Good Morning folks, what causes muscles to be eaten away? is it lyme or bart or both of them?

Thanks,

You are probably talking about Muscle Atrophy. Muscle Atrophy is when the muscle decreases in sizes and seems to be wasting away. If you have are having problems absorbing nutrients or are not exercising...then you are a candidate. Less likely things are Cancer, Constructive Heart Failure, liver failure and obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Hope this helps. What are your symptoms?

snake1979,My symptoms are thighs muscles are decreasing and they are achey. what types of nutrients are you talking about? what should i take for vits? Thanks,

I have severe atrophy. My lyme keeps me from exercising, and kept me from moving at all at times. I have a hard time getting any muscle back, even when I was exercising and rehabbing for a while. Now my stomach is soooooo bad that I havent eaten normal in 10 mos, and havent exerised in 3. So I can explain it that way. But there are definitely times, where the weakness, and atrophy, seem totally out of my control. I always thought babesia caused atrophy and weakness????

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<FONT color=blue>*no dx until 6/2007- clinical dx at llmd with a mildly positive bart test
hypermobility syndrome</i> dx, finally one western blot that no one knew how to read, and a nice round of prednisone to finish me off
June-August...Ceftin
August - October ....Roecefin IV, 9.5 weeks
October - worse than ever, bedridden, new LLMD pulled IV
October - March 21...biaxin & plaquenil, (worked a miracle),climbed step first time in 14mos
Jan - March 21...tetracycline (on and off 4 times bc hard to tolerate)

March 21 - April 19....stopped all prescription drugs, best month yet

July & August: DIFLUCAN...more improvement

September: Zithro + Mepron

L-Glutamine supplementation can help prevent loss of lean body mass even in those who cannot exercise. I'm dealing with muscle mass loss myself due to inability to exercise or eat regular food (I'm fed through a vein in my arm), so I share your frustration with loss of muscle. Good luck,

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-Razzle

thanks, does any one no's what causes it?

Could be from secondary mitochondrial malfunction due to Lyme/coinfections. Mitochondrial malfunction leads to loss of energy production for cells, and this impacts muscles a lot. If muscles don't have enough energy, you feel tired and wear out easily on exertion, leading to lack of exercise, which leads to a cycle of reduced muscle tone, which leads to even less activity, etc.

Also, if metabolism is messed up (particularly with hyperthyroid and/or fast oxidative states), or if there is malabsorption of nutrition, one's body may resort to catabolism (muscle breakdown) if insufficient calories and protein are eaten.

I also believe oxidative damage (from toxic byproducts of Lyme/coinfections) may contribute to muscle loss. Detoxing and supplementing with plenty of anti-oxidants are important for combating oxidatave damage to the body.

Take care,

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-Razzle

Hi kendall.  If your hormone levels are off, this can cause loss of muscle tone.  Lyme disease can affect thyroid and hormone levels.  I think it is important for people who have Lyme to have these levels tested.  If you want specifics about testing, let me know.

Hi.  I was told that Creatine is important to take for muscle wasting (massive amounts are needed).

Chronic infection, that then leads to all sorts of leaky gut issues, in addition to ongoing decreased CAC (Crebs) cycle entry (mitochondrial damage) can cause this.  So that can mean lyme, co-infections such as Mycoplasma, etc. 

The things to get into the CREB cycle from my understanding include: Pyruvate, Ubiquinol (a form of CoQ10), L-Carnitine, and ... shoot I am forgetting the last one...

I am not taking the last one, thus I can't remember..

There is a variety of testing that reportedly will tell you what supplementation would be good for you.  Metametrics (urine, stool and blood testing) is often used.  Sometimes Naturopaths will do live or dried bloodtesting- you can observe on a screen or microscope how your cells look.  Some practitioners will do hair analysis.  There is a saliva test that does intracellular elecrolytes that can give you an idea of how your body fares in that area.  Hope this helps,

Tracy