Vancomycin: the cure?

A study released from Northeastern University looked at the use of Vancomycin for Lyme. 

The drug which can only be administered intravenously and is more toxic than most commonly used alternatives.   IM therapy may be used but is perhaps very painful.  Oral vancomycin does not leave the GI tract and is only for C. diff. 

Studies are not in agreement.  Zhang found the drug to be relatively ineffective in vitro, as have others. 

The new study found that both Rocephin and vancomycin are effective against stationary phase cells – round forms and biofilms. Vancomycin was combined with a quinolone to sterilize a culture. In an immune deficient mouse doxycycline did not clear disseminated but both ceftriaxone (Rocephin) and Vancomycin were effective.  

Vancomycin may be slightly better than Rocephin but this far from clear.  Both inhibit peptidoglycan synthesis, the basis for cell walls.

In 2017, the Biophysical Journal published a study about the impact of Vancomycin on Lyme spirochete motility, significantly impaired.  The Peptidoglycan – cell wall material (under an outer membrane) was weakened with low concentrations, subtherapeutic, of vancomycin which also inhibited the formation of round forms or blebs.  Wounded spirochetes, unable to swim very far may do little harm. 

The drug may prove very useful, especially with subtherapeutic dosing, within a cocktail approach.

Vancomycin has been used for decades in the treatment of MRSA, a feared superbug.

The drug is very nephrotoxic and can cause irreversible kidney failure: serum concentrations and renal functions must be watched carefully. 

Although vancomycin is not hoarded over by ID docs like daptomycin, ID doctors will be concerned about sudden wild use of the drug.

Going back further, 1996 – A G Barbour, an IDSA stalwart, found the following. Vancomycin eliminated Lyme in immunodeficient mice only when given within 3 days of infection. When given at 7 days post infection the germs persisted; viable spirochetes were found in the mouse brains. 

In 1993 Barbour demonstrated that in vitro vancomycin was an effective anti-Lyme therapy.

It has been long known that vancomycin has anti-Lyme activity. 

We need to know a lot more. 

Treating Lyme falls within the large purview of “the art of medicine.” In “the system” so called evidence-based guidelines dictate medical practice. The guidelines dictate what the disease looks like and how it is to be treated. 

The existence of chronic Lyme as we know it is soundly rejected. Nothing has changed. 

Doctors who believe in chronic Lyme agree on a several things:  Lyme is a tragic, underappreciated epidemic; Lyme is very difficult to treat; Lyme has many faces, the “great imitator;” coinfections are an unappreciated huge factor and I am sure a few other things. 

Doctors collectively known as LLMDs are a heterogenous group.  They don’t agree on how best to treat the illness(es).  Doctors who treat the disease(s) realize we still know very little as we try to improve our approaches as times moves on. 

It is important not to jump on every new therapy as “the answer” and be mindful of toxicity and First do no harm. 

I ask readers to refrain from jumping from preliminary preclinical small, limited basic science trial data and making quantum leaps to a new people therapy. 

Vancomycin, unfortunately, is not the cure.