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 recollects. “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 totally matched her constellation of signs. Ultimately, one physician advised 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 function of an infection extra typically in cognitive decline. This concept would as soon as have been thought of outlandish, however curiosity within the mind’s microbial group 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 therapies have a confirmed observe…
