My work is increasingly treating patients who have seen Lyme experts I respect and have learned from.
One concern is that people are being prescribed these three medicines without a common test being offered at big-box national commercial labs. I have never seen insurance deny this test.
Why does it matter?
All three drugs can shred your red blood cells, which we call hemolytic [heme-blood + lytic =lyse] anemia.
Before taking dapsone, tafenoquine, or primaquine, you must be tested for G6PD (glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase) deficiency. Taking any of these if you have G6PD deficiency can cause severe, life-threatening hemolytic anemia.
While some genetic variants may be missed by some labs, I am not seeing that in North America.
G6PD deficiency is a genetic disorder most frequently found in people of African, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Southeast Asian descent. It affects approximately 400 million people worldwide. Males have it more than females (NIH).
We have a comprehensive handout on those with this deficiency, which we hope to post in July.
20 years ago, we wrote the huge foundational textbook on Babesia. Sadly, many years of work are not fully read by "Babesia lecturers." I fixed profound and ongoing gross errors in my research. The current "experts" and "learned speakers to physicians" do not bother to read it, or other texts still 20 years ahead. Including the "discovery" of tafgenoquine (Arakoda) and even Dapsone for possible use in Babesia.
Discovering?
That is like discovering McDonald's.
I guess when you are treating 50 people a week, you help 50 people, and that's great.
So there is no more time to read about what you advertise as expertise, or you are good to go as a trainer for physicians.
Have you heard about this crazy idea of shooting a ball with air through a hoop? Apparently, women in the Midwest, the "Fever," are one group and a delight to watch — for both ladies and men. It is called Bassketball or something like that. French, I heard.
And a lady called "Boston, and a Clark, and a Mitchel, plus a White discovered it."