Lyme Science Blog

A 40-year-old man presented to the emergency department with a headache that had been ongoing for 5 days and intermittent numbness in his left arm. CT scan and MRI of the brain revealed acute subarachnoid hemorrhage and the patient was admitted to the neurology unit for medical management of acute stroke. Additional testing “redemonstrated the […]

Scientists from the University of Bristol studied the naturally occurring electrostatic charges in animals. They reported their findings in a study entitled “Static electricity passively attracts ticks onto hosts.”¹ “Mammals, birds, and reptiles are known to carry appreciable net electrostatic charges, equivalent to surface potentials on the order of hundreds to tens of thousands of

The 49-year old man had been diagnosed one month earlier with Lyme disease after testing positive and treated with a 10-day course of doxycycline. He was an avid hiker who had frequented trails in Pennsylvania, wrote Palmer and colleagues in their article “Atrial Flutter and Left Hemidiaphragmatic Paralysis in the Setting of Lyme Disease.”¹ The

Nervous system Lyme disease has a wide spectrum of manifestations, including facial nerve palsy and subacute meningitis, which are often observed in the pediatric population, the authors state. But only rarely, have cases of seizures triggered by Lyme disease been reported. In their case report, the authors describe a 4-year-old boy who was admitted to

“Case report: Substantial improvement of autism spectrum disorder in a child with learning disabilities in conjunction with treatment for poly-microbial vector borne infections,” by Drs. Offutt and Breitschwerdt describes the case of an adolescent diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, who had cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms which improved following treatment for Lyme disease and Bartonella.¹ The

The boy presented with fatigue, posterior lower neck pain, and a low-grade temperature of 100.8 for one day. There was no history of a tick bite, erythema migrans rash, or Bell’s palsy, suggestive of Lyme disease. There was pain in the soft tissues of the posterior neck and upper back. An Magnetic resonance image (MRI)

As this case report demonstrates, immunocompromised patients with Babesia may not respond to standard antimicrobial treatment, resulting in relapsing babesiosis. But investigators suggest that a combination of medications including Malarone shows promise for treatment-resistant patients. In their article “Atovaquone-Proguanil: A Promising Therapy for Persistent Relapsing Babesiosis,” Shahid and colleagues describe a case of relapsing babesiosis

In their article, “Ten-year-old Omani Girl with Lyme Arthritis,” Mughaizwi and colleagues describe a young child who had lived in the United States for 5 years before moving to Oman.¹ One year after her return to Oman, she developed symptoms of Lyme arthritis. “We report a 10-year-old girl who presented with acute arthritis of the

In this case report, “Exacerbation of Osteoarthritic Joint Pain by Lyme Disease,” Bennani and colleagues demonstrate the importance in identifying an underlying tick-borne infection, as appropriate treatment can dramatically improve a patient’s quality of life.¹ A 63-year-old man, who was wheelchair-bound, presented to his clinician’s office with severe pain in both knees, which had been

In the article “An Atypical Case Presentation of Babesiosis,” Allen and colleagues describe a unique patient who contracted Babesiosis but did not exhibit many of the typical Babesia symptoms, such as night sweats, chills, shortness of breath and weight loss.¹ Instead, his symptoms were limited to weakness, fever, tachycardia and leg pain. CASE REPORT A