Anyone tried this, as Dr. Joseph Burrascanno and Pamela Weintraub did?
I also see Dr Marty Ross is trying a 5 on and 2 off pulsed therapy with Cefuroxime…unsure of his success or lack of.

In have heard very little about this in recent years, except Kim Lewis stating that 4 cycles of Cefuroxime completely eradicates Lyme bacteria in the lab.

I tried it years ago but didn't do it wisely. I am considering another crack at it.

Thanks for any input.

Hi,
in the lab, in vitro, maybe yes, but in vivo, with our human complexity its hard. Cefuroxime seems to address free-floaters, but not cystic forms, round bodies or persisters / biofilm aggregats forms. Therefore various combos are used, supported by supplements etc. Anyway you can try and see. For me a monotherapy with tetracycline did not work. Still cefuroxime axetil (2nd generation) is good and helped me. Still more effectived I have found 3d generation such as Cefdinir and Cefixime. But for me its hard to get so I m now staying with Cef.axetil, which has slightly lower penetration to brain and CNS.
Best wishes
B

Bhava123 said...
Hi,
in the lab, in vitro, maybe yes, but in vivo, with our human complexity its hard. Cefuroxime seems to address free-floaters, but not cystic forms, round bodies or persisters / biofilm aggregats forms. Therefore various combos are used, supported by supplements etc. Anyway you can try and see. For me a monotherapy with tetracycline did not work. Still cefuroxime axetil (2nd generation) is good and helped me. Still more effectived I have found 3d generation such as Cefdinir and Cefixime. But for me its hard to get so I m now staying with Cef.axetil, which has slightly lower penetration to brain and CNS.
Best wishes
B

I had the same issue with Cefdinir. Pricey and not covered. Had to pay out of pocket and did not really experiment much with it. Seemed to clear me up fairly well but still going…

i had meant to chip in on this topic

overall, i think the in test tube lab experiments with pulsed Cefuroxime are best viewed as a proof of concept that illustrate some potential new vulnerability of borrelia that hadn't been seen before - rather than a directly applicable treatment protocol.

ie - the lab experiments suggest that repeated pulsing and removal of antibiotics stress the bacteria in a way not seem before.

but this was done in the lab in test tubes - so when comparing to real treatment of human patients there are quite a few provisos to bear in mind - as the experiment differs in many ways from what happens when human being with lyme disease takes an antibiotic

for example
1, they were done in culture medium - not tissues as in real patients
2, the cultures this was performed on were only days old - not biofilms with months or years to become established
3, antibiotic concentrations were uniformly high / ideal and maintained during the antibiotics phase - not variable ( low in some tissues in humans) and variable as drugs are metabolised / excreted
4, the off antibiotics phase involved physically rinsing the samples - suddenly removing ALL antibiotics - not something that's possible in humans
5, the experiments were done with a single strain of borrelia - and no other bacteria - whereas human beings with lyme disease typically seem to have one of more co-infections - and we do not know how that affects the outcome
6, there was no immune system involved - which for instance could exert continued antimicrobial pressure on microbes and prevent them - or at least some of them - from exiting the persister state in between pulses - and in so doing may prevent the critical repeated stress from taking place.

these are just examples - i am sure there are more relevant differences

so - while the experiment points to a new vulnerability - it's not the same as saying that if a human takes pulsed cefuroxime they should expect 4 pulses to eradicate lyme disease. whenever we are assessing scientific research we have to be mindful not to employ overly simplistic or binary thinking, and especially in this case that would be a way too literal interpretation.

its fairer to say that pulsed cefuroxime ( and likely other cephalosporins ) probably stress borrelia in a way that contiguous antibiotics do not - and as a result that pulsing antibiotic regimens using cephalosporin may have some benefit in treating lyme disease.
this potential benefit could, combined with the other benefits of pulsing - like reduced toxicity, more manageable herx, and allowing a better means of measuring progress - make pulsing a perfectly valid option.

regarding co-infections - i have not seen similar experiments showing other bacteria respond the same way to pulsed antibiotics ( if anyone else has please post a link)

- on the one hand the characteristic of bacteria producing persister cells is very broadly distributed in different bacterial - and the mechanism seems one that is quite general - triggered by the bacteria sensing adverse conditions in their environment - this sensing ability is also broadly distributed - rather than something very specific to spirochetes.

- on the other hand - spirochete biology is very different to most other bacteria - they are on their own branch of the tree of life - have less than 50% shared genes with most other families of bacteria - have different morphology, membrane chemicals and behaviours - and so what exactly a spirochete does when it senses such threats may be quite different to what say bartonella does - for instance if it involves the cell membrane
- so we do not know if this vulnerability is shared across other families of bacteria.

if i had to guess i would say that there is a reasonably high chance that some form of this mechanism exists in other bacteria on the basis that the persister state seems to involve major changes in the bacterias' biology, for instance involving which genes are switched on and which are switched off (some studies show upto 50% of the genes are switched off and a similar new number switched on when a bacteria enters a persister state) and it seems likely that this major change has some as yet unknown metabolic cost to the organism, esp if repeated - and it this that makes them more vulnerable.

we still dont know for sure - it remains to be researched - but we also have empirical evidence that pulsed treatments can be effective - so there is some weak clinical evidence that appears to support its use - or at least indicates its not detrimental to recovery.

my view is that, since pulsed approaches do seem to be effective - even for mixed infections / tough cases - even if this repeated stress effect is not present in real human patients - there are other good reasons to pursue a pulsed approach - and this extra effect if present - would be a kind of bonus.

based on what we have seen - i do not think single antibiotic protocols are a good option for the majority of chronic lyme disease sufferers - and in general i would be very wary of pinning your hopes on any approach based on a single scientific paper - especially one done in vitro ( rather than in humans) and one with so many obvious differences to the real world conditions.

on the topic of assessing potential treatment protocols in general - We all want to get well as fast as humanly possible - but we have to be careful our need for hope and a cure doesnt turn into "magical thinking" - where we are always looking for the next "cure" to pin our hopes on and convince ourselves the next "new thing" is IT - only for the cycle to repeat - like an emotional roller coaster of hope and despair.

lyme recovery for the vast majority of chronic cases - is a marathon not a sprint -
in that case it's better to have a long term approach - even if you are only gradually moving forward - than repeated desperate "hit and hopes"

i really hope it's of some help

PS - i used to hold Dr Burrascano in high regard - esp as he wrote the first ILADS guidelines, which i think were largely on target and very useful to people around the world

But take a look at the project lyme video thread - in Dr Burrascano's presentation he repeatedly stated that he doesn't work for Igenex - but, when challenged later, Project lyme were forced to print a disclosure statement in which they confirmed Burrascano is in fact a paid consultant for Igenex and is listed as such on Igenex's website, so he deliberately hid a clear conflict of interest, one that should have been openly declared up front. He also clearly misrepresented the critical figure for the accuracy of his employers test.

These two instances are not the actions of someone i would trust to tell me the unvarnished truth.

Dear friends,

Garzie - I think all human beings have their agenda. Especially when it comes to money. But of course some are more decent and sincere and keeping the principles of truthfulness and honesty. In this respect perhaps Dr J indeed is low-profile, not self-presenting, not coming out with big statements or conclusions.

As you have said, many LLMD's tend to over estimate their success rate. I still have hope for high dapsone protocol, but I m aware that the rate of success statied in the studies and medical trials is - taken wiht people whom dr H personally treated, with best possible medicines, complete protocol with so many supplements. Overall, if there as truth of how many have tried and succeeded with it, the success ration, ot least major improvement of symptoms last for some solid time, lets forget remission, would be definitely much less. Often times it the pulse of high dose has to be repeated. Having said that, still I m trying.

Because hope give energy and enthusiasm to accept pain and commitment to the protocol and do ones best to complete it. So its huge psychological factor that can boost ones will power and energy to recover. Of course there are so many other factors like lifestyle, good sleep, all other aspect we have discussed like 16 MSIDS, or similiar by Dr J or others. I guess not to loose faith and hope is important, but practically my experience is keep going all small good habits, meds and supplements and be happy and grateful for small improvements, if only temporary, or only 20 percent, but already its a good sign of something.

To: Only.. I m sorry you have been struggling for so long. Having tried many things. But do you have any co-infections or only Lyme? What has sofar helped you most? A friend of mine made a complete remission with such a pulsing approach - 3 weeks, 1-2 month on, but she did combo of doxy-azi-amoxy with pulsing metronidazole and taking fluco every other day. With lyme as single pathogen it is much easier. Co-infections can pretty much complicate many things. But I still believe abx mono-therapy can be worth of trying, anyway experience will show. I did like that also V-penicilin for 14 days but did not help much. I have tend underestimate all the other aspects of treatment like I have mentioned before, including food, sleep, yoga, sauna all these are important and increase chance of getting better. Anyway I think we all can agree on keeping that, what seems to help most.

Best wishes, good luck
B