Ben

I don't understand why you would need to limit the diet the to 400 calories?
This would be the reason that the diet kicked her butt.  You can easily eat
a ketogenic diet without severe calorie restriction.  

Regards

Peter Maxwell


-----Original Message-----
From: Paleolithic Eating Support List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Ben Liberman
Sent: Sunday, 31 July 2011 4:30 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Lyme Disease

At 6:29 PM -0500 7/29/11, Kristina Carlton wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>It's been a while since I posted. Some of you may remember me with 
>digest issues, abdominal distention, food allergies, fatigue, POTS, and 
>more and just not getting better. Well, it looks like I might have Lyme 
>disease. I asked my doctor for a CD57 blood test which came back at 20 
>- apparently anything below 60 is a chronic infection and anything 
>below 20 is serious illness. My doctor says it's a chronic bacterial 
>infection but not necessarily Lyme. A search on the internet indicates 
>a low CD57 is chronic Lyme.
>
>Anyway, my doctor ran a Western blot and co-infections panel with 
>Igenex. He treats with abx which I would like to avoid. I searched the 
>archives but couldn't find much on Lyme disease. Any suggestions how to 
>address it in addition to staying Paleo?
>
>Thanks,
>Kristina

Hi Kristina,

The lyme bacteria feeds mostly on glucose.  A ketogenic diet will kill off
most of it and likely push the rest into dormancy. Keeping your carbs below
20 grams per day should do it.  After you are stable you can then experiment
to determine what level of carb you can tolerate, if you feel the need.

On the first round, with the massive die off, there will probably be
substantial toxins released by the dying bacteria.  Take it easy on
yourself.

An all pemican diet would be one of the easy ways to do it that would
require no fasting.

My girlfriend has lyme and after 18 months, when a few rounds of
antibiotics, herbal approaches, and anything else we could find, did not
solve the problem, we started to do research.  Once we figured out that lyme
needs glucose, she choose to take some time off and do a 10 day reduced
caloric ketogenic fast, limiting caloric intake to 400 calories per day with
no carbs.  The easiest way, for her, was to eat 5 eggs a day, water, and
nothing else.  The die off kicked her butt.  Before starting the fast she
had severe pain in most of her joints, and cloudy thinking.  There was
noticeable improvement within a week.

I can put you in touch if you would like to speak to her.

Ben.