When I first figured out I had Lyme last summer (and before I knew much about treatment), after a brief course of beta lactams, I got a rife machine, having read Bryan's (first) book.
At first, I felt like the poster child. Strong herxes after every treatment and continued improvement. I contacted Bryan and we talked about the possibly of me writing the intro to his next book.
Then I went down the tubes. About 6 weeks into 'rifing', I stopped having herx reactions and gradually got worse, and worse, and worse. Far worse than pre-treatment. [...]
I told Bryan that I probably shouldn't be the one to write an intro to a book about Rifing, given the complete failure I experienced.
In retrospect, I believe the Rife machine was pretty good at sniping the mature cell wall forms from my blood stream but that I was well on my way to having/activating CWD form disease.
Bryan seemed like a nice guy who had assembled a lot of anecdotal evidence for the efficacy of rifing. But, of course, that efficacy would be dependent on CWD and cyst forms transforming to mature forms to become susceptible to rife energy. I ran out of time.***
Jon Sterngold MD ret ER doc, life coach, guitarist Lyme ~17 yrs, Dx'd 2006
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Jack Gardetto was the friend that I mentioned in "Rife critique," 2005, on Lymenut and reposted here just in case Jenifer gets in one of her slash and burn moods. viewtopic.php?f=12&t=355
As his health declined more and more and the relapses became more frequent he bought ever more supplements and nutraceuticals that he found advertised in magazines at the "health store."
He got most of them by mail order from the Herbal Healer and Hulda Clark. Then he got a Rife machine because he had heard that it worked best with alternatives. He was a true-believer in anything alternative.
Jack was not internet enabled but somehow he heard about Herxes and convinced himself that his relapses were really herxes and that they were proof that his choice of treatments was working. He continued to believe that even as the herxes got worse and worse and he could no longer work at his trade. He was a true-believer.
Then he got a new Rife machine, the "new and more powerful" Doug coil device that he had read about in a book. He was sure that it was working because the Herxes were getting "stronger." They got so strong that sometimes he couldn't get out of bed for days.
Local friends arranged for home health care (bathing, house cleaning, etc) and for meals to be delivered. He hated the bland food because he loved to cook, especially spicy Italian food. He considered Chili and Tabasco as a basic food group.
As his condition worsened he decided that he needed "professional" help. A friend recommended a homeopathic doctor, Cora Ibarra, HMD, in Reno, NV. She recommended and supplied a brand of colloidal silver. The "best" brand, of course. Jack wouldn't buy anything unless it was promoted as the best.
Three months later he tested very high for cadmium on his annual heavy metals test. "Doctor" Cora diagnosed "heavy metal poison" and sold him the "best of detox herbals." $600.
The source of the cadmium was discovered to be the silver wire that was used to make the silver solution by the electrolytic process. It was silver solder wire commonly used for high pressure industrial applications. It is the 'best' for that purpose because it contains cadmium as a fluxing agent so it makes a very strong joint.
Then it was liver cleansing. Another $600. Then came the "treatments" which consisted of "infusions" of "tinctures." $1000 each. Then colon cleansing and vinegar baths. It didn't seem to matter to Jack that the fatigue was getting worse and his back pain was getting more intense. He was a true-believer.
Jack and I didn't go on our annual September hunt for Chukar last year because he was just too weak and unsteady. So instead we just had a friendly visit and talked about the good hunting trips of years past. And we talked about Lyme disease and various therapeutic approaches.
Actually we argued. He insisted that I was sealing my fate by taking all those "poisonous antibiotics." I pointed out that I had just driven 1100 miles and was ready to go hunting thanks to those poisonous antibiotics and that he couldn't get out of his recliner. That argument fell on deaf ears; he was a true-believer.
When I asked if there was any evidence that his homeopathic remedies were effective against Lyme disease he produced a stack of "testimonials" that he had received from "doctor" Cora. When I asked if homeopathy was helping him he just pointed to the testimonials without saying anything as if that was proof enough.
For the sake of our long friendship we agreed to disagree and to "just let it be." We spent a few hours that evening reloading shotshells just in case he felt better by the weekend. He didn't. I drove home wondering if I could have handled things differently, more effectively, and concluded that he was just unreachable by logic. I think his mind was going even then.
We kept in touch by phone, with me trying to be sympathetic as he reported on his continuing decline, the headaches, earaches, vision problems, dizziness, joint pain especially the lower back, and the ever present crushing fatigue and shortness of breath.
I kept to our agreement to avoid the subject and to "just let it be" but I have often wondered since then if it was the right thing to do. By hindsight, he was probably not in full possession of his faculties when he had insisted that I should shut up about his choice of treatment.
By December he could hardly maintain a conversation on the phone but he still insisted that he was getting better because he was "Herxing!" His local friends and I concluded that his brain was gone and that it would probably be best to just let him go.
He died on January 16, officially of "idiopathic coronary arrest" according to the ER duc who was on duty at the local hospital. Since his death was 'attended' no autopsy was performed.
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There are two major differences between Jon and Jack. The most obvious is, of course, that Jon is alive and Jack is dead.
The reasons for the difference make for interesting speculation. Evidently Jon still believes that Rife has some effect on the chete form of Bb but he was objective enough to recognize that he was not having Herxes but instead was getting "worse, and worse, and worse" so he used the term "complete failure" to describe his experience with Rife.
Jack was a more faithful true-believer and that blind faith resulted in his death. Jack had a very strong ego and he always believed that everything he said was true because he said it. Or did Jack have more severe brain fog from untreated Lyme? We will never know.
It's also interesting to note that Bryan Rosner in his second book no longer believes that Rife is effective against the L-forms (the CWD and cyst forms). Maybe he will write about its ineffectiveness against the chete form in his THIRD book. Maybe by then he will have discovered the miracle of Miracle Minerals (CLO2) as an enema. After all, what could be more effective at cleaning the colon than bleach?
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Edited to remove chopped up lines. I did it the easy way with
http://www.textfixer.com/tools/remove-line-breaks.php
