Some patients with medically unexplained symptoms or alternative medical diagnoses suspect that they chronically suffer from the tick-borne infection Lyme disease. These patients are commonly targeted by providers of alternative therapies. This study was designed to identify and characterize the range of unorthodox alternative therapies advertised to patients with a diagnosis of Lyme disease.

More than 30 alternative treatments were identified, which fell into several broad categories: these included oxygen and reactive oxygen therapy; energy and radiation-based therapies; nutritional therapy; chelation and heavy metal therapy; and biological and pharmacological therapies ranging from certain medications without recognized therapeutic effects on Borrelia burgdorgeri to stem cell transplantation. Review of the medical literature did not substantiate efficacy or, in most cases, any rationale for the advertised treatments.

Providers of alternative therapies commonly target patients who believe they have Lyme disease. The efficacy of these unconventional treatments for Lyme disease is not supported by scientific evidence, and in many cases they are potentially harmful.

Lantos, Paul M., et al. "Unorthodox alternative therapies marketed to treat Lyme disease." Clinical Infectious Diseases (2015): civ186.

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http://www.naturalnews.com/043834_cannabis_lyme_disease_medical_marijuana.html

As research into borrelia treatment continues, increasing numbers of natural substances will be tested for activity against the organism and, over time, more potent herbal and natural treatments will be discovered. To date there are two substances other than antibiotics that have been tested and are active against Lyme borrelia organisms: melittin from bee venom, also known as apis, and BI-EDTA (bismuth). 

About apis and Lyme disease: Interest in the use of bee venom for the treatment of Lyme disease has been stimulated by two things: 1) the finding that melittin is a potent antimicrobial for the Lyme spirochete; and 2) numerous practitioners have found it helpful in treating Lyme, the symptoms of Lyme, and conditions similar to Lyme disease such as multiple sclerosis.

History of Apis: Bee venom has at least a 3000 year history of use in China and nearly that long in Japan and Korea. The Romans used it as a powerful pain killer and the ancient Greeks used it as well. It is an integrated element of medical treatment today in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Russia, Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania), in certain Western European countries (Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France), and is growing in use in South America. It was a regular part of American medical practice, primarily homeopathic and Eclectic Botanical practice from 1847 until World War II. It is still commonly used by homeopaths. In Eclectic Botanical practice a tincture of Apis, taken orally, was used.

Apis entered the American pharmacopoeia in 1847 through a member of the Narragansett tribe, "a woman strolling by" as the original source puts it. She suggested its use in the treatment of a 12-year-old boy who had been suffering for some time with a degenerative condition and for which nothing seemed to work. The indigenous peoples of the Americas had a long history of the use of bee stings in healing.

THE USE OF APIS AND BI-EDTA IN THE TREATMENT OF LYME DISEASE By Stephen Harrod Buhner
http://www.gaianstudies.org/articles9.htm

Stephen Harrod Buhner is an Earth poet and the award-winning author of twenty books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, and herbal medicine. He comes from a long line of healers ... He is a tireless advocate for the reincorporation of the exploratory artist, independent scholar, amateur naturalist, and citizen scientist in American society - especially as a counterweight to the influence of corporate science and technology.

¶

comment:
> The indigenous peoples of the Americas had a long history of the use of bee stings in healing.

You bet, the "white man's fly." Thomas Jefferson wrote:

The honey-bee is not a native of our continent. Marcgrave indeed mentions a species of honey-bee in Brasil. But this has no sting, and is therefore different from the one we have, which resembles perfectly that of Europe. The Indians concur with us in the tradition that it was brought from Europe; but when, and by whom, we know not. The bees have generally extended themselves into the country, a little in advance of the white settlers. The Indians therefore call them the white man's fly.

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