The study included more than 1,000 children, average age of 9, who underwent evaluation for Lyme disease at 1 of the 5 participating emergency departments. The authors found that 65 out of 554 children (12%) could have been underdiagnosed. “Of the 554 children who the treating clinicians thought were unlikely to have Lyme disease (score […]

In the January 2018 issue of the British Medical Journal, the authors describe the case of a 61-year-old man who complained to his primary care physician and multiple emergency room personnel that he was having severe shooting pain over his scalp, neck and back. “The degree of discomfort from his hair moving was so extreme […]

In an effort to explore the evolutionary history of the spirochete B. burgdorferi in North America, Walter and colleagues from the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Disease at Yale University collected ticks from across the USA and southern Canada between 1984 and 2013. The authors sequenced what they believe to be the largest collection of 146 […]

The 66-year-old man became ill within a week of being bitten by a tick on the back of his neck. One month later, he collapsed and was rendered unconscious, Sharma and colleagues explain in The American Journal of Medicine. The authors describe the case in their article “Without Further Delay: Lyme carditis.” When the man was […]

Researchers have conducted numerous animal sentinel studies to monitor the occurrence and spread of Lyme disease. “These studies primarily focused on ticks and associated pathogens collected from domestic dogs because of their ability to produce antibodies to B. burgdorferi, attainable travel history information, and frequency of outdoor exposure,” says Hendricks. Hendricks’ team looked at confirmed […]

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 […]

The patient was concerned she might have Lyme disease because she had repeated exposure to ticks and had reported tick bites in the past. However, “She did not recall a tick bite in the weeks preceding the onset of her illness,” Novak writes in Case Reports in Infectious Diseases. [1] Therefore, the primary care doctor made […]

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 […]

There are varying presentations of Lyme disease with the two most common symptoms including erythema migrans and arthritis, according to the authors of a case review published in the Canada Communicable Disease Report. [1] But they also point out that “Bell’s palsy is not rare — it has been found in 8.2% of reported cases […]

“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. [1] However, there wasn’t enough evidence to conclude that viable spirochetes were present […]

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, […]