Bartonella
Oh Bartonella, where do we start?
We have identified about 25 different Bartonella bacteria that infect humans and w aide range of other animals. Not all Bartonella species cause disease in humans. Bartonella lives inside red blood cells and the blood vessels. It attacks the heart valves and causes heart valves to fail. It prefers to attach the “heart strings” or the chordae tendonae that attach the heart muscle to the valve.
Have you ever heard of someone having a heart valve replaced with a pig heart valve? Bartonella lives in the red blood cells but it has a life cycle. During this life cycle it must exit the red blood cells and reproduce. It will rupture the red blood cell from the inside, become an active infection, cause damage to the body, and then cycles back into the red blood cells and hides to complete the reproductive cycle.
Bartonella invades red blood cells. It takes over them and causes them to rupture.
You need a healthy immune system will minimize the infections from these bacteria. This is true of all disease. As long as your immune system is strong you can essentially “call a truce” with Bartonella and live with it in harmony.
truce
dis·ease
Here is what it does:
Up until about 15 years ago we only attributed three diseases caused by Bartonella. These were Cat Scratch Fever, Trench Fever, and Carrion’s Disease. 20,000 people get Cat Scratch Disease in the United States each year bad enough to report it. We don’t know much about this disease that we get.
The reality is that this is just one of many, many, many things that our body (immune system) is constantly fighting. Even if you don’t have Lyme or Bartonella you are still exposed to this. You are exposed to people who have this daily. It’s amazing how efficient our immune system is until that day when it gets overwhelmed.
Bartonella is scientifically known to cause liver disease (Hepatitis), heart disease (Endocarditis), and brain disease (encephalopathy). Bartonella attacks our blood, our organs, and our brain. It damages these organs because it need the nutrients that the organs are made out of.
Look at how brilliant these bacteria are. Here is an example. These bacteria need nutrients to survive. The organ is made of nutrients. Bartonella like the heart. Specifically they like the heart valves. So they go cause an infection of the heart valve. Now, it takes energy to break the heart valve down so that the bacteria can eat it. It is easier on Bartonella if the nutrients are brought to them in their raw form. So the infection starts when Bartonella causes an infection – Boom! it damages the heart tissue. The immune system detects the damage and comes to inspect the heart valve. It sees that the valve is inflamed and needs repair.
This stage is very important because it has a specific set of systems that affects a specific location. It is a disease.
One hallmark presentation of this disease is the pain and damage comes and goes. The pain and damage is continual and it repeats over and over. There is usually no reason why it comes or goes either, it just keeps getting flared up. Look for these similarities- they are important for getting an accurate diagnosis.
So, the bacteria don’t want to waste energy. It takes energy to break down the tissue but they have evlved over time and the bacteria have found a weakness in us. Here it is- here is one immune system weakness. When Bartonella cause the damage they found out that in just a little short while our body brought in the nutrients they needed in the first place. And – Bonus- the ingredients hadn’t been processed into muscle yet. They were in their raw state.
Imagine this scenario: You have a building and it’s not safe anymore. The wall has been damaged and the bricks need to be replaced. You have two options on getting your supplies. This is the strategy Bartonella has evolved to get it’s nutrients. 1. Would you rather take the old bricks, knock the concrete off of them, and then rebuild the damaged spot house with the old bricks. or 2. Have some new bricks brought to you with new concrete and all the other equipment you might need to fix the repair?
The Bartonella needs the bricks. That is the nutrients that it needs from the body tissue. The bacteria went and stole some bricks from the heart valve. It knew that in just a short while the body was going to bring in a flood of nutrients and then the bacterial feast would begin.
Pardon me while I munch on this heart. Hold off on the brain for awhile, shall we?
Now all things must come to an end at some point. The immune system will smarten up after awhile. Our immune system is really smart but these bacteria have a huge back of tricks they evolved to use the immune system against itself. Once one bacteria figure out a weakness they tell the rest of their buddies. Believe me. You many not know how many different infections you have. But Bartonella does. It absolutely knows which co-infections are they’re and it shares its secrets with the rest. You see, when one infection gets stronger then they all get stronger. They grow in strength when there’s more of them. It is in the bacteria’s best interests to spread knowledge on how to outsmart the immune system.
When the immune system gets a hold on the inflammation it will cause the bacteria to go and hide. It’s kind of like cops and robbers. That’s a very good analogy. The cops are the immune system and the robbers are the bacteria. The robbers of health. When the cops come around they run the robbers off. The infection goes away and it becomes silent. Whatever pain and symptoms you were having has passed. Maybe you think think it was the antibiotics. What is really happening i that the infection is in control and it it letting you have a break from it for awhile. Don’t worry, due to the cyclical nature of this disease the symptoms will likely be back.
These repeated cycles of inflammation cause damage over time. Scar tissue is never as strong as the original. Things degenerate. These bacteria infect our blood cells and what happens is they cycle in and out of the blood cell. When they are inside the cells they are being quiet. They are dormant. They are not active and all is quiet. At some point the bacteria are going to come out of the cell. At this point the Bartonella is in fluid outside of the cells. It becomes active and it starts damaging tissue. The cycle of inflammation starts and the pain returns for no reason. The robbers are on the loose. Sirens sound. The immune system assesses the damage and goes to repair it. The brain, liver, or whatever area Bartonella has set up in, would be inflamed at this point. It would hurt or have symptoms of malfunction. Something would be going on inside you. Reoccurring encephalopathy or brain infection could be a symptom. During this part of of the life cycle Bartonella is at it’s happiest. It’s getting fed. Bartonella likes iron and chooses tissues high in iron. The body just virtually brought an all you can eat buffet of nutrients. It scavenges nutrients off the host tissue. This scenario is eventually too good to be true because the body will catch on eventually. The immune system has a little bit of a lag and then it finally catches up. The Bartonella infections feast on nutrients before the cops come and run them off. The cycle of the infection now moves on to immune system repair. The cops come and try to run the infections away. The bacteria disappear.
Or so it would seem. The reality of the situation is that the bacteria are still all there. They are just hidden. This is what they do that is evolutionarily brilliant. Here is it – This is their secret. All they did is go back into the blood cells. The bacteria change shape and enter the cells. They go from outside the cells to the inside of the cells. This is another fine example of their evolutionary brilliance and this is one reason why we will never get rid of these infections. When they change shape they actually get rid of DNA that they don’t need. When they lose this DNA they can no longer support their shape and they lose the information required to hold their outer membrane. They literally lose their DNA, which causes them to lose their outer skin, and POOF! they disappear.
The Borrellia change shape and enter the cells. Once inside the cells they are hidden from the immune system.
Once the bacteria are back inside the cells then the inflammatory destructive episode is over. The active infectious moment has passed but the chronic infection remains. Antibiotics stop working on infections once they are hidden back inside the cells. You see, the antibiotics work on that skin that the bacteria shed when it wanted to go back into the cells and hide. Research says that short term antibiotics are not always the answer for a long term problem.
This completes the cycle.
Can you see how brilliant and smart these parasitic bacteria are? They don’t want to kill us they just want to slowly consume us from the inside. They cause crippling pain and joint destruction. Bartonella also infect the our heart valves and cause them to go bad. Joints don’t just go bad. Heart valves don’t just go bad, They get infected. The infections cause cycles of destruction until the organ or joint is destroyed. Bartonella infections also inflame our brains and cause it to not function quite right. Sometimes we get symptoms like depression, memory loss, rage, even body pain. These infections use up our energy and keep our body from functioning properly. They eat away at our muscles and tendons and cause us to feel old before our time. They cause us to have repeated back injuries and pulled muscles. Our diets just feed them. They cause chronic widespread pain. Anyone with chronic pain needs to detox their bodies. Can you see how this ongoing persistent cycle of symptoms matches up with how you feel from day to day? This is exactly the reason we need to detox and strengthen our immune systems if we are ever going to truly get better.
This is the human body louse.
Flagellated Bartonella
Bartonella bug. Notice the tails they use for propulsion!
Testing for Trench Fever involved rubbing body louse feces into scratched human skin.
These warm areas are where body lice are found on humans and animals.
Human body louse.
Scanning electron microscope. Body lice must feed on blood and usually only move to the skin to feed.
The physical condition might symbolize the underlying strength of your immune system. That can mean different things to different people. However your symptoms clearly does demonstrate the state of your immune system. If you need to get over a certain health issue then figure out why you’re stuck from healing on up. Your body wants to heal itself but it seems you might be stuck somewhere. I advise focusing you efforts on either Detoxification, Heavy Metal Chelation, or Nutritional Supplementation.
The answer to why you are stuck in your progress physically lies somewhere in one of these three actions. You probably know in your gut what you need to change if you get real honest with yourself. Is now the time to do it? Have you suffered enough from this condition that you are ready for a complete change? This is what we have found that it takes. My elders say that if nothing changes then nothing changes and it is true here. We have to clean up the environment that these infections live in. True health will come from within. This is an inside job..
Bartonella are bacterial parasites. A parasite derives nutrients at the expense of it’s host. It gives you nothing in return- in fact it also poisons you as it releases toxins. Bartonella bacteria live in cats, dogs, cattle, rodents, fleas, biting flies, human body lice, the white footed mouse, and we believe ticks. The evidence for ticks carrying Bartonella is circumstantial but fairly strong. Isn’t that crazy that we’re not even sure if Bartonella comes from ticks? We know that people with Lyme Disease sometimes have the co-infection Bartonella too. We just haven’t proven it yet. We really know very little about this disease. Common sense says Yes we probably get it from ticks too. How do we get rid of it- that’s what we really care about.
Bartonella is tough to treat. It is hard to spot based on symptoms alone. There are a few things to watch for and if you start seeing these things then consider Bartonella.
Symptoms of Bartonella
It does cause an unusual streaked rash that resembles stretch marks on the chest, abdomen, back, legs, and shoulders. They are not your typical stretch marks from weight gain/loss. Pictures clearly demonstrate the difference.
These are normal stretch marks
Notice how normal stretch marks are in a normal location. Nothing unusual here.
These are not normal stretch marks. The body does not normally get stretch marks in this location. If it doesn’t look right it’s because it’s not right. Trust what your gut tells you. Check it out.
Can you see why they call this version Catch Scratch Disease?
Bartonella can be transmitted from mother to baby. It can cause miscarriages and neurological developmental disabilities. It’s hard to do blood tests because other diseases like Rickettsia, Chlamydia and Q fever can cause false positives. Antibiotics seem to stop it from multiplying but they won’t kill it.
Let me explain to you how this disease works. The bacteria have this ability to live inside the red blood cells. When things are inside the red blood cells they are hidden from the immune system. The immune system is looking for invaders outside of the red blood cells- they worm in the bloodstream. The bloodstream is full of stuff other than red blood cells like the lymph fluid. Bartonella remain in the red blood cells some of the time but not all of the time. They have a life cycle and at some point they come popping out of thee red blood cells. They are not protected anymore. At this point they become an active infection and they start damaging tissue. They damage the tissue because they need the nutrients that the immune system brings with it when it starts healing the inflammation. The immune response brings nutrients that the Bartonella needed. Once the immune system starts noticing the Bartonella it cycles back into the cells and hides. Antibiotics for the infection will also cause the Bartonella to go back into the cells and go dormant for awhile. This is how the disease comes and goes through activity and back to remission again. It happens over and over and before you know it you need a pig heart valve and a new knee.
We have identified about 25 different Bartonella bacteria that infect humans and w aide range of other animals. Not all Bartonella species cause disease in humans. Bartonella lives inside red blood cells and the blood vessels. It attacks the heart valves and causes heart valves to fail. It prefers to attach the “heart strings” or the chordae tendonae that attach the heart muscle to the valve.
Have you ever heard of someone having a heart valve replaced with a pig heart valve? Bartonella lives in the red blood cells but it has a life cycle. During this life cycle it must exit the red blood cells and reproduce. It will rupture the red blood cell from the inside, become an active infection, cause damage to the body, and then cycles back into the red blood cells and hides to complete the reproductive cycle.
Bartonella invades red blood cells. It takes over them and causes them to rupture.
You need a healthy immune system will minimize the infections from these bacteria. This is true of all disease. As long as your immune system is strong you can essentially “call a truce” with Bartonella and live with it in harmony.
truce
dis·ease
The symptoms of Cat Scratch Disease usually goes away with time. Bartonella is a promiscuous little bacterium that infects both cats and humans. When cats are infected they show no symptoms and that makes it hard for researchers to catch the disease. Expect it to last 2-4 months with swollen lymph nodes. We don’t even know if the antibiotics even help. If someone has a compromised immune system (HIV) and contracts Bartonella if can get aggressive. It has the potential to infect the brain. If they find Bartonella Henslae in the spinal fluid treatment will likely need to be aggressive also. Doctors sometimes use antibiotics that will cross the blood brain barrier.
Blood stain showing Bartonella henselae in human heart valve. The bacteria appear as black round spots. Infection is everywhere.
Bartonella is a bacterial infection. We know how to kill bacterial infections. Ozone and bio-oxidative therapies can kill bacterial infections. Our own immune system cells use a similar process that naturally kills bacterial infections. This is how the immune system kills infections. What is does to things is it oxidizes them. Our body has a system to protect us called the antioxidant system. It protects us from being oxidized. Anti- means “against”. -oxidize means to be broken down by oxygen. Oxygen is the power of the earth and one of it’s roles is to breaks some things down. Antioxidant means not to be broken down by oxygen.
We have antioxidants. We are safe.
Bacteria don’t have antioxidants. They can be oxidized. To kill them effectively you can oxidize them using the power of oxygen.
No harmful side effects because we are protected by our antioxidant system.
That is the basis of the bio-oxidative detox.
So our cells kill infections by burning them up through a process called oxidation. This is how it works. What our immune system does when it needs to kill something is it surrounds this object. The immune system covers the object up and then it shoots hydrogen peroxide onto this invader. By this process our immune cells naturally oxidizes bacterial and viral infections using a process called the Respiratory Burst.
This Respiratory Burst plays an important role in the immune system. It is a crucial reaction that occurs for cells to break down internalized particles and bacteria.
Respiratory burst (sometimes called Peroxide Burst) is the rapid release of activated oxygen (superoxide radical and hydrogen peroxide) for the purpose of bringing out the big guns. Different types of cells have this ammo called hydrogen peroxide. Our body also has an enzyme called Catalase the can neutralize peroxide. If Superoxides and Peroxides are the fire then Catalase is the fire extinguisher. Our human body has numerous systems to protect itself from being oxidized. The enzyme Catalase is part of that anti-oxidant system.
The peroxide burst in action! The bacteria will be oxidized.
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