Madison Area Lyme Support Group

Lyme disease, or Lyme borreliosis, is the most commonly transmitted tick-borne infection in the United States (US) and among the most frequently diagnosed tick-borne infections worldwide. Lyme disease is divided into 3 stages: early localized, early disseminated, and late. Early localized disease is distinguished by the red ring-like expanding rash of erythema migrans at the site of a recent tick bite. Other symptoms experienced at this stage may be malaise, headache, fever, myalgia, and arthralgia. Most patients only experience the symptoms of early localized disease. About 20% of patients develop early disseminated disease, with the most common symptoms being multiple erythema migrans lesions.

Other symptoms of the disseminated stage are flu-like symptoms, lymphadenopathy, arthralgia, myalgia, palsies of the cranial nerves, especially of cranial nerve VII, ophthalmic conditions, and lymphocytic meningitis. Additionally, cardiac manifestations, including conduction abnormalities, myocarditis, or pericarditis, may occur. The most common late-stage manifestation is arthritis, which is usually pauciarticular and affects large joints, especially the knees. Lyme disease is a curable condition if identified and treated appropriately.

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**Comment**

Sigh……here we go again.  Our tax dollars at work killing patients by regurgitating the same myths for over 40 years.

1. The ‘3 stages’ of Lyme myth has been dispelled numerous times yet repeated with abandon.  Here we learn of a child who within 4-6 hours of tick bite developed widely disseminated disease where she suddenly couldn’t walk or talk.  The ‘stage’ narrative is killing people by giving them a false sense of time.  Some people have very little time before chronic/persistent infection becomes a reality.
2. Hardly anyone I work with gets an EM rash, and a study found only 6% got it.  The rash is highly variable and prone to misdiagnosis.  There is nothing ‘classic’ about it.
   • In typical CDC circular reasoning surveillance definitions by their very nature increase the percentage of rash cases reported because one of the criteria for meeting the surveillance definition is a rash. Hello?  This Catch-22 abounds literally everywhere in Lymeland.

   

   • The rash issue, as well as waiting for the results of a faulty test, has caused frequent, unnecessary delays in diagnosis and treatment, dooming patients to a lifetime of suffering, as doctors are not properly educated on actual science, but have been fed a CDC-narrative that continues on with ratchet studies like this one.  Most doctors are unaware that while this rash is diagnostic for Lyme disease and that misdiagnosis can have fatal consequences, lack of a rash means zippo.
   • Aucott reports that 54% of Lyme disease patients who present without a rash are misdiagnosed.
3. The litany of symptoms (that can be psychiatric) continues to be ignored despite case after case after case showing this reality. Many of these symptoms are often caused by coinfections that come with Lyme, but this factoid is repeatedly ignored by mainstream research. Therefore the statement: “Most patients only experience the symptoms of early localized disease,” is completely and utterly erroneous.  Further, the statement: “the most common late-stage manifestation is arthritis, which is usually pauciarticular (involvement of 4 or fewer joints) and affects large joints, especially the knees,” is also utter garbage. They insist on propagating an acute illness, caused by a singular bacterium because it fits the ‘vaccine’ narrative.  This is also why the vaccine topic is huge and should be taken seriously by the Lyme/MSIDS community, and in order for that to happen, an understanding of the ‘vaccine’ fraud is mandatory reading, not to mention the fact every patient I know who got ‘vaccinated’ relapsed.
4. Sexual and congenital transmission is also categorically ignored.
5. The statement: “Lyme disease is a curable condition if identified and treated appropriately,” is sheer hopium based upon nothing but pixie dust.
6. Besides the fraudulent ‘vaccine’ narrative, it’s imperative to understand government ‘public health’ is nothing more than a peddler for Big Pharma.  This is why mainstream research via government grants and/or industry funding will only continue to regurgitate damaging information presented in this recent article. The design of Lyme/MSIDS research purposely omits the sickest patients, ignores seronegativity, and relies upon a test that misses around 90% of all cases – utilizing a rash nobody can identify and few have! 

There is no greater example of having the deck stacked against you.

The only hope for chronically ill patients is N-of-1 Trials.

This study and all others funded by government is a waste of time and money.