Most doctors have learned that Lyme infection will only occur 48 hours after the bite and that a clear red ring needs to show up. According to this reasoning, one can only be infected with Lyme if:<\/p>\n
- \n
- there has been a tick bite<\/li>\n
- the tick was not removed within 48 hours<\/li>\n
- there is a red ring<\/li>\n
- the tests show the infection<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
As a formula, one could denote the possible number of Lyme infections per country as x = (a*b) – c {if: d & e}<\/em><\/p>\n
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- a: infected part of tick population<\/li>\n
- b: total numbers of ticks<\/li>\n
- c: removed ticks within 48 hours<\/li>\n
- d: the red ring<\/li>\n
- e: positive test results<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
So logically, predictions about the number of people suffering from chronic Lyme are based on these premises or assumptions. This blog shows you why this type of reasoning might be slightly off.<\/p>\n
On misknowledge <\/strong><\/p>\n
Dr. Klein Haneveld was also featured in the broadcast. He has a daughter who has been ill for thirteen years. He courageously shared his story of how he once tested her for Lyme, got a negative test result and discarded it as a possible cause for her health problems. Until his wife started researching herself and convinced him it was still a possibility. \u201cMy wife was right and I – as a doctor – was wrong. Doctors don\u2019t know anything about Lyme.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n
Isn\u2019t this confusing? Someone with direct personal experience from a professional knowledge industry claiming that his field does not know enough about the subject? This fits with what I found during the research for Shifting the Lyme Paradigm. You can get a short impression of the level of common professional ignorance in this old blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n
So how to look at statistics concerning the amount of possible Lyme infections?<\/p>\n
On reasoning and statistics<\/strong><\/p>\n
In 2014 the RIVM, the information office of the Dutch Department of National Health, issued a statement<\/a> saying that 5,3 million of my fellow countrymen were chronically ill. With a total population of sixteen million people, that meant about a third of the whole country. They went on to predict that this number would grow to seven million. That is quite some number, on a total population of seventeen million, isn’t it?<\/p>\n
Apart from my recommendation that they rebrand themselves to the Department of \u2018Public Illness\u2019, how could this number relate to Lyme?<\/p>\n
I\u2019d like to offer you some possibilities, to allow you to think for yourself and look with \u2018new eyes\u2019 to numbers presented as facts or truths. I present them in a \u2018what if?\u2019 way.<\/p>\n
- \n
- What if people can get infected by other biting insects<\/a>, pregnancy (congenital<\/a>), sex, blood transfusion<\/a>\u00a0and hence also donor organs?<\/li>\n
- What if a red ring only shows up in 30-50% of the infections (after the bite of a tick or another insect)?<\/li>\n
- What if the current tests miss<\/a> over 50% of the infections?<\/li>\n
- What if Lyme disease shows up with over 365 \u2018faces\u2019?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
On average, people find out a shocking twenty years later that \u2018their\u2019 Alzheimer, MS, ALS, Parkinson, ME \/ CFS, Fibromyalgia and so on was actually \u2018Lyme in disguise\u2019. Pathological research has found the Borrelia bacteria in the brains of 90% of diseased sufferers of Alzheimer, Parkinson and other diseases.<\/p>\n
If the premises of a theoretical model are wrong, all statistics that are produced by it, are useless.<\/p>\n
What if all the research is there, but your doctor simply doesn\u2019t know it – similar to dr. Klein Haneveld\u2019s experience? I have a list of over 25 scientific studies showing the likelihood of congenital Lyme infection; dating back until 1985. An investigative patient found out my own government has known since 1994<\/a> that our blood supply has been infected. Did you know? The people making the data surely do not.<\/p>\n
What could this mean? What if the risk is indeed higher to “get Lyme in your bedroom than in a forest<\/em><\/a>“, as one researcher put it?<\/p>\n
Yes, Lyme is an epidemic indeed. But how can anyone be sure about the actual numbers? It may be millions, in the Netherlands alone. Without a valid test, nobody knows for sure.<\/p>\n
On reduction and education<\/strong><\/p>\n
Current medical science is overwhelmingly based on a reductionist model<\/a> of science. Scientific reductionism is the idea of reducing complex interactions and entities to the sum of their constituent parts, in order to make them easier to study. Put into simple language, this means that complex issues are reduced to simple, linear relationships. To causes and effects.<\/p>\n
Emotionally, this leads to a sense of security. Scientists are researching these potential relationships and categorising them, so expert doctors have all the knowledge they need to do their jobs. They will recognise what may be wrong with us, will be able to do a test to find out and will have the means to fix us. But what if they don\u2019t? What if the situation in other countries is really not that much better?<\/p>\n
The many, many stories I have heard from people with Lyme around the world tell a heart-breaking story of how they found out that the group they trusted to take care for their health, could or would not. Still they are asked to believe them. Without trust, believing seems to be no option.<\/p>\n
A major factor in these sad stories is how the absence of a proper \/ reliable Lyme test plays out in lawsuits, with catastrophic effects for the patients. They don\u2019t get insurance for their treatment, are declared \u2018fit to work\u2019 or lose custody over their ill children. Courts use medical doctors as experts and so more reliable positive test results are simply discarded as evidence.<\/p>\n
That is why it is no wonder to me both parents of ill children or adult Lyme patients are so upset and try to warn others. Most of them do so, based on the same limited information. They warn other people for ticks, while to me that is the same as warning people not to sit on toilet seats to avoid to get Syphilis. It\u2019s only a small part of the story.<\/p>\n
Everybody is selective in choosing the studies and arguments they believe to be true or useful. What many people underestimate, is that the credibility of content is always made in context. That is why adverts for pharmaceutical products always have white suits in them. Most people still tend to believe authorities.<\/p>\n
Whom I find the most credible sources of information are people who have both the professional background and a personal experience with the topic. A doctor such as Klein Haneveld, the American dr. Martz<\/a>, who was diagnosed with ‘incurable’ ALS. Martz got better after being treated for Lyme. Dr.\u00a0Spector<\/a>, whose Lyme infection caused both cancer and a deafening silence from his own colleagues, is another example.<\/p>\n
The controversies about Lyme have been going on for forty years now and I don\u2019t see them ending any time soon. So you may want to educate yourself.<\/p>\n
If you are ill, I know how hard it can be to read a full book. That\u2019s why I made the short booklet \u2018Lyme for Laymen<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n
But if you know someone who has Lyme or one of its many misdiagnoses, you can. You will find out that you have a noble role to play in the story. Because if doctors lack the proper knowledge, they will never have the ability to give the acknowledgment your friend yearns for. Let alone a solution.<\/p>\n
In times when simple solutions to complex problems might not be easily available, care and understanding make a world of difference.<\/p>\n
Get your Priceless copy<\/a> of Shifting the Lyme Paradigm<\/em>. It is the only accessible source of information to appreciate how important you are as a friend or partner on this bizarre journey.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Suggested further reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n
http:\/\/mobile.reuters.com\/article\/idUSTRE78447320110905<\/a><\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/16995409<\/a><\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC1459480\/ <\/a><\/p>\n
- What if people can get infected by other biting insects<\/a>, pregnancy (congenital<\/a>), sex, blood transfusion<\/a>\u00a0and hence also donor organs?<\/li>\n