First off, let me say that treating “Lyme” isn’t treating one thing. Please see my other posts prior on the fact that often a patient’s symptoms, while they might seem Lyme-related, are re-activated by mold exposure (CIRS response), etc. And as such, “treating their Lyme” might be detoxifying them and calming their immune system, etc. This is especially true in someone who had been in remission before.
Second, I do not usually use LL-37 (or any peptide) as a primary (solo) treatment for Lyme. I usually use multiple combination antibiotic treatments for initially getting Lyme into remission. And a reminder here, that you must aim to kill all three forms of Lyme at the same time (including cyst) and both intracellular and extracellular spaces so that you do not just make the Lyme “hide” in cyst form… further evading the immune system. I also find that this means that the immune system never comes out of an acute inflammatory response … which is really what leads to most of the symptoms that patients with chronic Lyme complain of.
Having said all of that, I find LL-37 to be amazing in support of keeping patients I have gotten into remission IN remission even when little exposures to mold toxins occur, or they get run down and their symptoms start to flare again, or their viral loads tip things for them. In these patients, I simply do LL-37 at 0.1cc daily for a week or so, and then try off to see if that was enough. If not, I continue it for longer. As for how soon they respond… really quickly usually (if they had been “good” prior to their “tipping” again.
As for trying to get someone with chronic Lyme into remission, I do not use LL-37 alone. I use it with an appropriate antibiotic combination as mentioned above, and I do these treatments long-term. My recommendation here (if treating chronic Lyme is new to you) is that you learn to treat these patients only with access to ask questions of someone with much experience in this, as you can make these “fragile” patients (medically “fragile” only, of course… these are some of the toughest patients ever) much worse and some (many) of these patients require a lot of stabilization and foundational work before you start killing Borrelia Burgdorferi in them. Another option would be to join an organization like ILADS for education/guidance/resources.
As for articles, I included a few here highlighting the below info:
-That LL-37 helps upregulate AND down-regulate when appropriate neutrophils and the inflammatory response. This is very important in Lyme (since so much of the symptomatology of Lyme is due to the immune system remaining chronically activated as it “hunts” for the “hiding” spirochetes).
-That LL-37 works not just directly to kill bacteria itself (like we already use it for), but that it activated (and modulated) the body’s immune response. In my experience, it is this secondary effect that is most important in the treating of Lyme.
-That LL-37 when added to antibiotics, helped eradicate the cyst forms (this is very important), and helps with biofilm.
-While true that some of the info in the below articles showed that LL-37 might not be the most effective at killing Borrelia Burgdorferi in-vitro, I think that this is because (again) LL-37’s most effective support in treating chronic Lyme is in its support of the body’s immune system (and likely in beating back the cyst “nests” which is hard to do otherwise).
I hope this helps!
Warmly,
Cynthia
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3487008/
https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/cimb/cimb-42-00006/article_deploy/cimb-42-00006.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836506/
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2020.00006/full
https://medcraveonline.com/JMEN/in-vitro-susceptibility-of-different-morphological-forms-of-borrelia-burgdorferi-to-common-lyme-antibiotics-in-combination-with-antimicrobial-peptides.html
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