Lyme Science Blog

“Droplet digital PCR assays (ddPCRs) were developed and validated in our laboratory to enhance the sensitivity of detection of Babesia, Bartonella and Borrelia spp. DNA in animal and human patient specimens,” according to Maggi and colleagues from the College of Veterinary Medicine at North Carolina State University. Investigators used digital PCR assays with enhanced sensitivity […]

The article entitled “A Fatal Case of Late Stage Lyme Borreliosis and Substance Abuse,”1 describes a patient exhibiting aggressiveness, violence, and homicidality. Like many Lyme disease patients, the man experienced a delay in diagnosis and treatment. (One study reports that subjects enrolling in a trial of Lyme encephalopathy were ill an average of two years

A 55-year-old man developed numbness and burning in his legs, numbness in his hands, tinnitus, extreme weakness, intense pain, cramps at night and at rest, palpitations, paresthesias (pins and needles sensation), headaches, shortness of breath and orthostatic hypotension. In addition, “Fatigue was intense and incapacitating, accompanied by anxiety, difficulty concentrating, mental fogginess and sleep disturbances,”

The patient was admitted to the emergency department for acute back pain that had been progressively worsening over an 8-week period. The pain began 5 weeks after a minor surfing accident. Repeated X-rays and additional tests were normal. “The intensity of the pain is greater at night and the patient sleeps little. These pains are

Case #1 A 57-year-old woman presented to the hospital with shortness of breath. Two weeks earlier, she experienced nausea, fatigue, headache and myalgias, before developing dyspnea on moderate exertion, the authors state. She also reportedly had a rash on her shoulder. She was diagnosed with Lyme disease and initially treated with doxycycline. Concerned that she

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