Frequent Prescribed Fires Can Reduce Risk of Tick-borne Diseases

by Dr. Raymond Oenbrink | CIRS, Functional & Integrative Medicine, Lyme Disease & Atypical Infections

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-46377-4 Comment; Fight ticks with fire. I like it! Controlled burns can be good for wilderness areas, this may be an additional benefit. Elizabeth R. Gleim, Galina E. Zemtsova, Roy D. Berghaus, Michael L....

Erythromelalgia

by Dr. Raymond Oenbrink | CIRS, Functional & Integrative Medicine

Erythromelalgia Comment; a rare disease that causes a lot of distress, rarely recognized without any specific primary therapy–lots of ways to try to provide symptomatic relief though. General Discussion Erythromelalgia is a rare condition that primarily affects...

Is the Sunscreen Scare Legitimate?

by Dr. Raymond Oenbrink | Functional & Integrative Medicine, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/913130 Comment; So many things we think are totally safe–sunscreen for instance, may actually have harmful effects with regular use. More study is needed.

White House basement floods as heavy rains pound DC region

by Dr. Raymond Oenbrink | CIRS, Functional & Integrative Medicine

https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/white-house-basement-floods-as-heavy-rains-pound-dc-region/507-96d85d0f-2d38-4fff-bd7e-c4916ca8561a Comment; Sad to see so much damage, hopefully it’ll bring the plight of water-damaged buildings and mold-related CIRS to the...

‘We can change something’: These 13-year-olds found mold in their schools and did something about it

by Dr. Raymond Oenbrink | CIRS, ElectroMagnetic Field Sensitivity, Functional & Integrative Medicine

Source: Washington Post Comment; Amazing kids! It’s a shame school budgets cannot afford appropriate remediation and so many remediators are not up to speed on the technology required to diagnose and fix the problem. Add to that the fact that EMF exponentially...

Gut Bacteria Associated with Chronic Widespread Pain for the First Time.

by Dr. Raymond Oenbrink | Addiction, CIRS, Functional & Integrative Medicine, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)

https://muhc.ca/newsroom/news/gut-bacteria-associated-chronic-pain-first-time Comment; Something I’ve suspected for a long time, good to see research is panning out in this direction! People with fibromyalgia show variations in microbiome compositionJun 19, 2019...

Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing

by Dr. Raymond Oenbrink | Addiction, Functional & Integrative Medicine

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44097-3 Comment; Wow, 200-300 minutes, less than 5 hours/week is best for us to be outside, having green areas in the neighborhood is helpful, way to quantitate what we’ve always felt! Mathew P. White, Ian...

Malaria and Lyme disease – the largest vector-borne US epidemics in the last 100 years: success and failure of public health

by Dr. Raymond Oenbrink | CIRS, Functional & Integrative Medicine, Lyme Disease & Atypical Infections

https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-7069-6 Comment; Great comparison between Lyme & Malaria in terms of how we have approached both illnesses and the successes we’ve had as well as the differences in clinical presentations....

A Case of Babesiosis in a Pregnant Patient Treated with Red Blood Cell Exchange Transfusion

by Dr. Raymond Oenbrink | CIRS, Functional & Integrative Medicine, Lyme Disease & Atypical Infections

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/criog/2019/9869323/ Comment; Interesting case! Great care! How many places in the world would have been able to provide this level of such great care?...

Lyme Disease Bill Would Change Coverage Amid Controversy Over ‘Chronic’ Condition

by Dr. Raymond Oenbrink | CIRS, Functional & Integrative Medicine, Lyme Disease & Atypical Infections

https://www.wesa.fm/post/lyme-disease-bill-would-change-coverage-amid-controversy-over-chronic-condition#stream/0 Comment; Hard to diagnose, numerous false-negative lab tests, numerous treatment regimens with nebulous outcomes in a chronic, indolent illness that can...

Treatment Strategies for Neuroretinitis: Current Options and Emerging Therapies

by Dr. Raymond Oenbrink | CIRS, Functional & Integrative Medicine, Lyme Disease & Atypical Infections

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11940-019-0579-9 Comment; So many options with treatment–there should not be a “cookbook” approach; an individualized approach on a “per patient” basis is needed. Steroids may be useful with...

Atypical Lyme Neuroborreliosis, Guillain-Barré Syndrome or Conversion Disorder: Differential Diagnosis of Unusual Neurological Presentations

by Dr. Raymond Oenbrink | CIRS, Functional & Integrative Medicine, Lyme Disease & Atypical Infections

https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/499901 Comment; So hard to diagnose, false-negative labs, incredible variety of presentations–high index of suspicion needed. Case Rep Neurol 2019;11:142–147https://doi.org/10.1159/000499901...