeRelentless!

juicing and lyme disease

Posted in Lyme Symptoms | Tagged Diet | 8,444 Comments

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