Hypercoagulation is actually very, very common in people who have Lyme disease. I read an article where one Lyme doctor actually said that 90% of his Lyme patients tested positive for thick blood. Apparently it's one of the many clever tactics that the spirochetes use to avoid Lyme treatments....they increase the various clotting factor levels (fibrinogen, fibrin, thrombin/antithrombin complexes, fragment 1+2, and Factor II (prothrombin) activity) in your blood and this creates little clumps of fibrin that cling to the walls of blood vessels. The bacteria use these fibrin nests to hide in....this helps them survive.
Of course, hypercoagulation can lead to many other serious health problems, even strokes. So not only are the spirochetes better able to fight back against your Lyme meds when you have "thick blood", but they are even putting your life in danger!
I have a few questions for the members of our group: (1) How many of you have heard of hypercoagulation (in connection with Lyme disease) before? (2) How many of you have been tested by your LLMDs or other doctors for hypercoagulation? (3) If you were tested, did your doctors use the Hemex Labs tests (hereditary hypercoagulation and the ISAC panel)?
If you're interested, I've recently created my own Lyme disease blog and I wrote a post about this issue, here. My LLMD has now put me on heparin injections (5000 units/1cc) twice a day, subcutaneously.
Ouch!
But I'd rather inject myself with heparin twice a day than have a stroke....wouldn't you? :)
