The Homeopathic Treatment of Lyme Disease

Lyme Disease is a difficult to treat multi-miasmatic illness that is reaching epidemic proportions in parts of the US, Canada and Europe. German physician and homeopath Peter Alex dissects the nature and compound sources of this ailment and offers clear principles, remedies and cases dealing with its treatment using homeopathy. The pros and cons of homeopathic prophylaxis are clearly presented, as are protocols for after-the-bite treatment. 'Lyme disease is one of the most misunderstood of modern conditions. In conventional medical circles its treatment varies considerably, often with meagre results. Homeopaths should understand this complex disease state and be prepared to treat it. This book is an excellent guide. It will truly help in understanding how homeopathy can effectively cure this condition' - Richard Pitt, RSHom, CCH

• Author: Peter Alex
• ISBN: 9780975476314
• 168 pages
• Paperback
• Printed in Poland

• View PDF

Reprinted with the permission of The Society of Homeopaths (from "The Homeopath" Journal, Winter 2007 edition). Reviewed by Francis Treuherz.

A book dedicated to the discussion of just one disease struck me as an exaggeration before I started reading, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much there is to consider and how interesting is this discussion. The author - who started out as a veterinarian and now does humans - characterises Lyme disease as syphilitic. The first fascinating 70 pages are devoted to a discussion of Lyme and the miasm of the spirochete Borellia, and how it shares so much with syphilis, both are great imitators.

One of Hahnemann's miasms is so often overlooked, especially in the recent crop of books about miasms, for example by Heudens-Mast, Saxton, or Creasy. That is the miasm of rabies identified by Hahnemann as 'half-acute'. The onset is delayed and the manifestation may be violent; the illness does not always show up at the time of the bite. Here we have a description of a disease associated with the bite of a tick with just those characteristics.

Next is a proving, and then 15 human and one animal case from nine different homeopaths including six by Peter Alex himself. So the styles and standards of case description and of prescribing are varied but all are useful. Lessons learned include the doubtful validity of prescribing the Lyme Borellia nosode in active phases, about which Hahnemann also warned us. A miasmatic acute and a chronic remedy (the proving) are identified but if I tell you what they are you will not buy the book. If I do tell you, you may save someone's life so please do buy the book, and learn about the depressive, or violent mental symptoms of Ledum palustre, and the new mineral salt Aurum arsenicosum.

The translation is good but there is no doubt from the style that the original language was German. The printed text is grey instead of black, making it difficult to see. There are some curious and even laughable mistakes, like the citation by one author that it is enshrined in English law that the Queen should have a homeopathic physician. I am sure that we can learn from this book how homeopathy can cure patients with a new and rapidly spreading and often misdiagnosed condition.

Reviewed by Richard Pitt, USA:

This book is a fascinating and informative exploration into Lyme Disease and the pos­sible homeopathic treatment of this condi­tion. The author comes from Germany where Lyme Disease has had a big impact in the last few years. It has been estimated that there are up to one million cases of Lyme in the country, with up to a quarter of a million new infections each year, though, as with any disease, the number who actually produce serious acute or chronic symptoms is less than that. However, outside of North America, where the disease has taken root very seriously, (especially in the North East of the country), Alex states that Germany shows more signs of the disease than any other country in Eu­rope and he identifies the remedy Aurum arsenicosum as showing a unique relevance in chronic Lyme cases in Germany.

The first part of the book involves an explo­ration of the bacterial origins of the dis­ease, the causative bacteria being a spiro­chete named Borrelia burgdorferi. Frans Vermeulen wrote part of this first section of the book which is an important intro­duction to an understanding of this dis­ease. A very good description of the origin and development of the disease is given, with references made to the American strain of the disease, which is a slightly dif­ferent strain of the Borrelia bacteria. An im­portant factor in the evolution of the dis­ease in America was the outbreak of juve­nile rheumatoid arthritis cases in the early 1970s in a town called Old Lyme, Connecti­cut. This was subsequently traced to tick bites. Since then, Lyme Disease has spread throughout the states of New England and New York, and for years it was the cause of a major political and medical dispute, with many cases of arthritic, neurological and other autoimmune types of diseases being the focus of debate as to their connection with Lyme Disease.

This development of the disease into a complex chronic condition and not only an acute rheumatic condition has led to much dispute within the medical profession re­garding diagnosis and treatment. Alex's book explores this issue well and he gives the homeopath a great overview of the dis­ease and its possibilities with homeopathy. He also gives a clinical overview of the dis­ease condition in which he classifies the symptomatology from clinical Lyme cases into a traditional homeopathic schema. This is an important study into the broader picture of Lyme Disease and the symptoms that may help homeopaths identify the disease when seeing cases. The relevance of knowing whether a case may be attrib­utable to Lyme infection is discussed in de­tail by Alex and his conclusions are impor­tant in the broader homeopathic discus­sion of the relevance in having a diagnosis, or knowing the bacterial origin of a disease and the susceptibilities that may lead to chronic complications of an infection.

One of the most important contributions of the book is an exploration of the remedy Aurum arsenicosum as one of the most "specific" remedies for chronic Lyme cases. His discussion of the relevance of Aurum Arsenicosum as a remedy for Lyme Disease

Alex's book is an excellent exploration into this important disease and homeopathic practitioners who come across Lyme Dis­ease will find it very useful. It will help them in understanding what otherwise can seem to be very complicated cases, and will give them a knowledge base to communicate with patients about what they are dealing with and what homeopa­thy can offer.

Reprinted with the permission of The ARH, from 'Homeopathy in Practice', Winter 2008 edition. Reviewed by Christine Liebing-Gabel.

Since we homeopaths always praise ourselves as using a holistic approach with our patients I was somewhat suspicious to find another book on how to address a special disease with homeopathy. So I was indeed pleasantly surprised to find a book that gives a deep insight into the problem of Lyme disease and its treatment.

In the last few decades, Lyme disease has been an increasing problem in many countries around the world, especially in western Europe and the USA, and it seems that although mainstream and preventive medicine are offering everything they know, they are not able to master it.

Lyme disease was first diagnosed in the early 1970s and named after the village of Old Lyme in Connecticut, USA, where an unusual number of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis cases were reported in relation to tick bites followed by skin lesions. The bacterium identified as the causing agent was called Borellia burgdorferi after the researcher Dr Willy Burgdorfer who was able to isolate this spirochete in 1981.

Author Dr Peter Alex, a vet and homeo­path - 'heilpraktiker' in Germany - gives profound information about the disease-causing agent as well as about bacteria in general. Also, Frans Vermeulen's Clini­cal expressions of Lyme disease, included in this book, is extremely helpful to get a clue of how widespread symptoms of this chronic illness are.

As I have been a registered nurse for 25 years, the medical and immunological facts Peter Alex presents are not new for me at all. The similarity between Lyme disease and syphilis has became obvious in the last few years, which should not come as a great surprise since both bacteria belong to the same family. The classifica­tion as a syphilitic miasm has implications which prompt some good ideas about how to treat Lyme disease effectively.

Peter Alex also puts Lyme disease in a different context by highlighting interest­ing considerations beside the scientific knowledge we now have about the dis­ease; for example, the environmental aspects including people's choices of how and where to live, and the omnipresent

influence of pulsed frequencies of mobile phones as possible trigger factors for the outbreak of Lyme disease. I found this to correspond with observations in my own practice and cases in my family.

The choice of remedies is as varied as the symptoms of Lyme disease. The author recommends Aurum Arsenicum as a specific remedy for Lyme disease, and the case studies as well as the proving he offers underline this impressively.

The book gives a good overview of different approaches to the treatment and prophylaxis of this condition by providing a selection of case studies from the author as well as from colleagues all over the world. I personally had an 'aha' experi­ence while reading this section, realising that two or three of my cases were obvi­ously Lyme disease but I had never consid­ered that before, and I can now see some seemingly 'unsolvable' cases in another light.

I have also read the original German version of the book, and I think Doug Smith did a really good job when trans­lating it into English.

Many homeopaths will find this an in­spiring and eye-opening read, and I hope that we will soon have a sequel with more interesting case studies from Dr Peter Alex