Video Presentation of Dr. Jadin’s Current Protocol for ME/CFS, Q-Fever, Chronic Lyme and related conditions

Cécile Jadin, MD, has very graciously put together a power point on the state of her protocol and allowed me to share it. This protocol has been in use for over 25 years by her with a high success rate (90%). The protocol actually dates back around 50+ years (for a condition with a different name).

For earlier notes from her, see C.Jadin Resources which links to some of her earlier presentations.

My Experience

The basics of this protocol put me into remission around 2000 and has put me into remission for flares. Far more important, it resulted in my understanding the complexity of this condition’s treatment. Even today, I view many MDs keeping to a naïve one-shot magic-bullet approach: “we need to find the virus (i.e. EBV, HHV6, etc) or bacteria that triggered it; find a drug to treat it and the patient is cured!” I have read so many accounts of people being “cured by X, but it stopped working after N months and X does not work anymore”.

Dr. Jadin has many decades of clinical experience treating ME/CFS and related conditions. She built upon clinical experience treating this type of condition. I have decades of doing software development.

Jadin and I are two sides of a Treatment Coin

Cécile Jadin is a MD with decades of clinical experience treating ME/CFS applying and evolving a protocol that she inherited from her father’s time at the Pasteur Institute of Tropical Medicine. I am a high functioning autism person well trained in Artificial Intelligence and Statistics who has applied it to the microbiome. My AI algorithm very very often suggests the same set of antibiotics and supplements that she uses. The algorithm works off bacteria only (and thus ignores many other co-factors). We walk different paths and end up in the same treatment approach.

She talks about Obligated Intracellular Organism or OIO. This term may be unfamiliar to many, for some background readings see this Research Topic on Frontiers. I talk about the bacteria in the gut.

From: Cells within cells: Rickettsiales and the obligate intracellular bacterial lifestyle [2021]

They are very interconnected with a lot of information exchanged between them. OIO sends mis-information messages to the gut to produce more of this or that enzyme, metabolites, compounds [Products]. There are over 26,000 different products potentially involved. The gut receives this information and fill these bogus orders. The OIO gets its supplies and proceed to prosper. A side effect of these bogus production orders are symptoms – they could be view as pollution from the production. The symptoms often depends on a person’s DNA.

This cycle needs to be broken. This may be done by attacking the command center (the OIO) or attacking the factories (the microbiome) or both.

Original Motivation

One of the goal of building my AI was to try to identify the factors for non-responders. To me, it appears to be due to variations in the microbiome. Recently there has been many studies reporting that the difference between responders and non-responders for both cancer treatment and the severity of COVID has been the patients microbiome. The AI can suggest what to take; Jadin’s clinical experience provides information on how to take it.

Remission is the Target, not who is right

Patients and their MDs can go down two path, the paths actually run besides each other.

  • Follow Cécile Jadin process and protocol precisely
  • Follow Cécile Jadin process but use iterative sets of suggestions from Microbiome Prescription. By that, pick 1-2 of the top CFS tagged antibiotics, then at the end of first month, take a new microbiome sample and start with the secondary CFS tagged antibiotics (while waiting for the results).

The latter approach can be tried without prescription antibiotics because it identifies probiotics (that often produces natural antibiotics) and herbs (with antibiotic characteristics) and thus allows self-treatment for those without a cooperative medical professional. This no-antibiotics approach will likely work slower for most people. I discourage self-treatment, but often there is no alternative. My first choice is keeping strictly to clinical experience using the microbiome suggestions to select between clinical alternatives.

The Cécile Jadin’s process of alternating substances with breaks is a critical factor. In terms of modelling effectiveness (my expertise) — there is no question, it is the rational approach that treats everything as living entities and not mechanical nuts and bolts.

Video Presentation by Cécile Jadin

Short Version (35 minutes)

The bare presentation.

Long Version (65 minutes)

This version includes questions and answers from participants(and chit-chat). Her presentation starts at 5 minutes into it. At the end a patient shares her experience after the first 3 months.

Power Point as a PDF

You may download her presentation below as a PDF file. Or listen to it on YouTube which is intended for people having difficulty reading (common symptom with ME/CFS).

Jadin_2023Download

Treatment Fundamentals

Antibiotics (with alternative names) and links to known microbiome impact and alternative names where available.

  • Doxycyl 100mg x 2/day + Ciprofloxacine 500 mg x 2/day x7 days– No exercise!
  • Lymecycline 300mg x 2/day x 7 + Metronidazole 400mg x 2/day x 7 days – No alcohol!
  • Minomycine 100mg x 2/day x 7 + Rulide 150 mg x 2/day x 7 days
  • Doxycyl 100 mg x 2/day + Tavanic 250mg x 2/day x 7 days– No exercise!
  • Clacid 500mg x 2/day x 7  + Augmentin 1.000 mg x 2/day x 7
  • Dalacin C150 mg 2 x2/ day x 7 days – Given alone for best results
  • Doxycyl 100 mg x 2/day + Avelon 400mg x 2/day x 7 days– No exercise!
  • Tetralysal 400mg x 2/day + Dapsone 100mg nocte (stop if blue lips) x7 days
  • Vibramycine 100mg x 3/day x 7 days – Given alone for best results
  • Nivaquine

“All those antibiotics MUST be taken: after food ( not only water ) and without any dairy products. Patients must avoid sugar intake and some supplements(for example magnesium, glutamate, vitamin D). Antibiotics should be taken in the morning and the evening”

“Duration of treatment: 1 – 3 years.” Symptom remission may occur sooner, but that is usually just a tactical victory and not a strategic victory. You won one battle, but the war is not over.

Probiotics:

“Taken at noon only. No specific ones, but they must also be rotated (like the antibiotics)”

The Testing Dilemma

Dr. Jadin pointed out there are no testing facilities for some types of OIO in the US, Australia or Europe. When patients samples are sent from these “OIO free zones” to labs that test for them, often the results come back positive. Today everyone knows about invasive species (ticks, plants etc) but frequently ignore biological human invasive species. A few are known: smallpox, polio and a small number of others are associated with travellers. These are old diseases that were known and eliminated. Tourists often pick up unfamiliar diseases that their personal physicians know nothing about: Ascariasis (hookworm), Buruli ulcer (Mycobacterium ulcerans infection), Chagas disease (also known as American trypanosomiasis), Dracunculiasis (Guinea-worm disease), , Trypanosomiasis, human African (sleeping sickness), Leishmaniasis, Leprosy, lymphatic filariasis, Onchocerciasis (River blindness), Schistosomiasis, Trachoma (Chlamydia trachomatis), and Trichuriasis (whipworm).

Many of these conditions can be transferred from human to human with someone who has never been to Africa having an OIO and those can be unknown in your country (without lab test facilities being available) but they are well known in Africa or South America. You may be told: “So, we have run tests for everything and everything came back negative — you have an atypical condition with no known treatment”.

Bottom Line

Medical treatment suffers from one dimensional linear thinking that often uses a “nuts and bolts” mechanical model. The model and understanding of Dr. Jadin assumes a living organization that changes and adapts. The problem bacteria (be it OIO or microbiome) will literally play hide and seek with treatments. I share this perspective.

Some Possible Paths Forward

Depending on the cooperation of your MD, availability of detailed microbiome tests, etc.

  • Follow Dr. Jadin protocol
  • Follow the path being discussed in the Remission Biome Project:
    • Using Microbiome Prescription to generate a list of candidate antibiotics and then take the highest ranked on that which is on Dr. Jadin’s list – following Dr. Jadin’s pattern of alternating and pulsing
    • Implement the non-prescription suggestions of to avoid or to take. That targets the factory side (that is the gut microbiome), not the OIO side of the cycle show above. It simply improves the odds.
  • Do not use antibiotics (either by choice or by lack of cooperating MD) and use the advanced suggestions based on your microbiome sample with a new microbiome test every 6-8 weeks. Each new test will alter suggestions (especially probiotics). All suggestions should be reviewed by your medical professional.
    See this post: We can suggest what to take, but not how to take! for a more explicit description.

Follow Cécile Jadin process but use iterative sets of suggestions from Microbiome Prescription. By that, pick 1-2 of the top CFS tagged antibiotics, then at the end of first month, take a new microbiome sample and start with the secondary CFS tagged antibiotics (while waiting for the results).

A quick apparent remission may occur after the first antibiotic, Dr. Jadin’s opinion is that you need to keep to it for at least a year, in some cases up to 3 years. Having a remission that lasts 3 months and then relapses makes the next remission much harder to obtain.

A current project using antibiotics has two analysis done showing significant subjective and objective improvement.

Questions and Answers

Q: “This doesn’t address the causes of ME/CFS. Also there’s no mention of any nutrient deficiencies typically seen in every case of ME/CFS I’ve seen, or genetic factors, or anaemia, or thyroid dysfunctions, or other causes and factors.”

  • Read this again, OIO is a valid cause for many ME/CFS cases and this has been reported in many studies. and there are many more. A microbiome shift is well documented in studies for ME/CFS and that by itself may be the cause of ongoing ME/CFS. Explicitly treating nutrient deficiencies is treating symptoms and not causes. Correcting the microbiome will likely resolve most, if not all, nutrient deficiencies. Microbiome dysfunction is well documented with anemia and thyroid dysfunction. A side effect taking the relevant antibiotic is microbiome correction. See Tess Falor’s experience above where remission came with concurrent normalization of the microbiome (corrected by the antibiotics — either directly or indirectly)

Q: Are you not aware of the black box warning of floxing [fluoroquinolone] with some of those antibiotics? Is this protocol target only for those who have lyme associated with the ME/ CFS. Cause most people in my medical community( not all have lyme)who took them have had horrible consequences from being floxed.

  • Jadin was asked this question (see long video). She has never encountered this issue. It is critical to note HOW she uses it. Never more than 7 days followed by 3 weeks without antibiotics. For safety, she advises not to exercise while using it. Note that the warning also cites INJECTIONS as well as being seen after weeks on fluoroquinolone

Dr. Jadin’s Current Protocol for ME/CFS

This post had been moved to: Video Presentation of Dr. Jadin’s Current Protocol for ME/CFS, Q-Fever, Chronic Lyme and related conditions due to editing issues.

Chelation and ME/CFS

I saw a comment on a post claiming that chelation is all that is needed. Really? I have heard that same claim being made for over 25 years — so what is the peer review evidence.

Searches and Results

Doing further searches for high levels of

Looking at various metals, we found results for mercury:

A definitive study

The paper below found no evidence of systematic high levels of minerals for people with ME/CFS.

Vitamin and mineral status in chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia syndrome: A systematic review and meta-analysis [2017]

Bottom Line

Labs do not show evidence supporting a need to have chelation. There are no studies showing that it is effective — yes, there is speculation but after over 30 years the absence of study evidence is pretty condemning for it.

People may improve — yes! It is called the Placebo effect, and you can get real improvement from the placebo effect. How? Believing that it will work will reduce your stress levels and thus improves the microbiome.

For those that claim that it helps “Show me the peer review studies!” I work on gold standard evidence not what Jack told Jane based on what Sue told her.

Spanish ME/CFS with Fibromyalgia

Back Story

In 1994, after two years of a high stress job managing and motivating direct sales groups in my own sales company I quit and I spent 6 months very fatigued, without moving my body very much and staring at the void sitting on my sofa. I could barely lift a glass of water. After the six months I regained strength and I commenced in a new job. Doctor said I had the yuppie flu, gave some vitamins and tests showed I had had epstein-barr viruses.

In 2008 I recall being very fatigued again. And again 6 months secluded at home sleeping 14 hours a day (I have no family in Spain). I could work but I was uneasy and the job was stressful at times,. In 2009 I started to undergo tests in a private clinic, cause the public hospital who was cutting edge at CFS has a a waiting list of years. I wanted to know what I had. Blood samples, screening, mutaflor, some other immune system boosters, etc. Diagnosis 2010: CFS (not Fibromyalgia yet). I started also to attend to conferences and read a lot about my illness (which I don’t do anymore).

In 2016, after years working with fatigue and pain I decided I couldn’t stand it anymore and thought I should care about myself so I went on sick leave for one year. Afterwards I solicited voluntarily leave of absence.

CFS/EM slowly shifted more to Fibromyalgia. I was diagnosed in one of the best public Hospitals in Barcelona (the renowned Hospital Clínic). They gave me advice on doing exercise, not much more.

Now I say I have moderate EM and moderate to severe Fibromyalgia. Depends on the day. I stay at home mainly. IBS, Psoriasis, Costocondritis sometimes, eye problems, dizziness. muscular problems and stiffness, etc. I am going to a Quiropractic for many years. With an electric bike I can do some miles.

I see there are a lot of supplements in Biomesight, It would be highly appreciated if you could give some insight of my Biomesight results and how to get started changing my gut’s microbiome (food, supplements, etc).

Clarity on Suggestions from Biomesight

I do not know how Biomesight derive their suggested supplements. Many microbiome providers use nutritionists who often suggest generic “healthy” supplements. In other cases, they have found a study for a supplement that impacts one bacteria and if you are high or low for that bacteria, suggest that (ignoring what that same supplement will do to other bacteria!). I would love to see a detailed blog from Biomesight on how they determine appropriate supplements to suggest.

Microbiome Prescription uses almost 1.9 million facts(i.e. X substance modify Y bacteria) and then consider all interactions that a supplement has on all bacteria of concern.

Analysis

First, we will look for a common fingerprint for ME/CFS and Long COVID: Over representation of bacteria in the 0-9%ile. We have a very strong match shown below. The numbers in each range should be about the same number for a healthy microbiome.

Looking at Dr. Jason Hawrelak Recommendations we find it at 75.3%ile, indicating issues with the following being most concerning:

  • Bacteroides at double his high limit
  • Faecalibacterium prausnitzii well below his low limit. This bacteria is deemed anti-inflammatory [2008] and thus a contributor

The Potential Medical Conditions Detected using the US Library of Medicine studies show what you reported and a few other items of concern (Asthma, Colorectal Cancer [possible false positive], etc)

  • Fibromyalgia 96%ile
  • Chronic Fatigue Syndrome 96%ile
  • Inflammatory Bowel Disease 94%ile
  • Gastroesophageal reflux disease (Gerd) including Barrett’s esophagus – 97%ile

Going Forward

First a quick video on the process

I did the “Just give me suggestions” followed by individual sets of suggestions for the four above item resulting in 8 sets of suggestions done with different criteria to select critical bacteria (See video). We then use consensus to identify the items most likely to help. This is a way to improve results in the face of many unknowns.

There are a lot more items, but the above should be a good start. Now the items to reduce or cut (if taking):

Postscript – and Reminder

I am not a licensed medical professional and there are strict laws where I live about “appearing to practice medicine”.  I am safe when it is “academic models” and I keep to the language of science, especially statistics. I am not safe when the explanations have possible overtones of advising a patient instead of presenting data to be evaluated by a medical professional before implementing.

I cannot tell people what they should take or not take. I can inform people items that have better odds of improving their microbiome as a results on numeric calculations. I am a trained experienced statistician with appropriate degrees and professional memberships. All suggestions should be reviewed by your medical professional before starting.

The answers above describe my logic and thinking and is not intended to give advice to this person or any one. Always review with your knowledgeable medical professional.

The Remission Biome Project: Tess Falor

For more information on this project see Health Rising post. Both participants has granted me to do a review with their real names. For information about Tess see the Wired Story: How Chronic Illness Patients Are ‘Hacking’ Their Wearables (See Objective evidence — the smart watch dimension for my take). This is the first of a series of posts on this project.

The earliest use of antibiotics for treating ME/CFS that I am aware of, dates from the late 1990’s with articles in  Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (and conference reports prior)

My remission from ME/CFS was done by combining C.L. Jadin protocol with Dave Berg anticoagulant protocol.

Overview of results

First, let us show the numbers and then talk about them. It is clear that there are significant changes. There are a lot of dimensions to consider.

Criteria2-Mar9-Mar21-Mar3-Apr16-Jun
Shannon Diversity Index (Percentile)85.279.099.872.416.0
Simpson Diversity Index (Percentile)72.663.464.477.091.4
Chao1 Index (Percentile)65.731.277.262.97.9
Lab Read Quality8.98.764.54.4
Bacteria Reported By Lab654533725585389
Bacteria Over 99%ile24301124
Bacteria Over 95%ile1310703338
Bacteria Over 90%ile25231036355
Bacteria Under 10%ile287213123113140
Bacteria Under 5%ile253173664896
Bacteria Under 1%ile21913517846
Lab: BiomeSight
Rarely Seen 1%1313856
Rarely Seen 5%2891071729
Pathogens3631504036
Outside Range from JasonH66998
Outside Range from Medivere1515222222
Outside Range from Metagenomics77999
Outside Range from MyBioma55666
Outside Range from Nirvana/CosmosId2626181815
Outside Range from XenoGene2828464642
Outside Lab Range (+/- 1.96SD)68561727
Outside Box-Plot-Whiskers44361247067
Outside Kaltoft-Moldrup233169207137170
Condition Est. Over 99%ile00131048
Condition Est. Over 95%ile10243575
Condition Est. Over 90%ile22345584
Enzymes Over 99%ile00347606957
Enzymes Over 95%ile706359701145
Enzymes Over 90%ile242874611591228
Enzymes Under 10%ile506515561237245
Enzymes Under 5%ile378360422143174
Enzymes Under 1%ile1941661205294
Compounds Over 99%ile00225215617
Compounds Over 95%ile20355410732
Compounds Over 90%ile811441520778
Compounds Under 10%ile12439861105902822
Compounds Under 5%ile11569261032856796
Compounds Under 1%ile1115875936828767

Next are the percentages by percentile which I noticed tend to have over representation with ME/CFS and Long COVID in the 0-9 percentile. We see this pattern at the start, with improvement and then a bounce back to high numbers.

2-Mar2-Mar9-Mar9-Mar21-Mar21-Mar3-Apr3-Apr16-Jun16-Jun
PercentileGenus%Genus%Genus%Genus%Genus%
0 – 96540%5136%2815%2919%3536%
10-19138%1611%3619%2315%99%
20 – 29117%1611%2011%2315%1414%
30 – 3953%96%179%1711%44%
40 – 49138%107%148%117%55%
50 – 59127%86%105%85%33%
60 – 69127%96%63%149%11%
70 – 79127%32%105%64%55%
80 – 89106%107%158%96%77%
90 – 99117%86%3016%1510%1515%
Total164 140 186 155 98 
2-Mar2-Mar9-Mar9-Mar21-Mar21-Mar3-Apr3-Apr16-Jun16-Jun
Percentile%Species%Species%Species%Species%Species
0 – 941%9443%7913%4017%3621%31
10-196%149%1615%4413%289%13
20 – 298%189%1613%3912%2715%22
30 – 393%75%1010%2910%228%11
40 – 497%174%77%208%176%9
50 – 599%215%97%226%125%7
60 – 696%148%143%106%146%9
70 – 798%184%76%197%156%9
80 – 896%138%158%238%1710%14
90 – 995%126%1119%5713%2914%21
Total 228 184 303 217 146

The Events Around the above Samples

  • 2023-03-02 (baseline)
  • 2023-03-09 (during a stomach bug)
  • 2023-03-21 (during a “Level 1” remission while taking Amoxiclav. Level 1 = all symptoms gone. Felt great. Had started Amoxiclav on the morning of 3/20, this sample was taken after 3 doses around 3pm)
  • 2023-04-03 (4 days after stopping Amoxiclav, was on Doxycycline)
  • 2023-06-16 (During 2nd round of Amoxiclav when I felt really bad)

The microbiome results definitely reflected the Level 1 remission on 3-21. The low percentile genus and species percentage almost made it to the target level of 10% from the prior 40%! The Shannon Diversity Index was awesome (the higher the better!).

I have often described correcting the microbiome as being similar to sailing a sailboat along a coast line. Depending on wind and tide, there may be a lot of course changes required. I am curious on the ranking of Amoxiclav[amoxicillin] and Doxycycline with these samples. The numbers below suggests that going on to Doxycycline may have been a poor choice. On the 2nd round of Amoxiclav, it was at just 35% of the highest value recommendation versus 70% on the 1st round.

Criteria2-Mar9-Mar21-Mar3-Apr16-Jun
Amoxicillin280159210560384
Doxycycline3.767260-27-141
Highest40235410109121050
Best Antibioiticrifaximintriclosanrifampicinimipenemimipenem

Note that rifaximin and rifampicin are in the same family and used by some ME/CFS specialists. Imipenem shows up often with ME/CFS samples — but since it is intravenous, not the easiest to get on an ongoing basis.

Take Away and Reflections

This project main purpose was to show that remission can be triggered by antibiotics to another generation of people suffering from ME/CFS. The remission on 21-Mar demonstrates this to be correct both subjectively and objectively (Microbiome data — specifically Shannon Diversity Index and Percentages in different percentiles for Species and Genus). I should emphasis that both of these measures are multi-bacteria measures and do not support the common myth that ME/CFS is caused by a single bacteria.

The critical issue is maintaining remission. How do keep the microbiome where it should be. I often use analogies of cities because we are talking about a city of bacteria. To stop riots and looting in the streets you send in the National Guard (antibiotic). The city is back to normal. The causes of the the riots are still there. Typically lack of opportunities, neglect, etc. in these same ghettos. You must address these other issues. A repeat of sending in the National Guard may have the same effect as the first time OR very different effects – the same can be said for using the same antibiotics.

With bacteria we have two “radical organizations in the ghetto” — The Antibiotic resistant and the Resistors. For example, the bacteria that survive learnt how to avoid the National Guard and proceed to share that skill to other bacteria. Instead of a wall of shields pushing the rioters back, Molotov cocktails rain down on the troops from above.


Another analogy is that the gut is a pendulum. The antibiotics, probiotics and other items pushes the gut towards the equilibrium position! There is great joy! The gut is centered… At this point, many people go down the wrong reasoning path — “Keep doing more of the same to stay in remission!“. Remission is lost and the momentum pushes the guts out to the other side!!! You pushed out one devil and seven more devils return! (Math 12:43-45)

The key is to dampen down the swing so there is less and less swing. My personal opinion is that Cecile Jadin’s protocol using antibiotics for only 7 days each month is a very effective way of dampening the pendulum gained from decades of experience.


My approach with Microbiome Prescription is to try to address the whole city. Before taking action, we get intelligence on the nature of the city and decide on the appropriate action for a period of time (typically 4-10 weeks). We then update our intelligence (i.e. microbiome test) and pick the next course of action. Actions may include “food kitchens”, “safe injection sites”, “training programs”, “home repairs”, “on the beat policing”, etc.

There are many people who will state that antibiotics gave me ME/CFS. I do not disagree. Antibiotics can also trigger remission — the problem is WHICH antibiotics. Since every person’s microbiome is unique, there can be no universal “best antibiotic” for ME/CFS. Antibiotics must be selected based on the individuals microbiome (which is the path that Microbiome Prescription took) for the best odds of making the right choice.

My Suggestions Going Forward

I am working with C.L. Jadin, M.D., on documenting her current protocol from almost 30 years of experience using antibiotics for ME/CFS. It will be out soon. I am hoping to have that available within a month. One key aspect of her protocol has been pulsing antibiotics using two at a time. There are a few studies showing that pulsing is more effective. Pulsing often means 7 days on and 21 days off.

Looking at Tess’s last sample, I would propose the following to be considered (items that I picked from the consensus suggestions):

In terms of things to stop (if doing)

Use the Dosages for Supplements for guidance on dosages!

The Human Behavior Problem

A common pattern of people is “Just give me a pill to fix me, I want to keep my current life style and I am not prepared to make significant life style and diet changes”. My impression is that making those changes is often required. Inertia is a real maintainer of ME/CFS, especially the pendulum inertia when trying to heal.

Postscript – and Reminder

I am not a licensed medical professional and there are strict laws where I live about “appearing to practice medicine”.  I am safe when it is “academic models” and I keep to the language of science, especially statistics. I am not safe when the explanations have possible overtones of advising a patient instead of presenting data to be evaluated by a medical professional before implementing.

I can compute items to take, those computations do not provide information on rotations etc.

I cannot tell people what they should take or not take. I can inform people items that have better odds of improving their microbiome as a results on numeric calculations. I am a trained experienced statistician with appropriate degrees and professional memberships. All suggestions should be reviewed by your medical professional before starting.

The answers above describe my logic and thinking and is not intended to give advice to this person or any one. Always review with your knowledgeable medical professional.