Lyme Science Blog

The first confirmed case of LB [Lyme borreliosis] in a pregnant woman was described in 1985 in a 28-year- old mother who was infected with LB in the first trimester and delivered her baby at 35 weeks, the authors explained, based on a paper by Schlesinger et al.² “The mother developed symptoms consistent with LB […]

A 36-year-old man was hospitalized in 2019 due to unexplained fevers he had been having for two weeks. He was later diagnosed with Babesia with 8.5% of his blood showing the parasite. He had been diagnosed with granulomatosis with polyangiitis in 2001 and was considered immunocompromised related to treatment 2 years earlier with rituximab, a

In their study, Wormser and colleagues found that 6 of the 11 Lyme disease patients (54.5%) suffered from facial nerve dysfunction an average of 13.1 months following the onset of treatment with corticosteroids.¹ 52-year-old man with “tearing of left eye when eating (Bogorad’s syndrome); mild residual weakness left side.” 51-year-old man with “mild residual left

“A 5-year-old male with National Cancer Institute (NCI) standard risk B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL), in remission and receiving standard maintenance chemotherapy, was admitted to another hospital with fever, emesis, diarrhea, headache, and lethargy in July,” wrote Ungar. The child had been diagnosed 32 months earlier with B-ALL and remained in complete remission following induction

According to the authors, the woman experienced a “sudden onset of severe, lancinating headache in the distribution of the fifth cranial nerve bilaterally.”¹ She had been treated for Lyme disease two months earlier following a tick bite and a rash on her torso. She had since been bitten by a non-engorged tick. Her neurologic exam

Less than 2% of facial palsy cases are bilateral.¹ “Unlike unilateral facial palsy, it is often caused by a serious underlying systemic disease and therefore warrants urgent medical intervention,” wrote Yang and Dalal in their article “Bilateral Facial Palsy: A Clinical Approach.”² “A previously healthy 10-year-old boy presented in late August with a one-day history

According to the authors, “The mother initially denied history of a tick bite, yet after focused questioning, the mother stated that the child had ticks on her approximately 9 months ago.” Unfortunately, the child was not taken to her clinician because she did not develop any skin rashes which could indicate Lyme disease. The child

The case features a 48-year-old female with multiple sclerosis (MS) who presented to her primary care physician with a fever and sore throat. Three weeks later, she returned complaining of photophobia, eye pressure sensation, blurry vision, pain with eye movements and central scotoma on the morning prior to her visit. (A scotoma is a blurry

A recently published study by Sowula and colleagues provides further evidence that Lyme disease can trigger vertigo and hearing loss. In their article “Vertigo as one of the symptoms of Lyme disease,” the authors examine the frequency of vertigo symptoms and potential labyrinth damage in patients with diagnosed Lyme disease.4 The study included 38 patients

Moon et al. explored the risk factors for disseminated Lyme disease using an electronic database from the Geisinger integrated health care system located in Pennsylvania. They based their data on both diagnostic and narrative text data. One out of three of their disseminated Lyme disease cases were classified as disseminated cases. “Lyme arthritis was the