Could ME be caused by parasites in the brain?

May be reposted:

Could ME be caused by parasites in the brain?

Anyone with ME knows that our muscles, brains and nerves are under
attack. Logically, there must be something that has either damaged
our brains, and the nerves that leave the brain and spine to control
our muscles, or there is something that is still continually
attacking our whole nervous system.

What sort of thing, apart from trauma to the brain through accidents
etc, can do this? Most doctors end up by saying we must have had a
virus, after they've ruled out things like diabetes, thyroid disease
and blood disorders such as anaemia.

They will of course have checked that we don't have one of the nasty
viruses, or at least one would hope so, and as long as we don't have
something as contagious as AIDS (which is a public health risk) and
we are not dangerously ill or dieing, then we are left to recover as
best we can.

Anti-viral drugs are very expensive but some such as Acyclovir are
used to treat certain Herpes virus infections. Even without anti-
viral drugs, many viral infections usually diminish with time, so the
normal medical treatment would be to order rest and recuperation, and
perhaps to take well-proven supplements to strengthen our immune
systems.

But how many of us are aware that there are bacterial and parasitic
infections that can cause the very same symptoms as ME? The bacteria
and parasites can cross into the brain and cause anything from
fatigue to schizophrenia, or from movement disorders to outright
psychoses.

Hundreds of millions of people in the world are infected by the
malarial parasite, which is carried by mosquitoes, and which causes
great fatigue and death. There is a chance of catching malaria in the
UK but the symptoms would not normally be confused with the ones seen
in ME. There could be a problem though that strong healthy people in
Britain have parasites like malaria and are not showing full-blown
symptoms.

In the warmer regions of the world, over 250 million people are
affected by such diseases as onchocerciasis (river blindness) and
trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness, and the similar variation, Chagas
Disease). In temperate zones like ours, there is an infection called
Lyme disease, spread by the bites of ticks and possibly by mosquitoes
and flies, which is now believed to have infected over 20 million
Americans and hundreds of thousands of Europeans.

Onchocerciasis is caused by a tiny roundworm, called a nematode,
while a protozoan (a single-celled organism like an amoeba) causes
trypanosomiasis. Lyme disease is due to a bacterium, a very unusual
bacterium related to the one that causes Weil's disease and the one
that causes Syphilis

Onchocerciasis rarely leads to blindness, so the name river blindness
is a bit misleading. Usually, the victims suffer fatigue, malaise,
backache, headache and many other symptoms that ruin their lives long
before they go blind.

Trypanosomiasis is more deadly but tends to occur in sporadic
epidemics. Lyme disease, however, causes symptoms and even genetic
markers for disease that are identical to those seen in ME. The UK
government, when pressed, admitted recently that Lyme disease could
cause ME.

But why worry about these things then, unless we travel a great deal
to tropical or equatorial areas? Or frequently get bitten by ticks?
And why worry even then, when we have such state of the art medicine
in the UK, which would soon detect any parasitic infection and
rapidly treat it?

Unfortunately, it's becoming obvious that the UK has been hopeless at
identifying people with these diseases. There is documented evidence
from a clever and dedicated researcher, that onchocerciasis has been
repeatedly missed as the cause of fatiguing illness, especially in
armed forces veterans. My own research over the last 4 years has led
me to discover that tick-borne infections have been ignored and under-
diagnosed in Britain. This is despite evidence from the World Health
Organisation that Lyme disease was already widespread and endemic in
Britain in 1989.

The latest medical knowledge, from several medical sources, is that
ticks are carrying the Lyme bacterium, protozoan infections, semi-
virus like organisms called Rickettsias, and also, perhaps worst of
all, they are capable of transmitting nematode worms. They are not
exactly like the nematodes seen in onchocerciasis, but are equally
dangerous.

Some people believe that a worm infection could be preventing many
people from getting better even though they have received
antibiotics. Specific drugs have to be used to get rid of nematode
worms. In Egypt from 2002 onwards, the whole population was given
Ivermectin and other drugs over a 4-year period, because nematode
infections are so widespread there.

I have personally spoken to 5 Lyme patients who have had samples of
their blood taken so that it could be viewed under the microscope.
They have actual photos, taken down the microscope, of these strange
worms swimming in their blood. The worms are believed to block our
lymph vessels and perhaps the small blood vessels. They probably hide
from our immune systems in the lungs and intestine.

Some people with ME who have had successful therapy with herbs,
especially Chinese herbs, may have unknowingly been killing nematode
worms. Ancient peoples knew they were vulnerable to parasites, but it
is something we seem to have forgotten about in the modern age.

There are many others with Lyme disease who have written on the
Internet that they have begun to take anti-worming medicine such as
Ivermectin. It is still early days yet, as to whether people will be
able to be cured; the treatment has to be taken repeatedly over a
long time..

For the last 3 years, questions have been asked in parliament about
the numbers of undiagnosed cases of Lyme disease and tick-borne
diseases in general - (reply: "not known or even looked for") and the
adequacy of the diagnostic tests - (reply: "tests are completely top
notch and rarely miss a case, but we are trying to find better
ones"). Everyone wonders how the Health Ministry can say one minute
that the tests are fine, then the next minute that they are working
really hard to develop better ones.

The government are either completely ignorant about the situation, or
have decided for some reason that they don't think there is really a
problem.

No one really knows how many people with ME could have parasitic
infections. Hardly anyone will have been tested for them, and even
the tests for the borrelia infection of Lyme disease are said to miss
at least 50% of cases. It might not just be tick bites that carry
these diseases because the Lyme bacterium has been found in many of
the biting insects and flies. There is even evidence that the disease
can be passed from mother to child, or through intimate contact.

Everyone has parasites in their bodies; some of them are "friendly
bacteria" and most of them, even tiny nematode worms, are harmless
because our immune systems can usually keep them at a low level. We
pick things up from the soil, our pets, even from dust particles in
the air.

A friend who lived in South Africa told me that every 6 months, she
and her family, as well as the pets, would all be given worming
tablets. It was regarded as a normal sensible thing to do. In the
UK, there are over-the-counter drugs such as Pripsen, which we can
take to get rid of tapeworms or threadworms. But the nematode type of
worm, the microfilaria which we can't see without a microscope, will
not be cured by the Pripsen type of medicine, especially if the
infection has been in our bodies for more than a few months.

It's a good idea though, to perhaps think of worming ourselves on a
regular basis, because it could at least slow down any nematodes.
Perhaps we all need to go to the vets!