Unorthodox treatment helps man battle Lyme disease

Having run out of water while on a hike in July 2002, Bryan Rosner drank from a stream on Mt. Tallac to quench his thirst. He staved off dehydration but developed giardia, a waterborne parasite that causes intestinal infection.

Prescribed antibiotics to treat the illness, the 26-year-old South Shore resident felt worse instead of better. Rosner believes the giardia activated latent Lyme disease bacteria in his body, which he suspects he was infected with when he was bitten by a tick in a South Lake Tahoe meadow as a child.

Sore muscles and joints and minor neurological problems he had shrugged off since he was 11 years old, intensified. Rosner said he developed "heart palpitations, digestion problems, mood swings, memory loss, the whole gamut." He went from being the top salesman at Century 21 South Tahoe Realty, to not being able to work.

Those days are now gone and he hopes it will remain that way. Rosner credits his recovery to a $700 Rife machine, which he said produces an electromagnetic field tuned to specific frequencies that break apart Lyme disease bacteria.

"It works the same way an opera singer can shatter glass with the right pitch," Rosner said. "Bacteria can be shattered with the right frequency."

The technology was invented by Dr. Royal Raymond Rife, who began working with electromagnetic frequencies in San Diego in the 1930s after inventing a microscope powerful enough to see bacteria and virus. Rife died in 1971.

Rosner discovered Rife's technology doing research on the Internet, but only after he and his family spent $100,000 on intravenous antibiotics, the standard treatment for advanced cases of Lyme disease, and other failed treatments, one of which took him to Milan, Italy.

Electromagnetic therapy takes months or years to breakdown bacteria in the body, Rosner says. He started treating himself with a Rife machine, five minutes a week, in February 2003, but didn't begin to feel like himself until last summer. Rosner said he's unaware of any side effects from the treatments. He now uses the device five minutes a month.

During the bacterial die-off time, Rosner compiled research into a book on Lyme disease and Rife technology.

"The book was the perfect project for me," he said. "It puts everything we know into one location."

"When Antibiotics Fail ... Lyme Disease and Rife Machines," was self published by Rosner last month and he has sold 200 copies - some to Ireland, United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Canada - through his Internet site www.lymebook.com and a discussion group he set up, www.lymebook.com/resources.

"This machine gave me back my life and barely anybody knows about it," Rosner said. "I'm 95 percent. There is still some memory stuff and muscle soreness but it's not overwhelming, not debilitating."

His father, Doug Rosner, owner of Century 21 South Tahoe Realty, said he can tell that his son is improving.

"He has not had significant a setback in almost a year," he said. "I'm just thrilled he's making steady progress. He was so sick that he was forced to come back home and live with use for about 6 months.

Nutritionist: Device cured his cancer

Richard Loyd, who holds a doctorate in nutrition and coordinates an Annual Rife International Health Conference, wrote the foreword for Rosner's book. Loyd, reached by telephone at his Seattle office, said that Rife technology helped four members of his family defeat various types of cancer. He says he survived prostate cancer.

"It depends how much exposure (the book) gets, but it's going to certainly give Lyme disease sufferers the information they need to kind of take charge of their own recovery," Loyd said.

Allyson Tabor, a supervising public health nurse for El Dorado County, said she has never heard of a Rife machine. She said the Centers for Disease Control recommend long-term doses of antibiotics for advanced cases of Lyme disease. If the regimen of medicine doesn't work the first time, it should be administered again.

"The antibiotics can kill the bacteria, but if you let the Lyme disease progress in the body the effects can persist even if you've killed the bacteria," Tabor said. "The key for Lyme disease is to get treated right away."

Tabor said cases of Lyme disease have been diagnosed at South Shore, but in those instances it was unclear whether the people had contracted the disease at Tahoe.

"We've had lab reports of Lyme, but we've never been sure they acquired it here in the Tahoe basin," Tabor said. "It's transported by ticks and there are some ticks here, but they are more common on the West Slope."

Rosner said he didn't have that luxury because his disease, which he believes he contracted from a tick bite, went undiagnosed because he never felt too sick until after the giardia hit. Even then, he was tested four times for Lyme disease before a test came back positive.

"Lyme disease is often misdiagnosed," Rosner said. "It can masquerade as a number of other supposedly incurable diseases like multiple sclerosis, arthritis, schizophrenia, chronic fatigue syndrome."

The California Department of Health was contacted about Rosner's electromagnetic treatment Wednesday but a spokeswoman said no disease specialists were available to comment because they were at a conference about the West Nile virus.

- Gregory Crofton can be reached at (530) 542-8045 or by e-mail at gcrofton@tahoedailytribune.com