Why There Is No One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Treating Lyme Disease

Hypothesis and Emerging Research

Some early observations support this concept (or parts of the theory), and there is scientific interest in elucidating exactly what’s at work.

Why There Is No One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Treating Lyme Disease

The New York Center for Innovative Medicine (NYCIM) uses a great analogy to describe its approach to treating Lyme disease: The body is like a house that has gotten messy with toxic invaders. If you’ve had courses of antibiotics, you’ve “exterminated” the spirochetes (the bacteria that lead to Lyme), but they are still lying around the house. NYCIM’s strategy involves scrubbing the house clean to get rid of them once and for all.

The integrated medicine practice is led by Thomas K. Szulc, M.D., who developed a complex evaluation system that draws on quantum science to analyze varied aspects of a patient’s health, including energetic aspects. While his treatment plan generally involves a five-phase protocol to “clean the house,” with a combination of physical, mental, and emotional therapies, Szulc explains that blanket approaches to complex conditions like Lyme don’t work, and that the emphasis is really on the individual: “We do not treat Lyme disease, but rather treat the patient with Lyme disease.” Here, Szulc shares his perspective on chronic Lyme and “the body’s unbelievable ability to heal.” (For multiple other perspectives on Lyme disease, see here.)

A Q&A with Dr. Thomas K. Szulc

How do you view chronic Lyme disease?

Generally, the marker for Lyme disease is the presence of a spiral-shaped bacteria, or spirochete, called borrelia. The first sign of Lyme disease was discovered in the town of Lyme, CT in the 1970’s, with the case of a young boy who suffered from severe arthritic joint pain. The spirochete that caused this condition was discovered by the scientist Wilhelm Burgdorfer—hence the full species name: Borrelia burgdorferi.

Lyme mimics many other conditions, which is why it’s difficult to diagnose. Plus, Lyme disease is typically confounded by the presence of other associated pathogenic organisms—such as viruses, other bacteria, fungus, and parasites. It represents not only a collapsed immune system, but several other multifactorial causes, which can be physical, mental-emotional, as well as more spiritual. Concerning the latter two levels, I see patients who are very often lost in their day-to-day, in their purpose, how they look at life, and what they see as their position in their family, larger groups, and society.

Any untreated condition has stages. The first stage of the condition, the acute stage, beginning with an initial presence of symptoms, might last, depending on what type of condition it is, up to three months. In a condition that has gone past this acute stage and into a chronic stage, things get tricky. Lyme may either go unrecognized or it may be treated inappropriately, or it doesn’t respond to conventional treatment at all and becomes a different adaptation of the body.

How did you develop your approach to treating Lyme?

Work, work, work. Study, study, study. Lyme is a complex condition, with so much going on in the background. You need to have an appreciation for the complexity of the disease, and for gaining as much knowledge and understanding as you can from patients. There is an art to medicine, and Lyme disease requires all the skills of this craft to rectify the situation and truly restore health. Ultimately, we want patients to be in control of their own health, to initiate a self-healing response, and help them to optimize immune function.

Innovative Medicine’s Five Phases of Lyme Disease Treatment

As Szulc and his team at Innovative Medicine (the company spinoff of the clinical practice at NYCIM, designed to spread his approach) explain: “With this approach, there is no set Lyme protocol—the aim is to identify all underlying dysfunctions and contributing factors, and personalize and prioritize each patient’s treatment. What may be right for one patient does not mean it is right for another. Although each patient will require a tailored approach with great specificity, there is a pattern that Innovative Medicine sees that is often associated with the successful treatment of patients suffering from Lyme disease.” Here’s how Innovative Medicine describes it:

1. Identify underlying causes of all dysfunctions on all levels—physical, emotional, and mental.

2. Begin a prioritized and comprehensive treatment plan. The first stage of treatment is generally three to four weeks long, and includes oral and intravenous methods of detoxification and drainage, improving tissue oxygenation, restoring proper pH and inner milieu (our body’s environment), and an initial stage of anti-microbial therapies—all personalized.

3. Correct energetic imbalances: Many patients have underlying energy imbalances. In order to correct this, a variety of methods may be used, potentially including therapies such as ACMOS energy balancing (an advanced system out of France that combines elements of acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine), sound wave therapy, or color therapy.

4. Personalized pathogen-related treatment may last three to four weeks and consists of individualized protocols for aggressive anti-microbial treatments with natural compounds that target pathogens, continued detoxification, nutritional support, and emotional support.

5. If residual problems are present—a patient may have dental issues, heavy-metal toxicity, an ongoing emotional/mental conflict, etc.—additional, tailored therapies may be needed.

Have you found certain therapies to be most effective for your Lyme patients?

Every patient is very different—even those with the same diagnosis—so every patient requires different types of treatment.

We need to take into consideration questions like: What types of disturbances has the patient experienced in their life? What factors are contributing to the poor function of the immune system? Is it related to high levels of toxicity, changing of the biological terrain, pH, the metabolism of the body?

Each of us is unique. At NYCIM, we always explain that we do not treat Lyme disease, but rather treat the patient with Lyme disease (or with any other condition). There are some incredible integrative therapies (some listed above) that aim to correct root causes of major dysfunctions, but we cannot take a blanket approach. We must use as much specificity as possible in order to succeed in the face of complex conditions such as Lyme disease.

A Glossary of Potential Therapies

Again, in all goop’s conversation with Dr. Szulc and his team, it can’t be overstated how significantly treatments to any condition are personalized. While neither the sole answer or cure, below are Innovative Medicine’s descriptions of some therapies that they’ve found can be helpful for numerous patients (not every patient will receive each, or necessarily any)—when part of a larger, individualized treatment:

NYCIM’s oral and intravenous methods of detox and drainage draw in part on European biological medicine, which includes herbal therapies, homeopathy, a focus on nutrients for health, and more.

To improve tissue and overall oxygenation, treatments like ultraviolet blood irradiation (UBI) may be beneficial. Introduced in the 1930’s to combat the polio virus, UBI exposes the blood to specific ultraviolet light, which has a detoxifying effect that can enhance the body’s immune response and ability to fight infections.

Ozone therapy is also an intravenous oxidative therapy, first used to treat various medical conditions in Germany in the early 1950’s. A blue-colored form of oxygen, ozone is unlike regular oxygen in that it is composed of three oxygen atoms instead of two—it’s the third oxygen atom that makes ozone “supercharged.” (You may be familiar with the presence of ozone in the environment—think of the smell after a lightning storm.) Ozone is a powerful oxidizer (toxins and pathogens in the body are typically burnt up by the process of oxidation). Ozone interacts with double bonds found in amino acids and lipids to form peroxides. These peroxides can penetrate cell membranes and increase oxygenation of intracellular compounds (NADH and FADH2) that are involved with energy production. Ozone therapy can also boost the uptake of oxygen by stimulating the DPG enzyme, which supports the release of oxygen from the hemoglobin molecule so that it can be used by the cell. The goal of all of this is to increase oxygen utilization so that the body’s cells are working efficiently, in turn enhancing many organ functions in the body, hormonal regulation, digestion, and elimination.

During air energy, a non-invasive oxygen therapy, patients inhale the high-energy state (singlet oxygen) of air, which is the physiologically active form of oxygen, more readily absorbed by the body. This helps to regenerate cellular functions, can promote healthy sleep, and strengthen the immune system, as well as metabolic regulation.

Another focus during this phase is restoring proper body environment. One treatment is biomagnetic therapy, where the + and – poles of 1000 gauss magnets are placed over different organs to shift the body’s natural pH and bring balance to the biological terrain. To survive, our bodies must maintain a pH very close to 7.4 (just on the alkaline side of neutral), and it appears that disease/dysfunction in a part of the body is related to a distortion in the pH level. So, biogmagnetic therapy uses pairs of magnets of opposite charges to depolarize areas in the body that may be unbalanced due to pathogens or other factors that resonate energetically and vibrationally.

What kind of diet do you recommend for Lyme patients?

For patients in a compromised state, I recommend a diet plan that supports cellular function and detoxifies the body. The goal is to nourish without adding extra burden. While every diet is extremely individual, one overarching key is avoiding toxins regularly found in our food supply—everything from mercury to pesticides like glyphosate. We look to release burdens imposed on the lymphatic system, and improve digestion and the function of the organs of elimination—like the liver, kidneys, and colon—to restore the patient’s ability to improve their own immune system, and induce a self-healing response. In order to achieve this, we need to eat foods that are alkalizing so that we have a healthy pH and environment where pathogens cannot survive. This includes all leafy greens & vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, millet, and oats), and fruit. We also focus on quality: opting for organic, non-GMO, and unadulterated produce over processed products with long shelf-lives and added chemical preservatives.

Can you explain the testing technique you developed, Bioresonance Analysis of Health?

In general, conventional medical tests are based in Newtonian science from the 17th century. They have the ability to show our biochemical function as well as pathological manifestation, but only very seldom do they reveal the causes of conditions, which are not always obvious when symptoms manifest in our bodies.

Quantum science looks at the interconnection between everything that exists in this universe. Everything, including us, has some field of energy with specific characteristics, and each organ and cell in our body omits energy frequencies. Bioresonance Analysis of Health (BAH) is an evaluation method that, in part, utilizes resonance techniques to evaluate the body’s frequencies via blood work, and helps determine what kind of pathological factors contribute to the condition of any given patient.

So, while a typical blood test would use blood chemistry to see how someone might deviate from a preset reference range, BAH also evaluates an individual from an energetic point of view. With BAH, we can evaluate toxicity, pathogens, stresses, tissue pH, the function of the autonomic nervous system, nutritional deficiencies, allergies, and dysbiosis (microbial imbalance). Overall, the method takes into account how every person is unique—from pathogens to genes, gene expression, toxic exposures, environmental stressors, and emotional trauma—to come up with a treatment plan that is highly individualized and compatible with the patient. It is like a truthful conversation with the patient’s inner intelligence.

How is this different from the conventional approach?

The conventional approach to medicine pays attention to and tries to control the manifestations of disease, which are mostly symptoms. This new approach is looking for the causes of dysfunction. The body has an unbelievable ability to heal—we are all able to heal ourselves, and we are constantly adapting to do this. If we can eliminate factors that interfere with this ability—whether it be mental stresses or exposure to toxins like heavy metals—the body is then able to take over and heal itself.

Long-term, what’s important for maintaining health and well-being?

First, making sure you’re getting the appropriate quantity and quality of nutrients in good quality forms. It’s also essential that your system is running efficiently to eliminate waste materials, which you can support very simply by drinking more water and avoiding foods that slow down the function of the organs of elimination—such as dairy, red meat, and alcohol, for example. State of mind is likewise very important—that you feel joy and happiness—and that your spiritual position is selfless and serving. Raising our state of consciousness, we see how higher states such as love, joy, acceptance, and courage can facilitate a healing response. By promoting positive mental attitudes and consciously learning to relax, we can greatly affect our health in positive and affirming ways.