Lyme Science Blog

Lyme Carditis Heart Failure: A Rare Presentation Without Ischemic Disease A 52-year-old woman from Pennsylvania developed symptoms over a two-week period that included shortness of breath, fever, chills, fatigue, and joint pain with stiffness. She also reported dizziness and intermittent pre-syncope, described as near-fainting episodes. “Echocardiography demonstrated new-onset mildly depressed left ventricular systolic dysfunction,” the […]

In this video, we explore what co-infections are, including co-infections of Lyme disease, and how they can affect people battling this condition. Lyme disease, caused by the bite of an infected tick, can sometimes come with other infections, known as co-infections. These co-infections, like Bartonella, Babesia, and Ehrlichia, can complicate Lyme disease symptoms and make

Case Study: Unexplained Foot Pain One of my patients experienced severe foot pain, even while walking to the bathroom. A podiatrist diagnosed him with plantar fasciitis, and he tried various treatments including icing, NSAIDs, stretching, iontophoresis, shoe inserts, and cortisone injections. Despite these efforts, his foot pain persisted. In addition to foot pain, he suffered

By 1990, I had started prescribing intravenous ceftriaxone (Rocephin), based on emerging reports of its effectiveness in chronic neurologic Lyme disease. This adjustment was influenced by reports from doctors Dr. Logigian, Kaplan, and Steere, who documented the treatment of chronic neurologic Lyme disease cases. I added azithromycin (marked as Zithromax in the USA) and clarithromycin

My patient took a “bury-your-head-in-the-sand” approach towards Lyme disease, which did not help him. He had been ill for more than 2 years, suffering from severe fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep, headaches, poor concentration, irritability, neck pain, chest pain, palpitations, stomach pains, and joint pain. He remained ill despite having been evaluated by several specialists

When I first began treating Lyme disease in 1987, the primary antibiotic prescribed was doxycycline. This choice was driven by doxycycline’s effectiveness not only against Lyme disease itself but also against co-infections such as Ehrlichia and Anaplasmosis. These co-infections, often transmitted by the same ticks that carry Lyme, present additional challenges in patient management. However,

In the article, “Acute arthritis of the right temporomandibular joint due to Lyme disease: a case report and literature review,” the authors describe a 25-year-old patient who presented to a medical center with acute pain in the right temporomandibular joint and mouth opening disorders.¹ Over a 5-year period, the woman’s distal bite was treated with

Can you get ticks from pets? Yes, and according to a study by Jones et al. owning indoor-outdoor pets increases your risk of being bitten by a tick and potentially exposing yourself to various tick-borne diseases. [1] Out of the 1,546 homes with pets, 88.1% used some form of tick control on their pets. Yet,

Investigators describe the case of a 41-year-old patient, diagnosed with post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS), who, in addition to exhibiting typical PTLDS symptoms, also showed a severe retrograde episodic-autobiographical and semantic amnesia. In 2015, the patient exhibited weakness and loss of energy, psychomotor slowing, night sweats, and difficulties with attention. A few months prior to