Garzie said...
it sounds like this particular treatment just a branded version of platelet rich plasma
i think there is research supporting some quantifiable benefits from platelet rich plasma treatments for certain conditions - but whether these are enough to turn around such a difficult chronic infectious disease like chronic lyme, is highly debatable in my view. i have never seen any useful data on that.
it may have some utility as a supportive therapy for chronic lyme - i don't think we have enough research to know for sure - but if so it could result in a perceived short term benefit -
in terms of mode of operation - the general mechanism by which PRP is supposed to work is by lowering inflammation - and there is typically excessive inflammation in chronic infections, so in so far as that goes this is good.
BUT, lowering inflammation alone is not usually sufficient to cure a chronic infection - as the infectious organism is free to multiply again and cause more inflammation after treatment is removed.
so on the face of it such a therapy does not seem to fit well with a curative approach to infection. And there is the added risk that - if they did experience some symptom relief, a patient could be lured into repeated treatments over the long term to try to get continued symptom relief - but without addressing the underlying infection, and at great financial cost, as well as time lost where they could otherwise have been actively treating the infection more effectively.
so my personal view - would be to possibly explore it as a supportive therapy to some other better evidence supported anti-infection treatments - but not as a stand-alone treatment - and being aware of the above concerns - and only if the price is not a concern.
Thanks for the response and helpful considerations Garzie, what you said does make a lot of sense. I'm planning to do a bit more research into the whole PRP thing and will try and post on here what I end up deciding to do about
the treatment. My llmd is having a clinic tomorrow that is fully booked with people trying the treatment, so I'm hoping some of them might be able to give some feedback on it. My main hope is that it can assist with my Rheumatic fever diagnosis as I've been having trouble with Penicillin shots keeping my igg levels in check and insurance has yet to approve igg replacement therapy.