3 ms·

Be careful with anything related to “chronic Lyme”. While it is true that Lyme disease can trigger long-term symptoms, Lyme has also become a catch-all haven fo

Be careful with anything related to “chronic Lyme”. While it is true that Lyme disease can trigger long-term symptoms, Lyme has also become a catch-all haven for pseudoscience practitioners and quackery. It has become so bad that most patients with unexplained chronic conditions who use internet health forums will eventually go through a phase where they think they might have Lyme disease. The “chronic Lyme” alternative medicine industry has evolved to cater to these desperate patients by offering convenient, albeit unprovable, answers to the question of what’s causing their symptoms. The chronic Lyme proponents claim that it can’t be tested for, won’t show up on normal tests, or can only be diagnosed through vague symptoms. As a result, anyone showing up with vague symptoms gets a diagnosis of chronic Lyme. Their proposed treatments usually involve extended rounds of expensive antibiotics which have no proof of working and have not shown any difference from placebo in clinical trials of supposed “chronic Lyme” patients. Sadly, some quick research on the musician you cited shows that he has been taken by one such alternative medicine practitioner and has been attempting to raise tens of thousands of dollars to pay this practitioner for antibiotic treatment. I’m sorry to say but I suspect this musician has been caught up in the chronic Lyme alternative medicine industry without much, or any, scientific basis for the expensive treatments he’s being peddled.

lispisok 3y ago
"Leaky gut" is the exact same kind of pseudoscience and quackery
- FollowingTheDao 3y ago
  Leaky gut is not pseudoscience. It’s actually a real medical condition called intestinal permeability. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8427160/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8427160/ That’s not to say that any quack can just diagnose you with intestinal permeability without doing any tests, so I agree with you on that.
  - haldujai 3y ago
    I think you may be misunderstanding this article. Intestinal permeability is not a diagnosis in this paper, they are referring to the physical permeability of the gut which can be altered in many diseases and is not in dispute (i.e. "altered gut permeability" is a symptom of a disease, not the disease itself). "Leaky (or permeable) gut syndrome" is not a recognized disease.
    - FollowingTheDao 3y ago
      No, I did not misunderstand. Having higher intestinal permeability is a disorder that causes suffering. Call it whatever you want, it increases autoimmunity issues. https://gut.bmj.com/content/55/10/1512 https://gut.bmj.com/content/55/10/1512 "increased intestinal permeability is observed in association with several autoimmune diseases. It is observed prior to disease and appears to be involved in disease pathogenesis;"
      - haldujai 3y ago
        Right, I don't think anyone doubts that altered intestinal permeability may be seen in several conditions. The etiological theory of "leaky gut" (i.e. leaky gut is the cause of disease) is not accepted in medicine. This article again suggests a theoretical mechanism that altered gut permeability is involved in the pathogenesis of an autoimmune disease and the evidence cited does not exclude the possibility of a common etiology[0], it also does not suggest the presence of a "leaky gut disorder". As an aside an association does not mean causation and in any case does not discriminate between symptom vs disorder. A fever is associated with nearly every infection, it doesn't cause it. [0]e.g. 'These studies provide intriguing data that abnormal permeability may be involved in disease pathogenesis, although they cannot exclude an alternative explanation that mild gut damage (measured by increased permeability) is associated with the development of IBS by another mechanism. ' from the IBS studies cited.
        FollowingTheDao 3y ago
        > Right, I don't think anyone doubts that altered intestinal permeability may be seen in several conditions. Right, so leaky gut is a real issue. If it is a cause or a condition remains to be seen. But to say it is psuedoscience is invalid. You just keep moving the goal posts.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
haldujai 3y ago
Interesting, at first I thought you were referring to "post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome" which has some medical legitimacy to it. It appears that there is a distinct "chronic Lyme disease"[0] rooted in quackery, learned something new. I also assumed the poster was referring to "genuine"(?) Lyme disease (B. burgdorferi infection) which can go untreated and have neurological manifestations. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_Lyme_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_Lyme_disease
spondylosaurus 3y ago
Fun fact: if you have any kind of autoimmune disease, it's easy to get a false positive on certain blood tests commonly used to diagnose Lyme disease, because the less-specific tests can pick up general immune activity regardless of its cause. I fear for how many people have (falsely) tested positive for Lyme disease, despite never having been exposed, and fallen down a rabbit hole of pseudoscientific treatments while their actual health issues remain untreated. And of course your symptoms will only worsen, which seems to reinforce the need for useless "chronic Lyme" treatments, and so on and so forth.

lispisok 3y ago

"Leaky gut" is the exact same kind of pseudoscience and quackery

FollowingTheDao 3y ago
Leaky gut is not pseudoscience. It’s actually a real medical condition called intestinal permeability. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8427160/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8427160/ That’s not to say that any quack can just diagnose you with intestinal permeability without doing any tests, so I agree with you on that.
- haldujai 3y ago
  I think you may be misunderstanding this article. Intestinal permeability is not a diagnosis in this paper, they are referring to the physical permeability of the gut which can be altered in many diseases and is not in dispute (i.e. "altered gut permeability" is a symptom of a disease, not the disease itself). "Leaky (or permeable) gut syndrome" is not a recognized disease.
  - FollowingTheDao 3y ago
    No, I did not misunderstand. Having higher intestinal permeability is a disorder that causes suffering. Call it whatever you want, it increases autoimmunity issues. https://gut.bmj.com/content/55/10/1512 https://gut.bmj.com/content/55/10/1512 "increased intestinal permeability is observed in association with several autoimmune diseases. It is observed prior to disease and appears to be involved in disease pathogenesis;"
    - haldujai 3y ago
      Right, I don't think anyone doubts that altered intestinal permeability may be seen in several conditions. The etiological theory of "leaky gut" (i.e. leaky gut is the cause of disease) is not accepted in medicine. This article again suggests a theoretical mechanism that altered gut permeability is involved in the pathogenesis of an autoimmune disease and the evidence cited does not exclude the possibility of a common etiology[0], it also does not suggest the presence of a "leaky gut disorder". As an aside an association does not mean causation and in any case does not discriminate between symptom vs disorder. A fever is associated with nearly every infection, it doesn't cause it. [0]e.g. 'These studies provide intriguing data that abnormal permeability may be involved in disease pathogenesis, although they cannot exclude an alternative explanation that mild gut damage (measured by increased permeability) is associated with the development of IBS by another mechanism. ' from the IBS studies cited.
      - FollowingTheDao 3y ago
        > Right, I don't think anyone doubts that altered intestinal permeability may be seen in several conditions. Right, so leaky gut is a real issue. If it is a cause or a condition remains to be seen. But to say it is psuedoscience is invalid. You just keep moving the goal posts.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

haldujai 3y ago

Interesting, at first I thought you were referring to "post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome" which has some medical legitimacy to it. It appears that there is a distinct "chronic Lyme disease"[0] rooted in quackery, learned something new. I also assumed the poster was referring to "genuine"(?) Lyme disease (B. burgdorferi infection) which can go untreated and have neurological manifestations. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_Lyme_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_Lyme_disease

spondylosaurus 3y ago

Fun fact: if you have any kind of autoimmune disease, it's easy to get a false positive on certain blood tests commonly used to diagnose Lyme disease, because the less-specific tests can pick up general immune activity regardless of its cause. I fear for how many people have (falsely) tested positive for Lyme disease, despite never having been exposed, and fallen down a rabbit hole of pseudoscientific treatments while their actual health issues remain untreated. And of course your symptoms will only worsen, which seems to reinforce the need for useless "chronic Lyme" treatments, and so on and so forth.