Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group why not target klebsiella?

having gone through all this material...i am left wondering...why diet...why everything else...why not kill klebsiella? if we have such advanced antibiotics against other pathogens...why cant we just figure out a way to kill or eliminate klebsiella from the gut? wouldn't that be simpler and more effective? are there medicines which serve to reduce klebsiella numbers? because that can then form an easy test to figure out whether the diet would work or not. if medication that can kill klebsiella also leads to reduction in symptoms then it means there is a causative link. yes?

Yup, you can do this. Check out www.roadback.org and rheumatic.org. Low dose antibiotic therapy with anibiotics in the tetracycline family.

well Kleb are a natural part of the gut. They will repopulate over time. You would need to constantly be taking antibiotics for a long time or at least in repeating cycles until your gut healed. The bacteria will became immune to the antibiotic over time. Gut Flora is very different then treating an infected wound or a normal bacteria infection. I doubt you could ever totally wipe them out anyway

We actually don't have an antibiotic that works well for kleb. It is a very tough germ to eliminate anymore as it is resistant to most of what we have on the market. Tetra used to work but for most of us the Kleb is now resistant to them

there were some trials with antibiotics to treat AS and the results were mixed at best

Hi, disk:

This particular pathogen is very genetically diverse and it is very easy to "select out" resistive strains. One fellow discovered Cipro to treat his AS and got into near-total remission for almost a year before the colonies were reestablished with Cipro-resistive strains. He ignored diet, taking only the antibiotics and he said his AS came back "...with a vengeance!"

Once the Ebringer material is accepted universally, there will be better methods to fight Klebsiella spp such as macrophage therapy, and also much better methods to assess disease activity.

Until then, we are stuck waiting for the medical establishment to catch up with medical science. Some of us just refuse to wait any longer.

I take antibiotics in cycles (in combination with strict and sometimes not-too-strict diet) and this has worked for 12 years and counting [knock wood], but these drugs have their own set(s) of side effects, so caution is important.

So the answer to Your question is YES! I put Ebringer's claims to the most rigorous test and they held up, but still, how to go about it--long-term--is the primary issue.

HEALTH,
John

Has anyone done any thinking about why the diet works really well with some people and not so well with others? Given that there now seem to be several gene markers that correlate to AS, and not everyone is positive on them all, it does make me wonder if for example people who are HLA B27 negative are more or less likely to respond to diet. Or people with one of the other markers?

i really do believe science needs to begin making better use of communities such as these to find out what is going on. i cant understand why medical students and researchers do not habitually and compulsorily trawl these sites and also encourage more of us to get more precise and descriptive with our histories and experiences to be able to utilise all of this data to move the needle up higher on the research expressway to finding cures and unravelling disease pathways. algorithms and programs can find out patterns and figure out how things are going. crowd sourcing symptoms, drug interactions, etc is surely going to drive this forward faster.

take a look at this interesting article about sergei brins (google co founder) attempts at beating parkinson's before it ever catches him. he has a 50 % likelihood of getting it, but using his brain and money power is trying to get the odds down to less than 10 per cent.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/06/ff_sergeys_search/

as others have written, you can take antibiotics.

however, its not that simple. antibiotics aren not that specific. i mean there are some that are good against certain types of bacteria more than others, and there are broad spectrum vs narrow spectrum antibiotics, but still, they kill bacteria usually by blocking common key metabolic pathways such as cell wall synthesis, protein synthesis (by binding to specific sites on the ribosome, etc) - all things that most bacteria have in common. there is research to target unique pathways, say in organisms such as TB, taking advantage of their unique properties, but that's another story.

so, when we take antibiotics, not only are we killing the pathogens, but also the symbiotic bacteria in our guts at the same time. why a course of say amoxicillin gives us diarrhea and we are supposed to eat yogurt at the same time. or why during or after a course of antibiotics, we can end up with antibiotic induced colitis.

another approach that is helping me (and others), probiotics.

i had stool testing done and found that i was missing lactobacilli. and i was eating good stoneyfleld yogurt every day. my question was, "where have all the lactobacilli gone?"

i also tested positive for "potentially pathogenic" other bacillus species.

so maybe the bad bacteria were outcompeting the good bacteria (lactobacilli).

by taking a probiotic capsule filled with the good bacteria (lactobacilli), not only am i replenishing my system with them, but hopefully they are outcompeting the bad bacteria.

all i know is that prior to the probiotics, each summer, for the last several years, i was developing unexplained constipation that hung on for months and months. and then my doctors believe that was putting me into a flare (leaky gut theory and all of that). and within a few days of probiotics, the constipation problem was over, just like that. for the years prior to that i tried: fiber, water, exercise, psyllium, and it all helped, but not nearly enough. i was eating way more fiber than a normal person should have to and making sure i got plenty of exercise and water and it didn't help enough. but the probiotics worked like a charm.

another part of leaky gut isn't just "not feeding the kleb with starch" but staying away from foods that our body are sensitive too as well. so for me that's dairy and eggs, as determined by blood work.

i'm one of those people on Low Starch Diet (minus eggs and dairy as well) who hasn't noticed it making any difference at all, but who knows. its a healthy way of eating for other reasons (metabolic syndrome for one) so i eat that way. if i noticed something with the low starch diet in regards to the arthritis, i would be much more inclined to go further to No Starch. i know some may shake their heads with that decision, but that's ok, i understand, and this is the decision i've made.

so have the probiotics also helped you with flares? what probiotics do you take? here we get something called yakult...

Hi, cemc:



I have corresponded with many people who are verified B27 negative and have AS that the NSD helps easily as much as those who possess the antigen; this supports my belief that...well...AS is AS.

Regret this does not mean that the NSD will work the same for everyone with AS. I have been 'round the houses on this one and everyone is different.

During one of my more severe and inconvenient flares, I tried chelation to diminish AS activity. It worked around the third or forth treatment. That was chelation to maybe help remove some crud from my blood; that should be a transient thing. I never thought that procedure was that important to mention, but one person had zero results from the NSD, and I believed every word--they tried in earnest and even fasted and got relief by fasting but not NSD! It was very disheartening but many months later, we learned he found out he had some heavy metal poisoning and underwent chelation after which NSD began working, as far as I understand.

So in the interest of full disclosure, I have had my tonsils removed, had all the amalgam fillings removed, done a little chelation on occasion, fasted for 20 days once, and at least 150 times for 4 or more days (although I do not look like it...), I have taken nearly every commercially available oral antibiotic agent and also found sometimes learning after the fact about their action against Klebsiella pneumoniae; those that have little or no activity against this germ also have no benefit against AS symptoms.

I wrecked my gut taking NSAIDs and they greatly accelerated my AS. There is a reason; more support for Ebringer's work, in fact.

The LSD did not work so well for me at first, until I did several cycles of antibiotics. After that, I learned about NSD and although it helped noticeably, it was not enough: I then eliminated dairy to push myself into total remission.

So although "diet does not work" for everyone with AS (regardless of antigen status)--I believe it can (and SHOULD) be made to work for everyone with AS, if at all possible. This does not diminish the role of exercise and certain drugs, but especially antibiotics, in treating AS, but it should probably be the primary treatment method.

HEALTH,
John

good question.

i'm taking lactoflamX (lactobacillus plantum) which is supposed to be beneficial against intestinal inflammation. and culturelle (another lactobacillus that i threw in because my gastroenterologist gave me a box of free samples). then since one pill of each a day seemed to be working, just stuck with it (if it ain't broke, don't fix it).

i started these in april along with a number of other supplements that my rheumy and naturpath doctor thought might help (coenzyme Q, fish oil, vitamin C, chromium (to go along with the LDN, flector patches over the SI, zanaflex, vitamin D, Ca, Mg, synthroid, prilosec that i had started at various times throughout the years).

and had been feeling so good this summer (the daily inflammatory stuff, but nothing i couldn't handle) that i was tentatively optimistic that bad flares could be a thing of the past.

but its august and the third august that i have flared bad. i do wonder if the flare might have bypassed me this year if i hadn't taken a hard fall two weeks ago. my knees which took the brunt of the impact turned out to be just fine. but the very next day i had that flu like feeling i get at the start of a flare. then the next day for the next week my SI joint was very inflamed, not to the point of screaming muscle spasms, but just short of that. then at the end of that week i got this autoimmune rash on my low legs and feet that i get every so often during a bad flare (took awhile for the docs and i to realize it was autoimmune). and then when i thought the flare was behind me and i had gotten off easy, the ribs started moving around, which is the other worst problem right up there with the SI joint. haven't been able to sleep but a night or two for a few hours in the recliner, but not in the bed laying down. had a splitting headache from it affected the neck and occipital muscle/nerve til friday when the chiro helped that a bit.

so, if i hadn't fallen, would i have flared this august?

and is it a bit better than the last two years because of all the supplements? because the chiro helps me out? or is the fun just getting started?

i really don't know?

so probiotics alone certainly haven't solved the problems. but i think those along with the other supplements, at least help me feel better in between. and maybe help the body get out the flare sooner? but since i'm in the middle of things, i have no idea if that will be true or not. i do know the chiro helps me get out of things faster. and the flector patch helps the SI joint recover sooner.

i'm in no way there yet.

will be interested to see what the rheumy wants to do now. he was hoping supplements would do the trick for me. when he saw that wasn't good enough even before the flare, he said i could go for the ssz, til we noticed the liver enzymes. now i don't know what we will want to try. my fear is that he will give up on me like past rheumies, though he seems different from the rest - the next visit will be telling.

i know, long answer to short question. but unfortunately, not a simple answer.

maybe it'll just take more time for my gut to heal? that's another possibility.