Hacking Lyme Disease: An Action Guide to Wellness is a compilation of articles from Dr. Marty Ross’s informative website “treatlyme.net.”

It covers a wide range of topics, including what he considers the best herbal and prescription antibiotic treatments, what to do if your previous treatments have failed to get you well, and a discussion of many alternative therapies (both pro and con).

It is not a guide to treating yourself. Dr. Ross strongly advises you to discuss these matters with your Lyme-literate practitioner. But it answers a lot of questions that Lyme patients may have, including about many alternative treatments.

The Ross Lyme Support Protocol

He outlines his own treatment guidelines for chronic Lyme and related infections, which he calls The Ross Lyme Support Protocol. He says it’s designed to:

• Boost the immune system,
• Improve detoxification,
• Speed recovery,
• Kill the infections, and
• protect and repair from the harmful effects of the infections and the herbal and prescription antibiotics.

Dr. Ross emphasizes that treating Lyme disease is complicated. “The infection triggers an immune system cytokine reaction that affects most organs and systems of the body,” he writes. “In my experience, the great majority of people can recover if they address each of the steps in The Ross Lyme Support Protocol.”

He refers to anything that kills Lyme and related infections as “antigerms.”  These herbal and prescription antigerms include:

• Antibiotics for bacteria like Borrelia (Lyme), Bartonella, Anaplasma, Ehrlichia, and Clostridium difficile;
• Antifungals for intestinal yeast overgrowth;
• Antiparasitic agents for Babesia and hidden intestinal parasites, and
• Antivirals for chronic infections like mononucleosis and human herpesvirus 6.

However, his action steps encompass much more than just trying to eliminate bacteria. He includes recommendations regarding sleep, diet, controlling inflammation, hormones, exercise, detoxification and more.

He also discusses complicating factors such as yeast infections, mold toxin illness, and mast call activation syndrome.

A unique aspect of Hacking Lyme Disease is how it incorporates information from LymeDisease.org’s MyLymeData research project. More than 17,000 Lyme patients participate in MyLymeData, providing feedback about their treatment experiences.

Dr. Ross includes MyLymeData findings in his discussion of prescription antibiotic use as well as a wide variety of alternative medical treatments.

This easy-to-read guide is packed with lots of useful information.

TOUCHED BY LYME is written by Dorothy Kupcha Leland, President of LymeDisease.org. She is co-author of When Your Child Has Lyme Disease: A Parent’s Survival Guide. Contact her at dleland@lymedisease.org .