Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) has many scientists and researchers looking at the possibility of using oxygen, either as a stand-alone treatment or as a combination treatment to be used with combination of different antibiotics.

Dr. William Fife, a pioneer in undersea medicine first for the Air Force and now  at Texas A & M University, has published extensive research demonstrating profound improvements in Lyme disease patients treated with HBOT. These improvements include pain reduction, return of clarity of the mind, and reduction of depression.

Dr. Fife was active with the HydroLab saturation diving research program funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration having spent 28 days in saturation in the habitat performing physiology experiments.

The first uses of hydrox, a gas mixture of hydrogen and oxygen is used as breathing gas in very deep diving are usually attributed to six ocean dive trials by the Swedish engineer, Arne Zetterstrom in 1945.  Dr. Fife later showed that hydrox would allow divers to descend and work at great depths.

Dr. Fife also developed the first decompression tables for the use of the mixture. The French engineering company COMEX later applied Fife’s work in developing their HYDRA dive series.

Much of his other diving medical research was focused on women in diving and spinal cord decompression sickness.

Fife’s interest in clinical hyperbaric medicine lead to several research projects to look for new indications for the use of HBOT. It has been estimated that about half of the 2,000 patient treatments done by his lab were for research.

These projects included the treatment of:

• squamous cell carcinoma in mice with hydrox;
• migraine headache;
• Post-polio syndrome.
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome;
• radionecrosis;
• brown recluse sites;
• non-union fractures;
• closed head injury;
• chronic Lyme disease.

In 1997, just after Dr. Fife retired from the Air Force, he began a year-long study at Texas A & M University about the benefits of treating Lyme disease with HBOT. A number of Chico, CA, Lyme patients traveled to Texas to take part in the study. Five of those patients showed such dramatic improvement after receiving HBOT that a group of Chico residents banded together in an effort to build a HBOT clinic closer to home. The Chico Hyperbaric Center is a result of that effort.

HBOT is a medical treatment that uses the administration of 100 percent oxygen at controlled pressure (greater than sea level) for a prescribed amount of time-usually 60 to 90 minutes. HBO therapy is commonly used to treat conditions such as burns and difficult or stubborn healing wounds.

HBOT increases the amount of oxygen in the body; which in turn causes several physiological changes that can result in accelerated healing. The basis for these changes is the fact that HBO therapy increases the amount of oxygen in the blood by up to 2000 percent, depending on the treatment depth. This, in turn, dramatically increases the amount of oxygen at the cellular level and creates other physiological changes. These changes can be extremely complex. One scientific research study indicates that Lyme bacteria are micro-aerophilic, or debilitated in high oxygen environments.

In the case of Lyme disease, William Fife, Ph. D., a Hyperbaric Medicine specialist at Texas A & M University (now retired), established the protocols for HBO treatment in his Texas A & M research project, to be discussed later. Dr. Fife’s Lyme disease protocol calls for HBO therapy to be administered at 2.36 ATA (Atmospheres absolute), or equivalent to a depth of 45 feet below sea level. Each treatment lasts one hour and two treatments are prescribed each day, five days per week.

The total number of treatments given in each case varies. It is common to administer 30 to 60 treatments in the first phase of treatment. The question of further HBOT therapy is then resolved after the patient’s condition is reevaluated. However, many believe that if the patient has been impacted by the first phase of HBOT, such as by experiencing a Herxheimer reaction (this can help to confirm Lyme bacteria die-off), then a break of three to six weeks should be taken followed by another 30 to 60 HBO treatments. A physician can prescribe more sets of HBOT based on the patient’s individual evaluation.

Working with Dr. Fife is Mitchell L. Hoggard is a pharmacist. He is also President and founder of the Chico Hyperbaric Center.

All three of his children have received HBO therapy for Lyme disease. Mitchell Hoggard’s son Ted was 14 years old when he took part in William Fife’s HBO research study on Lyme disease.

Are there risks?

HBO therapy is a medical procedure and like any other medical procedure, and there can be risks.

However, when HBOT is administered by trained health care individuals these risks are minimal.  As with any medical procedure, the evaluation and understanding of the current health status of the patient is of prime importance.  It is also critical that patients understand that HBOT does not work for everybody.

Minor ear discomfort is the most common inconvenience related to HBO therapy. It is helpful to remember that the initial stage of each HBO treatment is similar to sitting in an aircraft while it descends. Like the airline passenger, the patient’s ears have to adjust to a change in air pressure. The hyperbaric health care professional works with the patient or parent and teaches them various techniques on how to equalize pressure in the ears, such as swallowing.

If one cannot equalize the pressure in the ears, damage can occur to the eardrum. However, this is very rare. Some individuals who experience ear discomfort may require a procedure called a Myringotomy, or what is commonly called placing tubes in the ears. An ear, nose and throat specialist usually performs this outpatient procedure right in the doctor’s office.

Other complications can occur if a patient has lung abnormalities such as emphysema. However, with proper evaluation prior to HBOT treatment any concerns can be eliminated.

Why does HBO therapy show promise in helping Lyme patients?

First, we are reminded that Lyme bacteria are debilitated in high oxygen environments. Research by F. Austin demonstrated the effect of oxygen on the Lyme organism. The study suggests that the Bb organism is sensitive to high concentrations of oxygen at the cellular level, or what is termed, elevated tissue partial pressures.In other words, the Bb organism doesn’t do well in a biological environment similar to that created in the body during HBOT treatment.

It is also notable that in Dr. Fife’s study, all of the study’s participants were veterans of antibiotic therapy. These were adults and children who had tried and failed antibiotic therapy, including the big gun in the antibiotic arsenal: intravenous antibiotics. It appeared that the study had chosen the most difficult subjects to test. These were Lyme patients with chronic symptoms and most of them probably had nothing to lose. The fact that 85 percent of these Lyme patients showed improvement seems remarkable.

There are other benefits of HBOT that may play a role in treating Lyme disease, but were not mentioned in the Texas A & M study. Some of these benefits are theoretical and not proven; others are well known and considered established fact in Hyperbaric Medicine. Many of these additional benefits are based on the belief that HBO therapy and antibiotic therapy work in a synergistic manner. In this context, synergistic is defined as the combination of both treatments (HBOT and antibiotic therapy) being greater than the effect of either one alone.

Antibiotics and the immune system might not be able to adversely affect (or kill) Lyme bacteria for two distinct reasons.

First, it is believed that the Bb organism is able to switch from an active to a dormant (or sleeping mode) by coating itself in the body’s protein.

Secondly it is believed that the Bb organism can hide in the body’s cells.

Both tactics may result in the immune system failing to react to the Bb organism as a foreign organism that should be destroyed. Some believe that this has the effect of neutralizing the body’s defensive mechanisms and the offensive mechanisms employed by antibiotics.

The benefits of HBOT appear to be promising, although determining the exact mechanism of action that occurs in HBOT remains the most important aspect in the development of a reliable “cure”.

In general, a better understanding of the Lyme bacterium will enable us to develop new and better methods of treating this devastating disease.

For those of us who are eagerly waiting to see research breakthroughs that have immediate effect on the incredibly painful and medical “no-man’s-land” of chronic Lyme Disease, it is discouraging to see one of the most successful not-for-profit advocacy groups, “Time for Lyme” dole out $25,000 to better understand the ticks digestion system.

Time for Lyme, Inc. a non-profit organization dedicated to research and education about Lyme disease, has been very influential in the development of America’s first Center for Chronic Lyme Disease at Columbia University’s Medical Center, has just recently announced that they have awarded a $25,000 grant to Dr. Robert E. Thach, Professor of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis for his work on vertebrate reservoirs for tick-borne diseases in the central United States.

According to Dr. Thach, “Future development and implementation of strategies to control tick-borne diseases depend on understanding how these disease-producing organisms that ticks transmit are maintained in the environment. Through novel analysis of nymphal tick gut blood, sources of the tick’s previous blood meals can be identified. In so doing, primary and secondary reservoirs can be determined. Discovering the carriers of the infected ticks will eventually help design methods to reduce human exposure to them and consequently, tick-borne diseases.”

“We cannot omit prevention from our equation to solving the problem of tick-borne diseases”, says Connecticut-based neurologist Harriet Kotsoris, M.D., medical director of Time for Lyme. “After all, if we reduce disease exposure, the burden to diagnose and treat will be substantially reduced,” Dr. Kotsoris adds.

Meanwhile, although the suffering victims of the disease acknowledge the importance of such research, it appears to be far more important to develop a reliable test for the disease and/or a cure or vaccine.

It makes one wonder who is making the decisions on determines the most important research projects to help halt the spread of Lyme disease and cure those who are already disabled.

What do you think?

More important breakthrough’s from UCB’s (University of California at Berkeley) Dr. Lane.

According to Professor Lane, his research group has been studying the transmission cycles of the LD spirochete and other emerging bacterial disease agents – to determine what behavioral and environmental factors place people at elevated risk for acquiring the LDS and other tick-borne infections – and to evaluate control methodologies for reducing such risk.

The ultimate goal of this research is to use the basic knowledge gleaned from the foregoing projects to develop and implement strategies for reducing human exposure to tick-borne disease agents. To this end, several host-targeted methods for disseminating environmentally safe pesticides to rodent reservoir hosts of the LD spirochete already have been assessed. One method, the delivery of an oil-based formulation of permethrin to wood rats, has shown considerable promise for reducing populations of both vector ticks and fleas infesting this reservoir host.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic (and incredibly ironic) to use a pest, one thought of as a disease carrying rodent, to be the salvation key to the raging epidemic of Lyme disease?

The horrible truth today is that mainstream medicine at emergency rooms across the country are administrating a mild dose of Doxycycline for three weeks when the strongest athlete needs at least twice that amount.

I recently spoke to an acquaintance of mine who began her tale of woe just after she learned that I was a victim of Lyme disease.  Unfortunately I think most of us have heard this story many times – I can’t remember how many people related similar stories.

This woman’s husband saw the tick and saved it in a jar – then when a bulls-eye rash appeared and he was beginning to feel like he had the flu he went to the emergency room.

The emergency room doctor flushed the tick down the sink saying, “…we don’t take any chances here.  If you’ve been bitten by a tick and get a rash we will treat you for Lyme disease.”

Feeling reassured and relieved he filled his 2 week prescription of 100 mg of Doxycycline (twice a day) and was certain he was cured by the end of the treatment.  When his doctor called to check on him, he said he felt fine – case closed.

Three weeks later he had the flu again never connecting the tick bite with this case of flu.  Now you can guess the rest.

Two years later he is now a frightened victim of a full-blown case of chronic  neuro-Lyme.

So if the CDC develops a program to breed rats in the thickest areas of deer population, don’t be worried…it might be a gift from Mother Nature.

Dr. Lane and his team have found that the Lyme spirochete is maintained in a transmission cycle that differs from that in the upper midwestern and northeastern United States.

Woodrats and kangaroo rats (vs. white-footed mice) serve as reservoir hosts, 3 species of ticks (vs. one species) maintain and distribute the spirochete in the West, and the spirochetes themselves are generally much more variable than those from the East.

Factors that contribute to risk of infection include cutting wood, exposure to leaf litter in hardwood forests, and other outdoor activities that place people in direct contact with the habitats of the primary tick vector. These findings underscore the need for more specialists to study the disease on a regional basis before any effective program can be developed  to protect human health.

Additionally, a new species of tick-borne spirochete was discovered during these studies that may be the cause of epizootic bovine abortion, (a disease that has been estimated to cause annual losses of $5-15 million to the cattle industry in California alone. )

Other tick-borne diseases currently or previously investigated by us in collaboration with others include Colorado tick fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, ehrlichiosis, relapsing fever, tularemia, human babesiosis, and tick paralysis.

Meanwhile, on the East Coast, a study in Connecticut worked with the same idea.  Bio One published a similar project published in their Journal of Medical Entomology.

The official abstract is as follows:

“A 3-yr community-based study was conducted on residential properties on Mason’s Island, Mystic, CT, to determine the efficacy of a rodent-targeted acaricide (fipronil) to control immature Ixodes scapularis (Say) on Peromyscus leucopus.

Results indicated that modified commercial bait boxes were effective as an acaricide delivery method for reducing nymphal and larval tick infestations on white-footed mice by 68 and 84%, respectively.

Passive application of fipronil significantly reduced the infection rate of Borrelia burgdorferi among white-footed mice by 53%. Moreover, the abundance of questing I. scapularis adults on treated properties was reduced by 77% and fewer were infected with spirochetes (31%) compared with untreated sites (47%) after 3 yr of treatment. Likewise, the abundance of host-seeking nymphs was significantly reduced on treated properties by >50%.

Finally, infection rates in flagged nymphal ticks for both B. burgdorferi and Anaplasma phagocytophilum were reduced by 67 and 64%, respectively, after only 2 yr of treatment.

Results from this 3-yr trial indicate that the use of fipronil passively applied to reservoir animals by bait boxes is an environmentally acceptable means to control ticks, interrupt the natural disease transmission cycle, and reduce the risk of Lyme disease for residents of treated properties.”

So let’s start building bait boxes!

I hate to admit my growing distrust of any news related to Lyme disease that is released by any government approved agency.  But in this case I am praying that this important information from the California Health Department Division of Communicable Disease Control is true.

An epidemiologist who used to work at the State’s Health Department, Robert Murray, reported that the percentage of infected deer ticks in high Lyme disease areas such as Connecticut is 30 to 60 percent. But the percentage of black-legged ticks — the closely related cousins that carry Lyme disease in California — is only 1 to 2 percent, and only as high as 6 percent in areas such as Mendocino county, where the most Lyme disease cases are found.

According to California’s recent data, in California, only about one in every 200,000 persons is infected with Lyme disease as compared to Connecticut – the epicenter of Lyme disease the rate is 100 times higher. Unofficially we can only guess, but the recorded numbers at the National Center for Disease Control are admittedly only 10% of the actual numbers.  But still one would suspect that the differences would be uniformly off.

In 1998, Sabin Russell, a reporter for the San Fransisco Chronicle wrote a provocative article with what appears to be hard evidence as to why the rate of Lyme disease occurrence grows less rapidly in California, and not by just a little bit.

As far back as the 1990′s researchers suspected that a yet- to-be-identified protein in the lizard’s blood destroys the microbes that would otherwise flourish in the tick’s belly (and is later transmitted to human victims.)

“We’ve speculated on this for years, and now we have fairly good evidence that this is the case,” said Robert Lane, a University of California at Berkeley insect biologist who has been studying ticks and Lyme disease for more than a decade.

Lane and his colleague Gary Quistad conducted a series of laboratory experiments using young Lyme disease-infected ticks and fence lizards.

In the nymphal stage during which they feed on the blood of lizards, the ticks are only about the size of a poppy seed. But it is common to find 30 to 40 at one time sharing the blood of a single fence lizard.

Lane  discovered that a substance found in the blood of the common western fence lizard kills Lyme disease bacteria in the gut of juvenile ticks that feed on it. It may help explain why there is far less Lyme disease in California than in the eastern United States, where the lizard does not live.

The western fence lizard — a commonly found species dubbed the blue belly lizard in California – can carry an average of 30 juvenile black legged ticks, which are about the size of a poppy seed. Three stages of tick development Larval Ticks pass through three stages of development. During each stage they eat one  “blood meal.”  ‘ Larval ticks become infected with Lyme disease when they feed on rodents.

Lane had determined eight years ago that the lizards appeared to be immune to Lyme disease despite infestation with tick nymphs. His latest research, published recently in the Journal of Parasitology, suggest why this happens.

Berkeley’s Tilden Park served as the field laboratory for Lane, where he previously also uncovered a curious quirk about Lyme disease and the black-legged ticks that carry it there: the infection rates for young ticks, while low, was three to four times higher than the rate in adult ticks.

Early experiments ruled out the possibility that antibodies produced by the lizard’s immune system were able to neutralize the Lyme disease bacteria.

The puzzle continued to interest Lane who found later that when young nymphal ticks feed on the fence lizards, the mysterious protein not only protects the lizard from infection — it actually leaches into the tick’s gut and kills the bacteria there. Additional lab tests showed that when infected nymphs fed on the lizards, and then metamorphosed into adult ticks, they were no longer infected.

Test tube experiments found that Lyme disease bacteria bathed in lizard’s blood died within one hour, while control samples grown in mouse blood lasted three days.

In another experiment, the researchers heated lizard blood to the boiling point, and found that it no longer killed the bacteria in a test tube. The sum of these tests points to what Lane calls a “spirochete-killing factor” that is probably a large protein.

“It’s an extremely important paper,” said Vicky Kramer, chief of the vector-borne disease section of the California Department of Health Services.

Researchers are now trying to determine the precise nature of the Lyme disease-killing protein, and perhaps find out if it can be used to create a treatment for the disease.

Today, a decade later, Robert Lane has earned his PhD, and is a professor at U.C. Berkeley in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management and supervises several projects aimed at expanding our knowledge of the relationship of various isolates of LD spirochetes (and other emerging tick-borne disease agents in the bacterial genera  (Anaplasma, Bartonella, Borrelia, and Ehrlichia) to their vectors and  hosts.

Spirochetes isolated from ticks and wildlife are being characterized antigenically and genetically, and the infectivity of selected isolates for vertebrates and ticks evaluated.

The ability of human and nonhuman-biting ticks to acquire, maintain and transmit the LD spirochete, and the role of lizards, birds and mammals in perpetuating it have been and still are being assessed both experimentally and in the field. Intrinsic and extrinsic factors that contribute to the vector efficiency of different ticks and to the reservoir competence of mammals also are being studied.

Another current focus of Dr. Lane’s research program is to determine the factors that elevate the risk of human exposure to ticks in endemic areas of northern California, particularly in dense woodlands and mixed hardwood forests.

According to the University, these studies are being conducted in wild land and recreational areas, and in some domestic settings in both rural and semi-rural communities endemic for LD.

It is anticipated that these investigations will clarify various ecological and epidemiological factors that place humans at heightened risk of exposure to the LDS and other emerging tick-borne infections at different spatial scales, and enable us to develop predictive models to assess LD risk at both the county and state levels by means of remote sensing and ground-truthing ecological studies.

Dr. Lane explains the ultimate goal of this research to use the basic knowledge gleaned from the previous and ongoing projects to develop and implement strategies for reducing human exposure to tick-borne disease agents.

The frustrating part of all this research is the incredible length of time it takes to go from one theory to a finished product that can help us now.

The exciting part of Dr. Lane’s research is that his focus is centered on using several host-targeted methods  for disseminating environmentally safe pesticides to rodent reservoir hosts (such as the lizard) of the LD spirochete that have already have been assessed.

Lets hope we don’t have to wait another decade for this brilliant scientist to deliver the goods from his promising research.

When people ask me, “Jenna, where exactly does it hurt?” I usually quip, “…the list of what doesn’t hurt is much shorter.”

In the world of Lyme disease, there so many symptoms that may – and usually do – overlap with one or more co-infections, trying to keep you’re symptoms straight can be dizzying all on its own. With this in mind, what do you think of when you read the following symptoms?

Do any of these apply to you?

• Respiratory distress, sinusitis, coughing, sneezing
• Difficulty swallowing, choking, spitting up mucous
• Burning in the throat and lungs
• Acid reflux
• Asthmatic signs; wheezing, shortness in breath, coughing, burning in lungs, etc.
• Irritable bowel syndrome, nausea, diarrhea, sharp abdominal pains, stomach lesions
• Pain in bladder, liver, kidney or spleen
• Dark or painful urine
• Dirt-like taste in mouth, coated tongue
• Food allergies
• Leaky Gut
• Immune System Disorders
• Memory loss; brain fog, slurred speech, occasionally leading to dementia
• Vision problems
• Swollen lymph nodes
• Large boils on neck
• Yellowing of nails, ridges, or white marks under nail
• Thyroid irregularities, sometimes leading to complete dysfunction; adrenal problems
• Headaches
• Anxiety/depression, heart palpitations – confusion, post traumatic stress
• Extreme blood pressure, cholesterol, or triglycerides irregularities
• Ringing in ears, balance problems (very common), dizziness, loss of hearing
• chronic fatigue
• Directional confusion
• Intermittent face flushing; almost always systemic, called the Mylar Flush (neurological))
• Night head sweats, and drooling while sleeping, profuse sweating
• Nose bleeds
• Bruising/scarring easily; rash or hives, bloody lesions all over the skin
• Reproductive system complication such as infertility, changes in menstrual cycles, miscarriage
• Sudden weight changes; loss or gain
• Cancer
• Hair loss, very brittle nails, temporary loss of fingerprints (in rare cases)
• Joint/muscle stiffness and pain
• Irregular heart beat/heart attack
• Seizures, inadvertent body jerking, twitching, inadvertent facial movements or numbness in face
• Death, in extreme cases

It sounds like Lyme disease, doesn’t it?

In fact, if you have eight or more of these symptoms you could be suffering from mold poisoning.

Toxic molds are found indoors where there is humidity, different types of food and no predators. Only a very small number of molds are toxic. However, the ones that are toxic only need a few days in a wet room or flooded wallboard to take hold.

Then they create spores to multiply-types of seeds. But the uniquely threatening aspect of these spores is that they have biotoxins all over them.

Once they are in a room or a house with air flowing they can be very hard to remove, even if the spores are killed with ozone or ultraviolet light.

Indoor mold toxins are much more dangerous and prevalent than most people realize. Visible mold in and around your house is far less dangerous than the mold you cannot see. Indoor mold toxicity, in addition to causing its own unique set of health problems and symptoms, also greatly contributes to the severity of most chronic illnesses.

Although most active mold colonies appear greenish to black (typical of mold growing on bathroom tile grout) in color, the characteristics of mold colonies growing behind vinyl wall covering in buildings takes on very different characteristics. These mold outbreaks typically result in pinkish to yellowish staining of the wall covering.

They are quite important because they indicate serious, detrimental moisture within the wallboard behind the wall covering, that can not be removed by your air conditioning or dehumidifiers. Where these problems appear, they usually require the assistance of a professional equipped with pressure measurement and other diagnostic equipment to determine the source of the moisture causing the problem.

Far more serious are the mold toxins found in buildings with water leaks. Buildings with flat roofs and buildings on a concrete slab at the bottom of a hill are ready-made for mold problems. If you smell something moldy, it is probably an advanced toxic mold problem.

When a building has a water leak or water damage that is not immediately corrected, some molds are likely to start colonies. The colonies may be visible or they may be hidden in places such as the tops of ceiling tiles or the bottoms of carpets. They send out spores which contain potent nerve toxins or neurotoxins.

So how do we differentiate between mold and Lyme disease?

Unfortunately, the answer rests solely on us, the sick person, to seek out a doctor who will look past the easy diagnosis of chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia.  To find a doctor who will test and test until he/she finds tangible evidence that match up with our symptoms and our histories.

Is it possible to have mold toxins AND Lyme disease?

Absolutely.

Once again, there are no easy answers, just more disturbing questions.

For more information about mold toxins visit: http://www.mold-survivor.com

Most people are aware of the dangers of drinking tap water – so much in fact that many go to extreme methods; buying large quantities of purified water, hiring a delivery service, buying bulk at specialty water stores…but most retail purified water is nothing more than tap run through a filter.

Spring water is better but it is a not a good choice for those of us with chronic Lyme.  Lyme bacteria hates oxygen, and Ionized Water machines instill massive amounts of oxygen – a great weapon for our arsenal against chronic Lyme.

Ionized Water is up to six times more hydrating that conventional water.

Water is one of the most important elements in the body, which is over 80% water. Ionized Water is fundamentally different from conventional water because the size and shape of the water molecule cluster has reduced in size and changed in shape to hexagonal, which allows the water cluster to pass through our tissue more easily.

One of the primary causes of disease is chronic cellular dehydration, a condition which leaves the body’s cells in a perpetual state of weakness and defense.

One of the major causes of chronic disease is not providing the body with sufficient water. We simply do not drink enough water (at least half our weight in ounces) to keep ourselves properly hydrated and therefore healthy.

Ionized Water is extremely detoxifying.

This is also because of the reduced size and shape of the water molecule clusters. Once reduced, these water clusters pass through the body’s tissue much easier and push out toxins and acid waste quite effectively. Water Ionizers have several levels of strength so people who are toxic can begin by drinking mild Ionized Water, slowly drinking it stronger as they acclimate to it.

Ionized Water is a Powerful Antioxidant.

Imagine having the ability to take normal tap water and turn it into an antioxidant with a NEGATIVE ORP (or charge), which retards the aging process. Put simply, a high or rising ORP will cause oxidation and therefore aging.

The negative ORP of Ionized Water literally retards the aging process by counteracting this rising ORP. Ionized Water essentially renews us at a cellular level. This is as close as we can ever hope to get to a Fountain of Youth, as incredible as that may sound.

For instance, real fresh squeezed orange juice has a negative ORP of -250, although we can only drink a few glasses of fresh orange juice in a day.

We can drink as much Ionized Water as we wish to a day. Many people drink as much two gallons of Ionized Water per day.

Ionized Water’s other Antioxidant property which also provides the body with lots of oxygen.

The other Antioxidant quality of Ionized Water is hydroxyl ions. These are oxygen molecules with an extra electron attached to them as are all antioxidants such as vitamins A, C and E. Hydroxyl ions scavenge for free radicals, which are unstable oxygen molecules that cause damage to us.

Once the hydroxyl antioxidant and free radical have canceled each other, the result is that the body is provided with lots of oxygen and therefore lots of energy. Oxygen is one of the most exhausted nutrients in our body because of our diet and the Earth’s oxygen-depleted environment today.

Oxygen destroys cancer cells as well as bacteria and viruses invading the body. It carries away acid waste from body tissue. It is vital to human health, perhaps our most important nutrient. A glass of strong Ionized Water first thing in the morning naturally helps you to wake up.

To get the full power of Negatively Charged, Antioxidant, Oxygen-Rich Ionized Water, it must be consumed fresh and strong, right out of the tap.

You will have thousands of tiny bubbles in your water when comes out of the machine. Those are hydroxyl ions, which is the antioxidant and the reason for the Negative ORP. This is because the ORP is the most fragile aspect of Ionized Water lasting only a maximum of 18-24 hours.

Ionized Water is very alkaline and helps balance the body’s pH, which tends to be acidic because of our diet comprised of cooked foods, pasteurized or otherwise processed foods. Soft drinks are the most acid substance a person can put in their body.

This acidic condition creates an ideal environment in our body for disease to thrive. For example, accumulated acid waste in the joints encourages inflammation and arthritis. Because it is very Alkaline, Ionized Water dissolves accumulated acid waste and returns the body to a balance.

Keeping ourselves Alkaline is the first line of defense in fighting any disease.

Minerals that are ionized are more bio-available.

This means that the body can absorb them much more efficiently and make use of them where they are needed throughout the body. Minerals are some of the most important nutrients the body needs, yet mineral deficiency is common. Ionized Water is an efficient and effective way for the body to get its minerals.

Ionized Water improves the taste of food. Ionized Water hydrates food better, helps bring out its flavor, lowers acid levels of any food including coffee, tea & juice. It ionizes the minerals in the food which helps make them bio-available.

Ionized Acid Water is great for the skin. Applying Ionized Acid Water regularly works like an astringent to tighten the skin and remove wrinkles; however, there is NO chemical residue. It soothes and helps keep the skin clear of acne and other blemishes.

At its strongest level, Ionized Acid Water kills most bacteria on contact. It improves hair and skin conditions of any kind, including fungus, cuts, scraps, even serious wounds. It takes the itch out of mosquito bites, the sting out of other insect bites.

Ionized Acid Water has been used successfully in treating diabetic ulcers. This is a condition that develops in diabetics where a fester opens in the skin, usually in the legs or feet, which can result in amputation if not promptly treated. These ulcers can become very serious. However, soaking the ulcer in Ionized Acid Water has tremendous healing effects.

Unfortunately the cost of these machines is prohibitive for many, and not every machine is created equally.  So when I was sent this special offer from one of my affiliate health providers, I wanted to get the information out right away.

Tyent USA produces the Turbo MMP-7070 which is one of the best on the market as shown on the review site: http://www.ionizersreviewed.com/seeing_believing.php If you are interested in saving some money they are offering the machine at $500 off ($2,495 instead of $2,995) you can take advantage of this here before Friday.

Save even more money with Water For Life – another affiliate health product line that I have been very impressed by that is offering a 15% off coupon through the end of October.  They have a 7 plate model for $1695, up to their high end product at $3,999.  The coupon code is wflcoupon1

Blessings,

Jenna

When the science of stem cell research was first announced, a battle was initiated that continues to rage on. On one side, the “right to life” organization fights for the embryos that are killed to obtain the stem cells.  They are joined by humanitarians who argue about the possibility of cloning, and the potential theological questions that challenge the very definition of humanity.

On the other side is the powerful medical community who offer glittering hope for new treatments where none has existed before.  Some treatments are already being used successfully for certain types of cancer and birth defects.  The speculative areas are en more exciting such as spinal cord injury, burns, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis’s diseases.

For those of us with Lyme disease, especially neurological Lyme disease, we fear to hope, but the stem cell research has made great progress on brain diseases and dysfunction with specific therapies for Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s diseases, and strokes.

However, according to Dr. Burton Goldberg who has traveled to Mexico to learn first-hand some of the discoveries that have been made there outside of the intensely controlled environment of American medical research. (I found some great information at his site: http://www.burtongoldberg.com/)

Announced just recently (December 8, 2008) by Science Daily, a research team led by the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology, and Albany Medical College has illuminated the important role of natural killer (NK) T cells in Lyme disease, demonstrating that the once little understood white blood cells are central to clearing the bacterial infection, and reducing the intensity and duration of arthritis associated with Lyme disease.

“Our findings are that the NK T cells are critical to preventing the chronic inflammatory infection that causes Lyme arthritis and they participate in clearing the bacteria which cause it,” said Mitchell Kronenberg, Ph.D., the La Jolla Institute’s president & scientific director and co-senior author on the study, which used a mouse model of Lyme disease.

“What this study demonstrates is that NK T cells are an important part of our defense against Lyme disease,” said Timothy J. Sellati, Ph.D., an associate professor at Albany Medical College and co-senior author on the study.

“This offers the possibility that we can exploit that knowledge therapeutically and potentially develop immunological agents that can trigger more NK T cells to aide in fighting this disease.” Sellati added that “NK T cells alone cannot clear Lyme disease, but are a key part of a collective immune defense.”

The study’s findings are outlined in a paper, “NKT cells prevent chronic joint inflammation after infection with Borrelia burgdorferi,” published this week in the online version of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In an earlier study published in Nature Immunology, Kronenberg, Sellati and co-workers had shown that a certain type of fat, found in the membrane of Borrelia burgdorferi triggered an immune response from the NK T cells.

“We had found that if you gave that lipid to mice or humans, it would activate NK T cells,” Kronenberg said. While this suggested the cells might play a significant role in Lyme disease, “We were missing in vivo (in the body) evidence showing that the NK T cells were activated following infection and were important for killing and clearing the Lyme disease bacteria,” he said, noting that the latest study demonstrates this process in an animal.  Next step is testing human reaction. Then we will be ready to add the curative stem cells.

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So many blog posts and articles devoted to Lyme disease deal with treatment protocols, personal experience, political debate, medical debate, insurance disputes, and technical discoveries.

What we really want to read about is, “How are we going to be cured?”  “How much will it cost?”, “How long will it take?”

But without the possibilities of answers to such questions, we are intrigued to learn about how others cope, and about every possible aspect of chronic Lyme disease and how if does or could affect us.

However, there is a critical aspect of healing from Lyme that is conspicuously missing.  So much of what is written about Lyme disease and shared on forums and blogs – even some of the most important documents available to the layperson about Lyme fail to mention this vital component of recovery.

Sometimes you may glimpse a short blurb on a private post, or even a long treatise on a blog or website.  Also, there are sometimes references in various books from religious perspectives that potentially “tune the reader out”, to scholarly books that potentially put the reader to sleep.

“What in the world is Jenna blogging about?” you are certainly wondering.

I am blogging about the essential concept of positive thinking in each and every treatment protocol for Lyme disease.  Have you seen it?  Do you read about it?  Can you show me the testing that has been done?

Heather Whitestone, Miss America in 1995, is known for saying, “The most handicapped person in the world is a negative thinker.”

I think you will agree with me that this quote is downright bizarre coming from a glamorous and successful “Miss America” – a position that is won only through rigorous physical fitness, exceptional talent, extreme beauty and fierce intellect – the ferocious competitiveness required discourages even some of the most beautiful women from attempting such an honor.

But honestly, how in the heck would a “Miss America” know anything about negative thinking?

Well, believe it or not, Heather Whitestone, almost died as an infant, and lost all of her hearing as a result of the life threatening fever.

Throughout her childhood, Heather didn’t have to listen to the dark and depressing voices of discouragement that others around her discussed. She also didn’t hear the doctor telling her family that she wouldn’t develop past a third grade level.

And no, she never heard the vulgar language that was thrown at her, and around her through her formative adolescent years. She never heard the voices that predicted the little girl who dreamed of being a ballerina would never be able to speak let alone dance ballet.

A difficult  motto that tortures and/or inspires those of us with Lyme disease is to “embrace our disease as a blessing.”  Presented here, perhaps we can appreciate the irony, and share in the amazing inner strength that Heather found to draw upon.

Heather’s deafness truly was a blessing, but only because she made it so.

At the young age of eleven years old, Heather asked her family to send her to a special school to enable her to catch up academically with other students in her class.

While at the Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis, Missouri, Heather learned two grade levels per year!  After three difficult but exciting years there, Heather caught up with her peers, and returned to Alabama to graduate from public high school with a very respectable 3.6 GPA.

Money was tough at home so Heather began competing in beauty pageants to earn the valuable scholarship money that was needed to attend college. Twice, Heather qualified for the Miss Alabama pageant only to come home with second place.  How much more could she take?  She was ready to quit.

Her family and friends stepped in with much needed encouragement to try one more time.  After all, it had taken Heather six years to correctly pronounce her last name, so what was a measly two years?  And so it was that on her third attempt in1994, Heather was selected as Miss Alabama.

Three months later, Heather was whisked away to Atlantic City, New Jersey to compete with 49 other accomplished women for the honor of Miss America.

Heather stayed focused on her own reliance on positive thinking; contemplating what this victory would mean for handicapped people all over the world.

Stunning the audience and the world with a magnificent ballet routine performed to Christian vocalist Sandi Patti’s Via Dolorosa, she was the last to know of her final standing because she couldn’t hear the announcer!

During her year as Miss America, Heather introduced the world to her five-point “STARS” program with the help of her family members and close friends.

Perhaps those of us with Lyme disease should adopt this strategy as part of our own treatment protocol.

“STARS” was aimed at showing others how to achieve “Success Through Action and Realization of your dream”S”.”

The five points the program rested on were:

* a positive attitude;
* a goal;
* a willingness to work hard;
* a realistic look at your problem;
* a support team.

Most of us have at least three out of the five – maybe even four, but if you will allow me to take a huge psychic plunge for a moment, I would say that it is the first point of STARS that hangs us up.

We want to be positive, and some days we actually enjoy moments of positive thinking, but how do we make positive thinking a fundamental part of each day?  How do we make it a part of our healing protocol?

If any reader has some strategies for this, please share them because, as James Allen (and others) taught, “A man is literally what he thinks.”  This is taught in every language.

For those of us with Lyme, we might do even better if we follow the advice of William Feather, “…success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.

Please don’t let go!  And keep thinking those positive thoughts too!