After 37 years treating Lyme disease, one of the most common—and most important—questions patients ask is: does Lyme disease go away? In clinical experience, the answer is often yes. With timely and appropriate care, many patients improve and return to their usual level of function. That said, recovery is not identical for everyone. Some individuals […]
Does Lyme Disease Go Away After Treatment? Recovery Facts Read More »
Few experiences are more frustrating for patients than severe burning pain paired with “normal” nerve tests. Burning pain with normal EMG is a well-recognized clinical pattern, yet many patients are told that normal studies mean their symptoms are not neurologic—or worse, not legitimate. This mismatch between severe pain and normal nerve tests is especially common
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Crawling Skin Sensation: A Hidden Symptom of Lyme Disease Crawling skin sensation is among the most distressing—and most dismissed—symptoms patients report. The feeling of insects moving beneath the skin can be constant, unpredictable, and impossible to ignore. Yet when patients describe these symptoms, they are often met with skepticism or immediate psychiatric referral. Crawling skin
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After 37 years treating Lyme disease, I’ve seen brain fog and anxiety misdiagnosed as purely psychiatric disorders. She came to me after eight months of worsening psychiatric symptoms, including severe anxiety, episodes of rage, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and deepening depression. She had been diagnosed with a primary psychiatric disorder and spent months cycling through counseling and
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Losing Friends Because of Chronic Illness: Why It Happens When You’re Sick Losing friends because of chronic illness is a question patients with Lyme disease ask me quietly, often with more pain than any physical symptom they describe. They are not angry. They are grieving. As illness persists, plans are canceled, energy fades, and life
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When Being Dismissed Hurts More Than the Illness A patient once said to me, quietly and without anger, during a conversation about medical gaslighting and Lyme disease: “The hardest part wasn’t the Lyme. It was being told it couldn’t be Lyme.” She said it carefully, almost as if she were still weighing whether she would
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Lyme disease digestion problems are common, and many patients notice that digestion is one of the first systems to feel “off.” Meals that were once routine may now trigger nausea, bloating, abdominal discomfort, or unpredictable bowel changes. Some people feel full after only a few bites, while others struggle with constipation, diarrhea, or an uncomfortable
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Touch-evoked pain is a symptom many Lyme disease patients struggle to describe—and even more struggle to have believed. When clothing brushing against skin, a gentle touch, or cool air causes pain, it reflects a documented neurologic change, not imagination. This abnormal pain response has a name: allodynia. In simple terms, allodynia means the nervous system
Pain From Light Touch in Lyme Disease (Allodynia Explained) Read More »
Why Lyme Disease Persists and What Tuberculosis Teaches Us In the world of infectious disease, few organisms are as stubborn as Mycobacterium tuberculosis. But understanding why Lyme disease persists after treatment may require looking at what TB has taught us about bacterial survival. For more on latent TB, see the CDC’s tuberculosis overview. We call
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Bad Signs After a Tick Bite: 7 Warnings You Shouldn’t Ignore Based on clinical experience caring for patients with tick-borne illness. It often begins with something easy to dismiss. A small rash that fades. A few days of fatigue. A headache that doesn’t quite make sense.These are the bad signs after a tick bite that
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