Lyme Disease
Lyme Disease
Pliny the Elder, a Roman naturalist of the first century a.d., made no attempt to hide his loathing: "Ticks are the foulest and nastiest creatures that be," he said. So just imagine how much contempt he'd have today for the deer ticks that are now known to be carriers of Lyme disease.
My Herbal Vineyard in Maryland is a lush six-acre spread filled with upward of 300 species of herbs, shrubs, trees and welcome weeds. It has attracted visitors (and television crews) from around the world. It has also attracted less welcome guests, notably the deer that bring their unwelcome hitchhikers, deer ticks.
Not too long ago, after a three-hour video session out in my ginseng patch with me showing off my Siberian ginseng plants and talking about this herb, I swatted reflexively at something tickling my thigh. It went splat! and while there wasn't much left to identify, what remained looked vaguely ticklike.
A day later, a small red spot appeared on my thigh. It grew to look suspiciously like the characteristic bull's-eye rash caused by the tickborne bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, which cause Lyme disease. By the next day, the bull's-eye had become more pronounced, measuring nearly three inches in diameter. So I took some echinacea and garlic.
The day after that, my wife, Peggy, coerced me into visiting our HMO. Without the tick, they couldn't test for Borrelia, so they couldn't be certain that I had Lyme disease. But all the physical signs pointed in that direction. The doctor recommended a course of doxicycline (Bio-Tab, Monodox), a bactericidal antibiotic, just in case.
Antibiotics and Herbs to the Rescue
We picked up the prescription, but I wavered about taking it. Doxicycline can make the skin more sun-sensitive, leading to rashes. And I couldn't really stay out of the sun because I had yet another video crew due for yet another tour of the Herbal Vineyard.
I weighed my options. I could take the antibiotic and take my chances in the sun. I could opt for an herbal alternative--echinacea, for example--hoping to boost my immune system for its confrontation with Borrelia, plus take antibiotic garlic tablets to fight the bacteria. Or I could combine the conventional and herbal medicines.
After considerable soul-searching, I went with the combination approach: doxicycline plus garlic capsules, equivalent to 1,200 milligrams of fresh garlic a day. I also took six echinacea capsules a day, each containing 450 milligrams of the immune-boosting root, and I juiced up some carrots and tomatoes. These vegetables are rich in vitamin Afamily carotenoids, and a good deal of research shows that carotenoids help fight infection. And of course I added plenty of fresh garlic while I had the carrots and tomatoes in the juicer.
I finished my three-week doxicycline regimen in Nashville, and I even sang a song about the antibiotic at Opryland. By then the bull's-eye had disappeared, and I showed no signs of Lyme disease. We'll never know whether I really needed the garlic or the doxicycline. But I surely didn't need the crippling arthritis that often ensues with Lyme disease.
Beware the Bull's-Eye
Lyme disease, named for the town of Old Lyme, Connecticut, where it was first identified about 20 years ago, is a zoonosis, a human infection caused by an animal-borne pathogen or infectious agent. How did this relatively new disease appear? Blame it on real estate development. More and more housing is being built in and near wildlife areas, bringing deer and people into closer contact. Since bobcats and other such predators are rare, the deer populations have increased, and there are more hungry deer than ever munching our gardens.
Lyme disease generally causes the characteristic bull's-eye skin rash, but in about 10 percent of cases, no rash appears. After a few weeks to several months, some 70 percent of those who remain untreated suffer bacterial invasions of the joints and possibly other organs, notably the central nervous system, causing chronic arthritis.
Currently, in areas without major Lyme disease problems, 1 to 2 percent of people show antibodies to Borrelia, signifying that they have at some point been exposed to the virus. In some Lyme-endemic areas, however, the figure is 10 percent.
Because of all the publicity about Lyme disease, we not only have an epidemic of this infection, we also have an epidemic of overdiagnosis. Doctors are too willing to diagnose Lyme disease, apparently because the early symptoms--skin rash, headache, fever, nausea and muscle pain--are common to so many other maladies.
In a 1995 survey by the American Medical Association, only about half of those diagnosed with Lyme disease actually had it. If that's true, then there may be only 5,000 infections a year in the United States, not the 10,000 figure you see bandied about. Did I really have Lyme disease? I think so, but these statistics certainly make me wonder.
Green Pharmacy for Lyme Disease
One thing I don't wonder about is my decision to combine my conventional medical treatment with herbs. There are a number of helpful herbs that you and your doctor might consider using in addition to any medical treatment you're receiving for the disease. And two of them, garlic and mountain mint, might prevent the disease, because they act as natural tick repellents.
Echinacea (Echinacea, various species). Varro Tyler, Ph.D., dean and professor emeritus of pharmacognosy (natural product pharmacy) at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, is outspoken in his support of echinacea, noting that the herb has been extensively studied as an immunostimulant and that it increases the body's resistance to bacterial infection.
A century ago, here in the United States, the recommended dose of echinacea rhizome and root was one gram (approximately a half-teaspoon) per day. During my Lyme treatment, I took about four grams (two teaspoons)--that's how afraid of Borrelia I was.
Echinacea comes in teas, tinctures and capsules. I often add a dropper or two of tincture to juices or beverage teas. (Although echinacea can cause your tongue to tingle or go numb temporarily, this effect is harmless.) To treat my suspected Lyme infection, though, I took capsules to get a lot down quickly.
Garlic (Allium sativum). Louis Pasteur was the first to describe the antibacterial effect of garlic juices. More recently, we've found that garlic even works against many antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, and given the speed with which bacteria become resistant, I doubt that it will be long before Borrelia develops resistance to doxicycline.
Dutch studies suggest that getting the best antibiotic action from garlic requires ingesting 5 to 15 average-size cloves a day. It's hard to get that much fresh garlic down, but I find that juicing it with carrots works.
If you just can't make yourself consume that much garlic, don't despair. I believe that while lower doses may not eradicate infection by themselves, they can still help when combined with other herbs and antibiotics.
Mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum). A welcome weed at Herbal Vineyard, this plant provides me with my tick repellent, day after day, in summer. When I spend time outdoors, I crush mountain mint leaves and rub my legs with the juice, which is well-endowed with the bug- and tick-repelling compound pulegone. But on the fateful afternoon of my tick encounter, I didn't anti-cipate spending so long outside with that camera crew, and I did not use the herb. I won't make that mistake again. (It's probably best not to use this herb on your skin if you're pregnant, however.)
Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra). Once I queried my database about which herb contained the most bactericidal compounds. The answer was licorice, which is up to 33 percent antibacterial compounds on a dry-weight basis. Small wonder that the Chinese have used licorice for centuries to treat bacterial infections such as tuberculosis. I often use licorice roots, which are also antiviral, to treat both viral and bacterial infections. Compounds known as saponins, which are found in licorice, also increase the availability of other antibiotic compounds.
Other herbs well-endowed with bactericidal compounds, in descending order of potency, include thyme, hops, oregano and rosemary. Sounds like the makings of a good tea, which can be sweetened with licorice extract.
