I met with Dr Zhang last week and I think he is an amazing man/physician/ herbalist with much promise to chronic sufferers. We spent 2 hours talking and I have already felt some improvement in my elbow neuritis/dental neuralgias/nausea/ and energy.

Let me share some of what I learned. As I think this is key to full recovery from this disease.

Lyme is an infectious disease but it is much more as most of you realize. There is an autoimmune piece which must be addressed and is not addressed by using antibiotics alone. As you kill the various infections, an antibody response develops, with immune complexes (bugs attached to antibodies) that deposit in the membranes of your nerves and vessels. These immune complexes cause inflammation and autoimmune disease ensues. Just like what occurs in Lupus or Rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren's.... This process is of course different for everyone depending on their underlying immune status and genetic tendencies- hence the wide variablity of symptoms. Some people have an easy ride, others difficult, probably due to ongoing untreated co-infections and more severe autoimmune response. Autoimmune disease accounts for so many Lyme symptoms such as neuritius, neuropathy, muscle pain, and vasculitis (inflammation of the blood vessels) leading to headache/depression/mental fog/Sjogren's/ Raynaud's...).

In addition to this immune problem there is what the Chinese call "Blood Stagnation"-- it is sometimes recognized in the West as hypercoaguable blood with abnormal clotting studies- but often the clotting studies are "normal". Most chronic infections and illness is accompanied by blood stagnation, causing symptoms such as nausea, breast pain, hormone imbalance, irritabiltiy, headache, depression......both the autoimmune response and the blood stagnation much be addressed. It is not enough to simply kill organisms in the blood.

In addition to these principles antibiotic therapy, though vital, is limited. Antibiotics are large molecules which can not penetrate inside of cysts and tissues. To treat these areas you must use treatments capable of being taken up in the tissues (Samento, Una de Gato, Flagyl, etc) ....but what I found unique about Zhang's protocol is that he has isolated the active ingredients of some herbs, such as Artemesinin, that is a very tiny molecule capable of passing into tissues and cysts (his artemsiae remedy is more potent than artemesin for this reason. This is very exciting and a great breakthrough in Lyme disease treatment.

To summarize I feel you need: antibiotics to kill organisms, with immune support (vitamin D3, K2, mushrooms, ..), treatments for immune complex disease (Dr Zhang has a formula perhaps others know of others) and treatment of blood stagnation (the Chinese do this the best I feel).

Hope this makes some sense and gives you hope. I firmly believe that Lyme disease is curable. FYI The treatments for AIDS are derived from the Chinese Cucumber Plant, (Dr Zhang also pioneered much work in that field)......