Stress: A Major Cause of Chronic Lyme

I am very pleased to announce that my new course, Foundations Of Herbal Medicine For Lyme Disease: The Art and Science of Using Medicinal Herbs for Healing Lyme and Chronic Illness Naturally, is now available.

Whether you’re new to herbal medicine and Lyme, or familiar with the use of medicinal herbs, this two-part course helps make sense of some of the basic and intermediate concepts involved in Lyme disease, and introduces the art of using herbal medicine in the context of self-treatment.

Access the course here.

The Lyme spirochete is a perfect metaphor for the illness it causes. “Spiro” means spiral." “Chete” is derived from “Khaite”, Greek for “long hair”. Lyme disease is a long downward spiral. But it also presents the opportunity for an upward ascent. That is, if we know how to manage it, before it manages us.

Stress: Immunity Hijack

Allowing the body’s innate resources to self-organize for optimum health is a feature of human biology. All too often those systems become disrupted due to poor lifestyle management. We know that Lyme disease is caused by a spirochete that infects its host through stealth evasion of immunity. Internal dynamics of ECM penetration, cytokine dysregulation and biofilm formation are undeniable facets of ongoing infection. Until recently, these factors have been little appreciated, or outright ignored, by the medical establishment. However, this isn’t to account for environmental factors, such as stress, diet and circadian clock, which play an important role in immune regulation and detoxification.

It is often taken for granted that our relationship to our environment creates the conditions for illness to manifest, or become subdued. Immuno-fragility follows, creating the conditions for Borrelia Burgdorferi to thrive. Many therapies don’t acknowledge this absolutely foundational piece of the Lyme puzzle, leading to inexpedient remission time and financial burden. In this post, I am going to unpack the question of how Lyme disease management can be aided by the use of self-regulating practices, allowing immunity to perform at its peak.

First of all, it’s really important to understand that Borrelia uses redundancy to overcome immunity. They are masters of efficiency. Many of you who are familiar with Lyme know all too well. For example, when the bacteria transfer themselves to a mammalian host through a tick’s blood meal, they take advantage of the immune disrupting compounds from the tick saliva to gain a foothold in the new host. And once inside the new host, they will adjust their morphological shape in response to the kind of environment they encounter (from a “corkscrew” to a sphere, for example). They will bind to multiple compounds inside the cell matrix to increase survival. And so on.

What this means is that any protocol or therapy treating Lyme should be as dynamic and comprehensive as the bacteria themselves. In short, you gotta have an organizing principle to match the complexity of Lyme spirochetes. There is no silver bullet for Lyme disease. And there never will be.

The good news is that we know a great deal about chronic Lyme more than ever before. However, the mass amount of information can be extremely overwhelming. Genetic factors, detox pathways, exposure to mold, cell danger response, and PTSD, are just a few topics that scratch the surface when it comes to understanding chronic Lyme. It’s important to consider all of these - but equally important is distilling the common themes running through these features.

And what of those common threads? A big one is stress - that is, any physical or psychological traumatic response. It’s worth looking into the major causes of stress at some point, which I will dive into later in this blog series.

In considering my own story of overcoming chronic Lyme, and helping others do the same, I developed a sketch of the underlying principles governing the cycle of chronic Lyme infection. This led me to the following insight: Lyme is caused by the conditions that allow for pathogenic opportunism (Borrelia Burgdorferi). It seems obvious, almost banal. However, in my opinion, these conditions are not given the proper weight in the therapeutic context. These conditions can be summed up in a word: stress.

Teasing Out the Stress Response In Lyme

Now, I’m not making an attempt to reduce chronic illness to stress. Stress in this case may be considered state-specific (i.e. adrenal stimulation), or atmospheric (generalized, chronic pressure on any part of the system). In either case, it is a habituated strain. So, let me unpack that a little bit.

Chronic stress has detrimental effects on the immune system. This leads to a state of pathogenic opportunism. When somebody is infected with Borrelia Burgdorferi, their immunity becomes hijacked, leading to inflammation and tissue degradation. Furthermore, this puts pressure on the system, leading to further stress, further immune dysregulation, and so on, creating a vicious feedback loop, which benefits the bacteria, and weakens their host.

This model doesn’t explain everything, but a lot can be explained by it. For instance, system hijack of the bacteria can lead to what’s known as the Cell Danger Response, which is a vicious auto-immunity cycle induced by the cellular response to threat.

In a word, it is the stress that creates the conditions for illness to thrive. Chronic stress is a pattern in people’s lives. It may be very subtle, but can be very taxing over the long haul. Diet, sleep patterns, sun exposure, exercise. Experience shows that when clients actively work on changing these patterns in a positive direction, their ability to heal becomes much more effective. This is because they are allowing their body to work for them - not against them. It creates a positive feedback loop to combat the downward spiral.

I call this an ecology of practices. It involves the participation of the whole person, not just the parts. Everybody has an instinct of what they should do, but sometimes don’t know how to help themselves. Creating a routine around basic human needs in service to survival isn’t just a ritual performed for its own sake, or a rule. It’s supported by ongoing research. For example, intermittent fasting, very common in the “feast or famine” days, promotes lean muscle mass as well as autophagy, an important detoxification strategy. Also, light exposure after sundown inhibits melatonin, which is one of the body’s most powerful antioxidants, more powerful than glutathione, and helps us sleep. Deep breathing stimulates the social engagement system via the vagus nerve, which downregulates stress. And that is just the beginning. It is helpful to have good guides on this journey to self-regulation, which is at the heart of chronic illness, including Lyme.

In this stressed out world, which breeds the conditions for chronic illness and immuno-fragility, what is needed is more awareness of the damaging effects of chronic stress - the rhythm of breakdown. In its stead, the rhythm of coherence - growth - should take its rightful place as our human inheritance. In the meantime, it is my hope to play a minor role in that shift.