Blood supply

[kathloj]

A couple comments on the video:

It's scary to think that our blood supply could be compromised. Has anyone read anything about this?

A friend of mine is concerned that her daughter's fiancee's mother, diagnosed with MS may actually have Lyme. Apparently she had a tick embedded in her scalp as a child, and now exhibits MS symptoms as diagnosed by her neurologist. She is concerned that it if it is actually Lyme Disease, it may have been passed down to the fiancee in vitro, and then could possibly get passed on to his kids, her grandchildren, once they start a family. She doesn't know how to broach it with the Mother-In-law to be, as she does not seem open to comments that Lyme and MS could be one and the same.
Any takes on this?

[kathloj]

Excellent idea about the broad spectrum. Good to keep in mind for emergency surgery should one need a transfusion with it!

[Ricobord]

Yes, it is scary.  And a good reminder to refuse a transfusion unless it's absolutely necessary.

I think they should give a broad spectrum antibiotic along with a week or two of mepron to all blood transfusion recipients. It would certainly cut down on transfusion transmitted infections.

[kathloj]

That is scary. One should stock their own supply of blood if they can, pre surgery!

[Ricobord]

Our blood supply is indeed compromised, primarily by lack of good testing to find tick borne diseases.  Babesia was discovered in the blood supply after a number of sickle cell kids who get transfusions were dying from a mysterious disease.  They went looking for it in the blood and finally found Babesia.  

Studies looking at symptom-less blood donors have found between 1-10% of "healthy" people tested on the East Coast had asymptomatic Babesia.  They weren't sick, but when their blood is given to someone with a compromised immune system, the receipient gets sick.  Who knows how many people are suffering from Babesia they got from a transfusion and they go undiagnosed because their doctors don't think to look for it, especially in people who are unlikely to pick up a tick?

There was a poster on this forum not long ago who got bad cases of Lyme, Bartonella, and Babesia.  She believed she got it from a transfusion from a surgery not long before her symptoms started.  The CDC still insists that Lyme is not caught through blood transfusions in spite of these cases.  My perception (and I'm not a microbiologist or doctor), is that when you get it through a transfusion, you don't have the skin transmission process and so the antibody development is different.  The people I've heard say they think they got it through a transfusion all said they tested negative for Lyme.

As long as the CDC insists that their tests are definitive, they can continue to deny cases of Lyme that test false negative.  In the meantime, there's no good screening tests for the blood supply for these illnesses.  If there were, we could use them on people with symptoms, too, thereby ending all the conflict about who has a TBD and who doesn't.  You'd think this would be a priority for the CDC, but it's not.

[kathloj]

Sorry, I thought the video was attached to this post. It's on another one, but I'll add it here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXcCXFdDi20

[kathloj]

That sounds like a very fair and reasonable approach Jackie! :)

[kathloj]

Yes, I keep hearing more and more a connection between MS and Lyme. It should be up to neurologists to recommend their MS patients get tested for Lyme Disease.

[nutrinut_bob]

There's something else in the blood supply, something that's been circulating since the mid 50s.  SV40 and it's large and small T-antigens.  It too can cause MS-like symptoms.  Spirochetes would be fairly easy to find in someone's blood, but the t-antigens, which by themselves can cause disease, wouldn't be.  I know I received the Salk polio vaccine back in the 62-63 school year, but I was able to sell plasma while going to college, plasma that I was told was going to be used to make tetanus boosters.

[JackieCalifornia]

Is there a reason to confront the mother in law about this situation?  It won't change anything, if I understand the situation correctly.  The fiance(e) can be tested without any involvement of the mother in law, and then deal with the situation just between the spouses.

[mojogal]

I believe all MS is Lyme. I was diagnosed with MS and many others were too. This morning on a Good Morning America they reported that a gluten free diet got rid of MS. Spells Lyme Disease to me.