Lyme Science Blog

An article entitled “Antibiotic treatment in patients that present with solely non-specific symptoms and positive serology at a Lyme centre,” published in the European Journal of Internal Medicine, ¹ describes a study which addresses the question: Are short-term antibiotics used to treat Lyme disease effective in patients whose symptoms are subjective? The study examined 97 patients […]

Dr. Baker, director of the American Lyme Disease Foundation, who was responsible for overseeing The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ (NIAID) Lyme disease program, wrote in his article, “The results of 5 placebo-controlled clinical trials on the efficacy of extended antibiotic therapy for the treatment of post-Lyme disease symptoms provided no evidence of

The authors compared 16 individuals with Lyme disease receiving TNF-α inhibitors with 32 healthy controls to understand whether suppressing their immunity is harmful. The individuals had confirmed Lyme disease with an erythema migrans rash manifestation. The patients received immune-suppressing medications, which included adalimumab, infliximab, etanercept, golimumab. These were often combined with other immunosuppressant drugs for

Clinicians face great challenges in diagnosing disorders that involve symptoms seen in both general medicine and psychiatry, ” wrote Robert Bransfield, MD, a psychiatrist and professor at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. All too often, these patients are labeled as having “excessive” symptoms and given outdated diagnoses (i.e. psychosomatic disorder). Symptoms of Lyme disease

In their article “Functional signs in patients consulting for presumed Lyme borreliosis,” Voitey et al. [1] found that in the 48 patients diagnosed with Lyme disease, the most common functional symptoms were arthralgia (23%), neuropathic pain (23%) and asthenia (17%). Asthenia is characterized by abnormal physical weakness or lack of energy. Their result raise concerns whether

As the authors point out, “Concurrent polymicrobial infections in humans can have a synergistic effect and result in a more severe course of illness.” In an effort to investigate what percentage of ticks have Lyme disease, the researchers examined three tick species, including the deer tick (Ixodes scapularis), found in Suffolk County, Long Island. Their

In their  article Lyme Carditis: A Rare Presentation of Sinus Bradycardia Without Any Conduction Defects, Grella and colleagues present “a unique case of Lyme carditis, without the classical findings of Lyme disease [such as a rash] or common EKG findings of AV conduction abnormalities.”¹ The case highlights the differences in Lyme disease guidelines. A 56–year-old

In their article, Bransfield et al. describe two patients with complex, multisystemic illnesses, which included Lyme disease. Both patients suffered from debilitating symptoms over several years, leaving them unable to walk and confined to a wheelchair. Doctors dismissed their complaints, which ranged from fatigue and weight loss to seizures and cognitive impairments. They were labeled

Teodoro and colleagues describe the case of a woman who was initially suspected of having a conversion disorder but later diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, possibly triggered by neurologic Lyme disease. ¹ (Conversion disorder is a mental condition in which a person has blindness, paralysis, or other nervous system (neurologic) symptoms that cannot be explained by

The people who did seem to suffer from chronic symptoms were those with neurologic problems.  “Those that have confirmed neurological Lyme disease  in England- a late complication present in about one in 10 cases – have a higher rate of long term subjective symptoms, such as fatigue and poor concentration,” writes Harvey. Matthew Dryden, consultant