Healing Lyme Disease Coinfections by Stephen Harrod Buhner

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Healing Lyme Disease Coinfections: Complementary and Holistic Treatments for Bartonella and Mycoplasma
by Stephen Harrod Buhner
Healing Arts Press

If you tell the average person you have a book that contains all known information about Bartonella and mycoplasma, the first question will probably be, “What is Bartonella?” If you make it through the answer to that question without triggering more questions, the next question will be “What is mycoplasma?” Chances are that even your average doctor doesn’t know much about them and couldn’t answer these questions.

The items in question are two very opportunistic, highly adaptable, intracellular parasites that often show up in people with Lyme disease. They can commandeer your immune system for their own nefarious purposes. They complicate both symptoms and treatment. They can have a big party all over your body and while they are having fun, you’re not.

While you may not have heard much about these things, they are quite common and have been around for a long time. Right on the first page of his book’s introduction Buhner points out that the numbers from the CDC are, as usual, very different from reality. Imagine that. The CDC is at war with bacteria but doesn’t collect very accurate information on it. Referring to the war on bacteria, David Livermore (bacterial resistance researcher and physician) has said, “It is naïve to think we can win.”

Buhner brings up another good point from Buckminster Fuller, which is that American students are taught information that is fifty to one hundred years out of date. These observations may explain the general state of research in America today.

Buhner goes into detailed explanations of mycoplasma first. It is tiny. Four thousand can fit into one red blood cell. There are many different strains and they cause even more symptoms. If the immune system is weak, no treatment or drug will make any difference. Mycoplasmas can survive pasteurization. There are very long, detailed explanations about how they evade immune system attacks, spread from one body to another, and drain nutrients from those infected bodies. They scavenge essential vitamins, including vitamin A, amino acids lipids, and minerals. They are pleomorphic—they can take on different forms when it suits them. They are capable of rapid genetic variation and have been implicated in the development of cancer. These little bugs are stubborn, devious and difficult.

That’s the bad news. So what’s the good news? There is a treatment protocol. One key is that mycoplasma is due first and foremost to a nutrient deficiency. Nutrition is an important part of the recovery protocol. Scavenged nutrients must be replaced. In addition to nutrition there are numerous herbs that can disrupt mycoplasma infections. Buhner does not seem to think it is a coincidence that some of those herbs that can help with these widespread health problems are thriving, invasive species. He tells us that if we hear of a plant that is going to destroy the country, ask yourself, “What medicinal qualities does it have?”

Buhner does talk about treatment with antibiotics. If you must use that option, it is important that the doctor know what he is dealing with and how to deal with it. The wrong antibiotics will do nothing. The right antibiotics will also do nothing in the long run if you don’t understand how these bacteria can hide in bones or other places until the antibiotics are gone—and then they pick up where they left off.

This book is good but it is not an easy read. It is long and goes into extensive detail. You know you’re in trouble when you start seeing Greek letters—a lot of them. The author does have a sense of humor but you won’t find a big laugh on every page unless you are easily amused by the Greek alphabet. The τηνμβ is UP.

This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Spring 2015

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