Thirteen Lyme-Literate Health Care Practitioners Reveal Their Treatment Strategies for Chronic Lyme Disease in New Book.

A new book, Insights Into Lyme Disease Treatment: Thirteen Lyme-Literate Health Care Practitioners Share Their Healing Strategies, by Connie Strasheim, provides people with Lyme disease and their physicians with current, cutting-edge information on the treatment of chronic Lyme disease and the corollary conditions that it causes.

It is a comprehensive resource, written from the perspective of 13 Lyme disease experts, including eight Lyme-literate medical doctors (MDs), two naturopathic doctors (NDs), a Heilpraktiker (or healing practitioner, as the German title translates into English), and one chiropractor and nutritionist. The training and education of the experts encompasses a broad range of disciplines, but most use a combination of allopathic, naturopathic, complementary and alternative medicine in their practices. Whatever their background, however, all are experienced in treating chronic Lyme disease.

The book includes each practitioner’s antimicrobial and detoxification protocols, as well as their recommended supportive treatments for the body. It also provides their perspectives on the challenges and roadblocks to healing.

According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), Lyme disease is the fastest-growing infectious disease in the US, with more than 20,000 new cases reported each year. The CDC estimates, however, that only one in ten cases is reported, which means that there could be at least 200,000 new cases each year, and perhaps even many more than that.

Lyme disease can be treated successfully with antibiotics when – and if – it is caught early, while the Lyme spirochetes are still in the patient’s bloodstream and can be reached by antibiotics. If the disease goes undiagnosed, the spirochetes (which are related to those that cause syphilis), can infiltrate the non-blood areas of the body, such as the nervous system, brain, heart, joints, and cartilage. The disease then becomes a multisymptom, multisystem illness that wreaks havoc upon nearly all of the person’s tissues and organs.

Once this happens, Lyme disease becomes chronic and difficult to diagnose. It may masquerade as a variety of other illnesses. Many physicians do not know how to effectively treat it. It devastates nearly every aspect of a person’s existence. The International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) estimates that most chronic Lyme disease sufferers experience a level of disability equivalent to that of a person who has suffered from a recent heart attack. As chronicled in the recently released documentary Under Our Skin: There’s No Medicine For Someone Like You, those with chronic Lyme experience so much neurological and cognitive dysfunction that they end up losing their jobs, homes, mobility, and, in some cases, their lives.

For those who have been recently diagnosed with Lyme disease or who haven’t received adequate treatment help through the means that have been available to them, Insights Into Lyme Disease Treatment provides a comprehensive variety of effective, in-depth solutions. For the practitioner, it provides cutting-edge information on treatments that has not been published elsewhere.

The information in this book was obtained through interviews with the following 13 health-care practitioners:

Steve Harris, MD

Steven Bock, MD

Susan Marra, ND, MS

Ginger Savely, DNP

Lee Cowden, MD, MD (H)

Ingo Woitzel, MD

Ronald Whitmont, MD

Deborah Metzger, MD, PhD

Pete Muran, MD, MBA

Nicola McFadzean, ND

Marlene Kunold, Heilpraktiker (healing practitioner, Germany)

Elizabeth Hesse-Sheehan, DC, CCN

Jeffrey Morrison, MD

These practitioners were chosen on the basis of their expertise and experience in treating chronic Lyme disease. After the interviews, Strasheim wrote the book’s chapters, collaborating with the practitioners in the editing process, to make sure that all of the information from the interviews was accurately represented. Each chapter is devoted to the treatment approach of a particular practitioner, and covers, to a greater or lesser degree, the following:

• Antimicrobial treatments for Lyme disease and associated infections, including antibiotics, herbs, homeopathic remedies, plant stem cells, and biophotons;

• Information on how to support the body’s systems, which is an integral component to healing from chronic Lyme disease. Particular attention is given to the immune, endocrine, neurological, digestive and musculoskeletal systems;

• Treatments for symptomatic relief. Solutions for fatigue, pain, brain fog, depression, anxiety and insomnia are offered, as well as others;

• Detoxifying Lyme biotoxins, mold, candida, heavy metals and other environmental toxins;

• Treating food and environmental allergies;

• Lifestyle and dietary recommendations for faster healing;

• Strategies for healing emotional trauma;

• Patient and practitioner challenges to healing;

• Factors that influence healing;

• Suggestions for how family and friends can help the sick;

• Which antimicrobial treatments work and which don’t;

• How to discern whether Lyme disease is primary in patients’ overall symptom picture.

The Author

Connie Strasheim was born in 1974 and raised in Denver, Colorado. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish for Business and graduated in the top 2% of her class from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

In September 2004, at age 30, she “crashed” from Lyme disease. During the following year, she visited over 13 physicians before she was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease in June, 2005. During subsequent years, in an attempt to heal herself, she became a full-time medical researcher.

In November 2007, Connie wrote her first Lyme-related book, The Lyme Disease Survival Guide: Physical, Lifestyle and Emotional Strategies for Healing (BioMed Publishing Group).

Later, in 2009, she decided that the best approach for researching and sharing information on successful chronic Lyme disease treatment would be to interview the treating physicians themselves. Hence, Insights Into Lyme Disease Treatment: 13 Lyme-Literate Health Care Practitioners Share Their Healing Strategies was created and published in September 2009.

Over the past four years, Connie has experienced significant healing from Lyme disease, although is not fully cured due, most likely, to the damage that Lyme has done to her body and to the continued presence of toxins and/or low-grade infections. Still, she has come a long way since 2005, and continues to heal more with each passing year.

Prior to becoming ill from chronic Lyme disease, Strasheim worked as a Spanish instructor, medical interpreter, and flight attendant. She lives in Denver, Colorado, and is available for phone, on-line, and in-person interviews.

Book Information

Insights Into Lyme Disease Treatment: Thirteen Lyme-Literate Health Care Practitioners Share Their Healing Strategies, by Connie Strasheim

BioMed Publishing Group; PO Box 550531, South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150; www.LymeBook.com; 530-573-0190

Paperback; ©2009; $39.95; 443 pp.

Available at http://www.lymebook.com/insights-book-connie, or via Strasheim’s blog at http://www.lymebytes.blogspot.com.