![]() Doctors still often don’t know how to accurately diagnose patients with Lyme disease, and patients don’t always get better, even when they are diagnosed and treated. My colleagues and I have closely followed the health of Lyme disease patients as they recover, and what we have discovered runs counter to the mainstream teaching about Lyme disease. It has become obvious to me that the problem is deeper and more complex than the polarized debate over the controversy would make one believe. Department of Health and Human Services and a medical researcher who has studied chronic Lyme disease for 20 years. I am the former chair of the tick-borne diseases working group at the U.S. Many are denied medications such as antibiotics they believe can control the chronic infections they suspect they have. ![]() Her experience gives insight into a highly controversial medical term: chronic Lyme disease.īecause there are no definitive tests or treatments for this condition, patients who have symptoms can be dismissed by the medical establishment. “No one stopped to listen to my story and advocate for me.” “I felt dismissed and abandoned,” she later told me. It wasn’t until several months later, when she got a second opinion, that she was diagnosed with post-treatment Lyme disease, a known complication of Lyme disease. Doctors told her it was just the recovery process, but the symptoms were debilitating and didn’t go away. Doctors tested her for Lyme disease and found it had spread to her heart, a rare manifestation of Lyme disease that can be fatal.Īntibiotics resolved her heart and respiratory symptoms, but the fatigue, as well as joint pain and trouble concentrating, continued. The woman, a nurse in her 40s, returned to the emergency room a few weeks later with breathing trouble and low blood pressure. The next day, she felt worse and went to the emergency room, where she was diagnosed with mononucleosis. Her doctor told her it was likely just a virus. The woman had been healthy until then, and since she enjoyed gardening and landscaping at her rural Maryland home, she wondered if a tick bite might have given her Lyme disease although she had not noticed the telltale bull’s-eye skin lesion. ![]() scapularis may be concurrently infected with the other diseases it transmits.Her symptoms started quickly: neck pain, extreme fatigue and intermittent fever and chills. ![]() Patients ill with any one of the diseases transmitted by I. scapularis and have a common geographic distribution in the northeastern and upper Midwest. read more encephalitis are also transmitted by I. read more as well as Borrelia miyamotoi relapsing fever and Powassan virus Powassan virus Arbovirus (arthropod-borne virus) applies to any virus that is transmitted to humans and/or other vertebrates by certain species of blood-feeding arthropods, chiefly insects (flies and mosquitoes). Infections can be asymptomatic or cause a malaria-like illness with fever and hemolytic anemia. read more (a rickettsial infection) and babesiosis Babesiosis Babesiosis is infection with Babesia species of protozoa. Ehrlichiosis is caused mainly by Ehrlichia chaffeensis anaplasmosis is caused by Anaplasma phagocytophilum. In the US, human granulocytic anaplasmosis Ehrlichiosis and Anaplasmosis Ehrlichiosis and anaplasmosis are caused by rickettsial-like bacteria. read more with peripheral joint involvement. Late-stage Lyme disease lacks axial involvement, which distinguishes it from spondyloarthropathies Overview of Seronegative Spondyloarthropathies Seronegative spondyloarthropathies (seronegative spondyloarthritides) share certain clinical characteristics (eg, inflammatory back pain, uveitis, gastrointestinal symptoms, rashes). Findings that are often present in rheumatoid arthritis but not Lyme disease include morning stiffness, subcutaneous nodules, iridocyclitis, mucosal lesions, rheumatoid factor, and antinuclear antibodies. Rheumatoid arthritis causes damage mediated by cytokines, chemokines, and metalloproteases. read more and atypical rheumatoid arthritis Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic systemic autoimmune disease that primarily involves the joints. Common manifestations include asymmetric arthritis. read more in children and reactive arthritis Reactive Arthritis Reactive arthritis is an acute spondyloarthropathy that often seems precipitated by an infection, usually genitourinary or gastrointestinal. Arthritis, fever, rash, adenopathy, splenomegaly, and iridocyclitis are typical of some forms. Early-disseminated disease may mimic juvenile idiopathic arthritis Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) Juvenile idiopathic arthritis is a group of rheumatic diseases that begins by age 16. ![]()
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