Overview of Treatments
Below I summarize and discuss several of the most well known methods for treating tick borne infections. I have ranked them according to what maximizes success in my practice. This is not universal advice, merely a discussion of the basic approaches to treating tick borne infection.
The basics: this protocol relies on low doses of antibiotics as well as vitamins, nutrition, and herbal supplements.
I have had the most success treating long-standing tick borne illnesses with this protocol, which biologist Will Wiegman developed to treat himself. Like many effective treatments for tick borne infections, it has not been proven through clinical trials. I would estimate that it completely cures around 70% of the people I treat, and helps but does not entirely eliminate the infections of many more.
One of the reasons I particularly like this protocol is that it requires far fewer antibiotics than are often prescribed for tick borne infections. This gives your system, especially your gut, more time to recover between doses, causing less long-term damage while remaining effective.
The levels of antibiotics recommended by Weigman are high enough to inhibit bacterial reproduction, but not high enough to encourage the bacteria to enter a dormancy. This is a stealthy way of killing the bacteria that cause symptoms, without ever overloading your system with toxins from dead bacteria or causing the infection to burrow deeper into your body.
An overview of the three phases in the Wiegman Protocol:
Phase 1: Lasts 2 weeks and consists of: Vitamins and some nutrients to bolster the immune system’s ability to address bacteria.
Phase 2: Lasts 8 weeks and consists of: Low doses of 3 distinct antibiotics in a regimented cycle.
Phase 3: Lasts 8 weeks and consists of: Low doses of herbs to target lingering bacteria.
This drug is the newest treatment for tick borne infections garnering attention in the lyme community. It was found to kill lyme in test tubes when scientists at Stanford screened many FDA approved drugs for therapeutic effect. Disulfiram outcompeted all other studied substances. Disulfiram had been approved in 1949 as a medicine to deter alcohol consumption, and now many practitioners are using disulfiram to treat their lyme patients. I am closely following the news on this novel use of Disulfiram, and have several patients who tolerated it, given a gradual increase in dose. I have not yet begun to recommend this as a starting point or initial treatment approach because there is little conclusive evidence of efficacy outside of a test tube, and little is known about how exactly the drug fights lyme bacteria. However, I am optimistic about the future of this medicine as a treatment for tick borne illnesses. There are two large drawbacks to this approach: 1) it makes people very ill when combined with alcohol, even in small amounts, and 2) it requires slowly tapering up to a full dose and staying on that full dose for months.
I have learned much from and have tremendous respect for the herbalist Stephen Buhner. He recommends helpful and relatively inexpensive herbs to treat tick borne infections. He does not market or produce any supplements, so I believe he is a credible source and not simply attempting to profit off those with tick borne infections. I read Buhner’s books when I want an in-depth explanation of the scientific literature on any particular tick borne infection. That said, I tend to use his approach as an add-on to other therapies, rather than a sole method of treatment. I have had patients fully recover only using his recommendations, but this is not true for everyone. (Sidenote: His book on viruses had a brilliant section on coronaviruses long before the global COVID-19 pandemic).
Other herbal approaches, while often effective, have several pitfalls. They are often extremely expensive, and highly marketed. In this case, your money is probably going to someone who is in the business of making supplements, rather than someone who prioritizes science. These herbal treatments are often effective and I have patients who experience rapid improvement, but their health only lasts as long as they are following the protocol. When they are done, their symptoms often return. I have found that picking and choosing carefully from these various treatment plans and products can yield results, especially when used in conjunction with other therapeutic interventions.
When lyme disease was first recognized in the health community, some practitioners found that people who did not recover rapidly often felt better when treated with antibiotics. Eventually some practitioners developed cyclic protocols that recommend very high doses of antibiotics over months, and sometimes years. This approach has worked, and probably continues to work for some proportion of the infected patient population, but it is no longer what I recommend. The drawback of this approach is that antibiotics at these quantities are often toxic, causing side effects and complications. They can wreak havoc on the digestive microbiome, and affect the liver and skin. More concerning is the evidence that lyme and other tick borne infections can become dormant, or cystic, in the human body. In this state they are not harmed by antibiotics, and can reemerge and cause symptoms once antibiotic use is discontinued. Further, there is some discussion that overuse of antibiotics in recent years has increased the incidence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, often called ‘superbugs’, against which we would have no protection.
Nutrition is critical to health, but I do not believe that most people need or benefit from IV nutrients, especially when the underlying causes of their illness is unrelated to nutrient deficiency, as in the case of tick borne infections. I am not aware of anyone successfully using IV nutrients as a stand-alone treatment for tick borne infections, but i cannot speak to its efficacy when used in conjunction with other methods. IV nutrition is very expensive and practitioners who advocate for the exclusive use of IV nutrients as a ‘magic bullet’ for tick borne infections should be approached with caution. Additionally, nutrients are almost always better when derived from a healthy, balanced diet, rather than a pharmaceutical intervention.
The CDC has guidelines for treating many infections, including tick borne infections. For lyme and other tick borne infections they recommend a very short course of antibiotics with no additional interventions. These guidelines likely work for many people. However, when tick borne infections are left untreated, or when someone does not properly follow or respond to the original treatment, the guidelines have nothing more to offer. I do not use CDC guidelines to treat long-standing tick borne infections because the CDC does not recognize the possibility of chronic lyme or other chronic tick-borne infections.