Lyme Science Blog

Mice, guinea pigs, dogs, rabbits and monkeys have long been used to study B. burgdorferi infections. But given that rhesus macaques have been shown to most accurately mimic human infection and response to treatment, Embers and her team inoculated rhesus macaques with B. burgdorferi. “The use of nonhuman primates to model this disease provides the […]

Lyme disease fatigue is one of the most common and most frustrating symptoms of the illness. It’s not just feeling tired. Many of my patients describe it as bone-deep exhaustion. Some say it feels like moving through wet cement. Others say they wake up feeling just as drained as when they went to bed. For

Following is a list of the most popular All Things Lyme blogs for 2017. Click on the headline to read the complete article. 1) 12-year-old boy suffers cardiac arrest due to Lyme disease In the February 2017 issue of HeartRhythm Case Reports, doctors describe what they believe is the first case of a Lyme disease

Since 1977, “in spite of all endeavors conducted by the Connecticut Department of Public Health (CTDPH) to control the disease, it [Lyme disease] remains endemic with substantial morbidity rates,” states Mollalo, from the Department of Geography at the University of Florida. Mollalo and his team conducted a retrospective study examining changes in the spatial clusters

A 46-year-old Canadian man developed Bell’s palsy after frequent summer hiking in tick-endemic regions of New England, Quebec, and Ontario. Emergency clinicians correctly diagnosed Lyme disease based on facial drooping, multiple erythema migrans rashes, and outdoor exposure history—prescribing antibiotics immediately rather than waiting for test results. Critically, they avoided corticosteroids, which recent research shows cause

Xenodiagnosis: Using Ticks to Test for Lyme Disease “Xenodiagnosis was positive for B. burgdorferi DNA in a patient with erythema migrans early during therapy and in a patient with PTLDS [post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome],” writes Marques from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. However, there wasn’t enough

The CDC previously recommended treatment for patients living in endemic states. “Fourteen states, all located in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic, and upper Midwest regions, met the criteria for classification as states with high incidence (Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin),” writes Schwartz and

It is clear that more patients need to be involved in research and clinical trials if we are going to advance our understanding of Lyme disease and improve patient care. Only 4 clinical trials, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have included chronically ill Lyme disease patients. These trials were small and typically

Zomer and colleagues found that 1 in 5 Lyme disease patients presenting to the Lyme Center Apeldoorn in the Netherlands between January 2008 and December 2014 were diagnosed with depression and Lyme disease. [1] Depression was identified using the Dutch version of the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II) questionnaire. The BDI-II scale has been used

Individuals with pseudotumor cerebri have an increased intracranial pressure (pressure around the brain) without a tumor or other cause. The symptoms can include stroke-like headaches, nausea and vomiting. The disease can progress to swelling of the optic disc of the eye and vision loss. [2] “A 6-year-old female presented with a 4-day history of bi-frontal,