Lyme Science Blog

“Our case emphasizes that Lyme disease is capable of causing a mix of symptoms, which may be difficult to interpret, leading to a delay in diagnosis,” the authors write. And these symptoms may “develop consecutively further obscuring the clinical picture.” A 69-year-old male presented to the hospital with abdominal pain and hyponatremia, a condition that […]

A 42-year-old New York City man quarantining upstate during COVID-19 developed Lyme carditis that progressed to cardiac arrest within two weeks of tick bite. The case demonstrates how rapidly Lyme carditis can deteriorate when diagnosis is delayed – and how completely patients recover when treatment finally begins. By Dr. Daniel Cameron Geographic Dislocation During Pandemic

In their article, “Medically Managed Lyme Periprosthetic Joint Infection: A Case Report,” Saar et al. describe the case involving a patient with acute Lyme arthritis which was complicated by a previous total knee arthroplasty. A 68-year-old man living in Virginia presented to a medical clinic with suprapatellar swelling, pain, heat, and mild erythema of the

A young woman presented to the emergency department with multiple tick bites and erythematous papules, along with headaches, fatigue and arthralgias. She had been walking her dog in the woods in a state park in the metropolitan area of Washington, D.C. She later found multiple ticks on her bedsheet and 30 ticks on her back,

In their article, “Lyme-Associated Pericarditis: A Case Report and Literature Review,” Ameer and colleagues describe an 18-year-old man who developed pericarditis due to Lyme disease.1 The patient who had a medical history of asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, and obsessive-compulsive disorder presented to the emergency department with complaints of chest pain. The pain was intense –

In their article, “Concurrent Infection of the Human Brain with Multiple Borrelia Species,” Golovchenko and colleagues describe the case involving a post-mortem brain autopsy on a man who suffered for more than 10 years with neurologic and psychiatric symptoms due to Lyme disease. The patient underwent repeated testing with “borderline positivity for Borrelia infection, followed

The authors describe a case in which an elderly man with dementia was referred to an Alzheimer’s Disease Care Unit but later tested positive for Lyme disease. The 75-year-old man reportedly had only mild memory loss but was admitted to the unit due to hallucinations, confusion and aggressive behavior. Two weeks earlier, he was diagnosed

In their study, “Atypical Lyme Disease Rash: A Case Report,” Khanna et al. describe the case of a 69-year-old woman, who tested negative for Lyme disease (according to CDC criteria), yet presented with an atypical Lyme rash. “Our patient only had one band positive on Western blot testing, which is not considered a positive result.”

An 80-year-old man, later diagnosed with Lyme disease, was admitted to the hospital with left leg paresis [muscle weakness], along with pain and sensory disturbances in his left abdomen. He also had a rash on his left lower abdomen, severe abdominal pain and constipation. The symptoms had been ongoing for 4-5 weeks. The patient had