In 2015, Nikki Schultek was in her prime: a younger mom of two little boys, she had simply run a half marathon. Then, a mysterious sickness hit. Her bronchial asthma, beforehand well-managed, turned more and more extreme. Over the next months, she skilled power ache, digestive issues and a cardiac arrhythmia. Then got here the “last insult”: indicators of neurodegeneration, together with mind fog and lapses of reminiscence. “It was the lowest point,” she remembers. “I began making plans for my kids, writing down notes of things that I would want to tell them if I continued to get worse.”
Schultek obtained numerous diagnoses for particular person issues, however none absolutely matched her constellation of signs. Ultimately, one physician urged that an undetected an infection might lie behind her power ache and respiration difficulties. She examined optimistic for Borrelia burgdorferi and Chlamydia pneumoniae infections and was prescribed a cocktail of antibiotics. On taking them, she discovered that every one her signs – together with the mind fog and reminiscence deficits – went into remission.
Schultek has since based a analysis group to discover the position of an infection extra usually in cognitive decline. This concept would as soon as have been thought-about outlandish, however curiosity within the mind’s microbial neighborhood is rising quickly. It seems our gray matter is teeming with micro organism, viruses and fungi, and a greater understanding of this sudden microbiome has monumental potential to stop neurodegenerative ailments. It might even reverse signs of decline when issues go awry, as Schultek discovered. And, most excitingly of all, some potential remedies have a confirmed observe…
