Archive for the ‘Babesia’ Category

Tick-borne Diseases in the Time of COVID

https://www.recorder.com/Tick-borne-diseases-in-the-time-of-COVID-41916546

My Turn: Tick-borne diseases in the time of COVID

Mary Carey STAFF FILE PHOTO

By MARY CAREY
Published: 8/18/2021

In early July, I was hoping my husband Brian, who was feeling uncharacteristically under the weather, would bounce back to his hardy self soon, so we could rent an AirBnB on a lake or a beach for a few days.

By the end of the month, I just wanted him to get better.

We were increasingly anxious to find out what was causing his pillow-soaking sweats, violent chills, head and neck aches and extreme fatigue as one week, then a second, and half of the third week went by. Despite two visits to an urgent care clinic, a diagnosis of cellulitis and an antibiotic, he was getting worse. An emergency room doctor at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, for whom we are deeply, deeply grateful, eventually identified the culprit. But it was a confounding journey leading up to the revelation. Living in the shadow of COVID, as we all are, didn’t help.

The idea that Brian could be one of the unlucky minority of the fully vaccinated to get a breakthrough infection was always on his mind. He had had three COVID tests which all proved negative — a relief on the one hand, he said, but a little bittersweet, because if he had COVID, at least we would know what was wrong with him. (See link for article)

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**Comment**

This article is important for numerous reasons.

  1. Not everything is COVID
  2. I find it interesting that these symptoms all cropped up after he’d been “fully vaccinated” for COVID. Vaccines purposely lower the immune system so that it then mounts an immune response to whatever is injected into the body. This vaccination chain of events has reactivated latent tick-borne infections in people.  
  3. Having swollen and red toes, elevated liver enzymes, and erratic temperature fluctuations are all fairly hallmark symptoms of tick-borne illness.
  4. Cellulitis is a common misdiagnosis.
  5. The doctor thankfully recognized the symptoms and commented that they had seen a lot of tick-borne diseases – not just Lyme at the hospital this summer.
  6. Blood tests revealed the patient had Babesia, Anaplasmosis, and Lyme disease. This guy was lucky and won the jack-pot.  Patients are often seronegative due to abysmal testing and never get diagnosed.
  7. This man needs lengthy follow-up as all of these infections are notoriously persistent.

Category:

Activism, Anaplasmosis, Babesia, Lyme, vaccines

With Three Invasive Tick Species Thriving in Connecticut, State Scientist Warns of Major Public Health Hazard

https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-ct-more-ticks-20210816-eafwrhehkbhspacc7r5qrw4m4m-story.html

With three invasive tick species thriving in Connecticut, state scientist warns of major public health hazard

By 
HARTFORD COURANT 
AUG 16, 2021 
Stratford, Ct. - 08/13/2021 - Dr. Goudarz Molaei, with Connecticut's Agricultural Experiment Station, searches for ticks trapped on a canvas dragged through shoreline vegetation. Photograph by Mark Mirko | mmirko@courant.com
Stratford, Ct. – 08/13/2021 – Dr. Goudarz Molaei, with Connecticut’s Agricultural Experiment Station, searches for ticks trapped on a canvas dragged through shoreline vegetation. Photograph by Mark Mirko | mmirko@courant.com (Mark Mirko/The Hartford Courant)

State scientist Goudarz Molaei pulled a square of cloth through brush and grass on the Stratford coast recently, then stopped and pointed to a crawling smear of larvae on the white fabric.

The tiny arachnids were either Gulf Coast or lone star ticks, two of three invasive species, along with the Asian long-horned tick, that have recently established footholds in Connecticut.

First seen only in pockets near the coast, the blood-sucking, disease-carrying ticks have spread into other parts of the state. Compared with past years, many more worried residents and visitors have submitted ticks to the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, mostly deer ticks that may carry Lyme disease, Molaei said. The tally so far in 2021 is 4,700 tick submissions to the testing laboratory, compared with a total annual average of 3,000 submissions.

Milder winters and warmer temperatures overall are helping the ticks survive and thrive in Connecticut.

“This is going to be a major public health concern in the near future, if it is not already,” Molaei said.  (See link for article)

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**Comment**

Important takeaways:

  • Previously only .2% of submitted ticks were lone star ticks which increased to 4.2% this year. They transmit ehrlichiosis, STARI, spotted fever rickettsiosis, tularemia, Alpha-gal allergy, and Heartland and Bourbon Viruses.
  • The researcher states that it’s a matter of time before the entire state of Connecticut will be infested with Asian long-horned tick – the tick that can reproduce by cloning. It is supposedly less attracted to human skin but can spread diseases that make both animals and humans seriously ill.
  • The Gulf Coast tick overwintered successfully in Connecticut but currently is limited to coastal areas.  Thirty percent tested there were infected with rickettsiosis, which is similar to but less serious than Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.
  • The deer tick, or blacklegged tick transmits Lyme disease and is active any time temperatures are above freezing.  All life stages bite humans.
  • The following percentages of ticks were sent to the Experiment Station this year:
    • 72.8% deer ticks (32% were positive for Lyme, 10% for Babesia, 4% for Anaplasmosis – and 2% tested positive for at least 2 disease agents concurrently)
    • 23.1% American dog ticks
    • the rest were lone star ticks

Category:

Alpha Gal Meat Allergy, Anaplasmosis, Babesia, Ehrlichiosis, Lyme, research, Rickettsia, Testing, Ticks, Tularemia, Viruses

Babesia Symptoms Can Be Deadly: A Family’s Story

https://danielcameronmd.com/babesia-symptoms-can-be-deadly-a-familys-story/

BABESIA SYMPTOMS CAN BE DEADLY: A FAMILY’S STORY

babesia-symptoms-deadly
The number of Babesia cases appears to be rising and as a recent article in the Washington Post reports, the tick-borne infection can be deadly when symptoms go unrecognized.
By 

Babesia symptoms can be wide-ranging and difficult to recognize by clinicians and a missed or delayed diagnosis can be deadly.

In hopes of raising awareness, one family shares their story of a Babesia diagnosis that came just a little too late.

Jeff, a 51-year-old husband and father, was hospitalized with symptoms of jaundice, agitation and inability to urinate. It took 3 days before he was diagnosed with Babesia. But his symptoms had been present for at least one month — unrecognized, as the infection progressed.

Tiny tick leads to deadly infection

As his wife tells writer Abby Schwartz from the Washington Post,¹ Jeff frequently hiked outdoors near their home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. About a month prior to being admitted into the hospital, he had removed a tick, “no bigger than a poppy seed.”

In hindsight, “he may have had Babesia for a month,” Schwartz writes.

Diagnosis comes too late

For several weeks, Jeff reportedly had Babesia symptoms including fevers and night sweats. But clinicians presumed he had a kidney infection and prescribed a course of antibiotics. He improved briefly.

Then, he took a turn for the worst. “Jeff was weaker, sweating, unable to sleep,” his wife explains. “His breathing was labored. The whites of his eyes had yellowed, and his bilirubin was climbing, a sign that red blood cells were breaking down at an unusual rate or of liver trouble.”

READ MORE: Babesia cases among the elderly are rising, may require longer treatment

He was moved to the ICU and placed in a medically-induced coma and put on a ventilator. Doctors noted that his symptoms resembled malaria, but still did not suspect a tick-borne infection.

“His team periodically woke him, and he would squeeze his wife’s hand.”

On Tuesday, an infectious disease doctor shared some positive news. “We think we have a diagnosis.”

They suspected that Jeff had Babesiosis, a potentially deadly infection caused by parasites Babesia microti, which is typically transmitted through a tick bite.

He was prescribed an antibiotic (azithromycin) and antiparasitic (Atovaquone) medication for 7 to 10 days.

On Thursday, he died — just 2 days after starting treatment.

“If Jeff had been diagnosed early, when he first complained of night fevers, it might have been different for him,” writes Schwartz.

Since Jeff’s death, his wife and family have worked to raise awareness about Babesia.

Babesia signs and symptoms

Most people infected with Babesia do not show symptoms or have mild to moderate flu-like symptoms such as fatigue, chills, sweats, headache, body aches, nausea, and loss of appetite, which can appear days or even months later. (There is no telltale rash as with Lyme disease.)

Individuals most at-risk include the elderly and people with immunocompromised conditions. In fact, the death rate among those with an impaired immune system is as high as 20%, explains Peter Krause, a senior research scientist at Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Medicine.

Although it is usually transmitted through a tick bite, Babesia can be acquired through a tainted blood transfusion.

Babesia cases are reported mostly in the Northeast and Upper Midwest but the disease is “increasing in frequency and geographic range,” warns Krause.

Babesia: Not recognized by all doctors

“It has to step up to the level of an infectious-disease specialist being brought in before it might get diagnosed, whereas in an area where it’s more prevalent, some of the front-line people, the emergency room doctors or urgent care doctors, might be a little more attuned to it,” says Sorana Segal-Maurer, an infectious-disease specialist at New York-Presbyterian Queens Hospital.¹

Editor’s notes:

I disagree with three statements made by doctors interviewed for the story:

  1. I have Babesia patients who do not improve with only 7 to 10 days of treatment.
  2. I have Babesia patients who are sick who do not meet the risk criteria described above.
  3. I have Babesia patients who removed the tick in less than 24 hours and still became ill.
Related Articles:

Babesia infections transmitted through blood supply

Podcast: Babesia infection after Lyme disease treatment

Podcast: Tick bite with Lyme disease, babesia and anaplasmosis

References:
  1. Babesiosis, a dangerous tick-borne infection that attacks red blood cells, appears to be a growing problem. Abby Schwartz, Washington Post, 5/29/21.

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For more:

Category:

Babesia, research, Treatment

Tickborne Illnesses “Can Look Like Anything” Podcast

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/physical-and-psychological-signs-of-tick-borne-illness Podcast in link

I’m A Functional MD & These Sneaky Signs Can Signal A Tickborne Illness

By Jason Wachob

July 28, 2021

Here’s the thing about tickborne illnesses: According to functional medicine doctor Kenneth Bock, M.D., they can cover different organ systems, and so patients often present myriad symptoms. “It can look like anything,” he shares on this episode of the mindbodygreen podcast, which poses a problem in clinical settings: If a patient comes in with a laundry list of complaints, some professionals may resort to a psychological diagnosis (especially if those said symptoms are, in fact, psychological, which we’ll get into later).

However, says Bock, “If you listen, and you look, and you think hard…these tickborne diseases can cause this myriad of complaints.” Meaning, it’s important not to rule out the possibility of a tickborne illness, even if you don’t necessarily live in a hotbed state. Below, he explains some of the most common signs he has seen.

Physical symptoms.

“It can range from skin rashes to heart palpitations, shortness of breath, brain fog, numbness, tingling, burning, dysesthesias (which is pain), and also general fatigue and headaches,” Bock says.

He also mentions that some ticks can carry Bartonella bacteria, which can “give you these purple-ish, reddish stretch marks” in uncommon areas you wouldn’t typically have stretch marks—like in the middle of the back or behind the knee. (We should note: There is little evidence to suggest the transmission of Bartonella from ticks to humans directly; most of the data shows that the bacteria can be transmitted from ticks to pets to a person during a scratch.)

He continues that Babesia, another tickborne illness that often goes hand-in-hand with Lyme disease, can cause symptoms like fever, chills, sweats, and air hunger (aka, feeling like you can’t get enough air).

The purpose of listing these symptoms isn’t to scare you—Bock emphasizes that when people point out their multiple symptoms, he takes tickborne illnesses into account. “Rather than [saying], ‘Oh, the person has air hunger, so they’re just anxious,’ these are clues to some of the tickborne illnesses.”

Psychological symptoms.

We mentioned brain fog, but Bock says tickborne illnesses can manifest as a host of psychological symptoms—sometimes for younger folks, the only symptoms at all are psychological. 

“The thing about kids and adolescents is that sometimes the only symptoms of tickborne disease are neuropsychiatric,” Bock explains. “All you see is anxiety, or OCD, or panic attacks, or depression, and sometimes rage.” In fact, studies show that a portion of Lyme disease patients can experience explosive anger and aggressiveness (commonly referred to as “Lyme rage”).

All that to say: It’s important we don’t rule out tickborne illnesses, even if someone only presents psychological symptoms. “They can carry a diagnosis of mood disorder, [like] anxiety and panic attacks, but if they have a tickborne disease, they’ll never get better. All the psychotropics in the world and all the therapy will not [help them] get better,” says Bock.

The takeaway.

Tickborne illnesses can be scary—understandably so. Again, explaining all of these symptoms is not to spook you into thinking you have a tickborne illness. But if you present myriad symptoms, it’s important to get to the root of the issue and make sure a tickborne illness is not the driver.

“The key is to recognize that they exist,” notes Bock.

Enjoy this episode! And don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Podcasts, or Spotify!
Jason Wachob is the Founder and Co-CEO of mindbodygreen and the author of Wellth. He has been featured in the New York Times, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and Vogue, and has a B.A. in…
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**Comment**
Regarding ticks transmitting Bartonella directly to humans, I personally asked Dr. Breitshwerdt if this is true.  He strongly believes ticks transmit it.  Info here.  There are many people with Bartonella who have not had cat or pet exposure, although it is known that Bartonella is transmitted by numerous insects and arachnids.  BTW: you can have Bartonella without the purplish stretch-mark looking rashes.
For a nifty coinfection symptom chart go here, although it’s important to remember there are symptoms not on this chart, as well as the fact you may not present with the typical symptoms.  I appreciate the fact he said some peoples’ only symptoms are psychiatric.  This is very true but not considered by mainstream medicine.
One of the most telling quotes within the article is the phrase about having a “laundry-list” of symptoms.  Dr. Jemsek gives the following quote when speaking about Lyme:
“You either have 20 diseases or you have Lyme disease.”
I would add that you should also suspect other coinfections as well.
For more:

One thing the article did not mention is testing, which nearly all mainstream doctors will use, even though these tests have been proven to be a joke.  This isn’t discussed and you have to be your own advocate and understand this.  I would seriously bypass mainstream medicine and head directly to a Lyme literate doctor, who will diagnose and treat you clinically based upon symptoms.

From my perspective with helping patients, mainstream doctors continue to utilize faulty testing, take a “wait and see” approach which is dooming patients to a life-time of suffering, and even IF they miraculously test positive on an abysmal test, treat them inappropriately with no more than the insufficient monotherapy of 21 days of doxycycline.

You can look up more articles by typing in key words into the search bar on the website.  For instance, if you want to know more about Bartonella, just type Bartonella into the search bar and other articles will pop up.

Category:

Babesia, Bartonella, Lyme, Psychological Aspects

Tickborne Illnesses in Finland

https://www.lymedisease.org/ticks-finland-2/

TOUCHED BY LYME: Tick-borne illnesses in Finland

April 28, 2021

Guest blogger C.M. Rubin interviews two European scientists about the prevalence of Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections in Finland.

The Global Search for Education: Finland — Ticks

by C M Rubin as featured in the Huffington Post

Lyme disease is caused by a bacterium transmitted to humans via a tick bite. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) claims that Lyme Borreliosis is the most common and fastest growing infectious illness in the United States. The disease can cause a variety of flu-like symptoms such as fever, achy joints, fatigue and headache. Additionally, Anaplasmosis/Ehrlichiosis, Babesiosis, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Bartonella, Tularemia, and more recently, Borrelia Miyamotoi (a distant relative of Lyme Borreliosis) are other recognized tick-borne infectious diseases in the United States.

Experts have been unable to agree for decades on whether a case definition called chronic Lyme disease exists. Yet, some Lyme victims, even after taking the standard treatment of antibiotics, continue to suffer from long-term and often serious health problems for years after they first contract the disease. Does chronic Lyme disease exist, or is the condition which some patients experience an autoimmune or nervous system response triggered by the infection, or indeed is it a bit of both? These are some of the major questions researchers are trying to figure out as they take on the enormous challenges of identifying better Lyme diagnostic tools and treatment plans for what is becoming a growing global public health crisis.

Today in The Global Search for Education, I take a look at tick-borne illnesses in Finland. I am joined by Docent Jarmo Oksi, Finland’s leading researcher in the field of Lyme disease, who is based at the University of Turku in Finland. In addition, I welcome Markku Kuusi, Chief Medical Officer from Finland’s National Institute for Health and Welfare.

2013-04-25-cmrubinworldticks1400.jpg“The weakness of the Finnish surveillance system is that we don’t collect any clinical information on patients, we only get notifications from laboratories.” — Markku Kuusi
What is the annual incidence of Lyme disease in Finland and in Europe at large?Jarmo: Laboratory reports on Lyme Borreliosis cases (based on positive serology) have doubled in 10 years and are now about 1,500. The estimated number of Lyme Borreliosis infection cases is about four times this number — i.e. estimated incidence in Finland is 5,000-6,000 annually (population 5.5 million), which is about 100 per 100,000 inhabitants per year. However there are areas in the Southwestern Archipelago with incidence of 1000 per 100,000 inhabitants per year.

Markku: Based on the National Infectious Disease Register, the incidence of Lyme disease in Finland has been about 30/100,000 during the past few years. In terms of the annual incidence in other Nordic countries, in Norway it has been about 6/100,000 and in Denmark, 1 – 2/100,000. It is hard to believe that there is such a difference in actual incidence, so that is why I believe the diagnostic criteria are truly different. The weakness of the Finnish surveillance system is that we don’t collect any clinical information on patients, we only get notifications from laboratories; so it is difficult to say whether the symptoms of our cases really are compatible with Lyme Borreliosis.

Would you comment on the annual incidence of any of the other tick-borne illnesses which are endemic in Finland in addition to Lyme.

Markku: Tick-borne Encephalitis (TBE) is another important tick-borne disease in Finland. The incidence has been particularly high on Aland Island and therefore TBE vaccination is included in the national immunization program. Before the vaccination program, the annual incidence was up to 100/100,000 population. Now it has decreased substantially. It seems that in other parts of Finland (apart from Aland Island), the incidence is increasing, and therefore other areas may also be included in the immunization program in the near future (for example, the Archipelago around the city of Turku).

Do you believe that chronic Lyme disease exists or that it is a misnomer for other diseases triggered by Lyme disease?

Markku: This is a difficult question. I think it is clear that some patients have a prolonged course of the disease which may last several months. The most experienced clinicians in Finland think that a continuing Borrelia infection is possible if the patient has not received adequate treatment for the illness, resulting in disseminated infection. Even after adequate treatment, some patients have symptoms due to immunological mechanisms, but it is very hard to say whether these symptoms are related to Borrelia infection or to some other causes.

2013-04-25-cmrubinworldlabra_182.JPG_3420500.jpg“The most experienced clinicians in Finland think that a continuing Borrelia infection is possible if the patient has not received adequate treatment for the illness, resulting in disseminated infection.”— Markku Kuusi
If you believe in chronic Lyme disease, what do you believe are the most effective ways to treat it?Jarmo: If you mean chronic infection, I think that this entity after standard antibiotic therapy is very very seldom (I see about one case in five years). However, if detected –e.g. with cultivation or PCR (the most specific way to detect), the treatment I give is individual antibiotic treatment — maybe double the length compared to the initial treatment.

What do you believe is the most effective way to treat symptoms triggered by the infection, e.g. chronic auto-immune reaction?

Jarmo: During the first months I wait for gradual improvement. If there is no improvement after six to 12 months, I then start low-dose corticosteroid treatment for a certain subset of patients. Some other subsets may get help from, for example, amitriptyline, which raises the threshold for pain sensation.

What tests currently available to the general public, other than the Western Blot test, do you believe provide a better degree of certainty?

Jarmo: PCR (and culture) are useful in some situations (culture only in research settings), but even PCR is not sensitive enough to detect all cases — e.g. in CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) of neuroborreliosis cases. Besides Western Blots, ELISA tests based on C6 peptide are generally good as confirmatory tests.

2013-04-25-cmrubinworld_P6Q5372.JPG_198500.jpg“We are currently enrolling patients into a study on neuroborreliosis: comparison of IV Ceftriaxone for 3 weeks vs. oral Doximycin for 4 weeks. Hopefully this study will give us new knowledge on markers of how to identify patients with reactive symptomatology triggered by Lyme neuroborreliosis.”— Jarmo Oksi
Are you aware of any other promising tests in development?Markku: Last year, a Finnish group reviewed the diagnostic tests in our country. It is my understanding that right now there are not unfortunately any new reliable tests available. So we shall have to wait awhile for them.

To what research do you believe scientists around the world must give priority in order to overcome the challenges the public faces with finding a cure for Lyme disease?

Markku: I think it is important to better understand the mechanism behind the sequelae of acute borreliosis. Therefore, we need more research on the immunology of the disease. In other words, how does the bacteria actually cause joint symptoms or neurologic symptoms. I think this will help us to develop better diagnostic tests and hopefully better drugs. I believe antibiotics are not the only solution.

What is the focus of your research and how does it relate to the challenges of identification and cure of Lyme disease and diseases triggered by Lyme?

Jarmo: We are currently enrolling patients into a study on neuroborreliosis: comparison of IV Ceftriaxone for three weeks vs. oral Doximycin for four weeks. Hopefully this study (with control CSF specimens) and long follow-ups of patients also will give us new knowledge on markers of how to identify patients with reactive symptomatology triggered by Lyme neuroborreliosis.

How can technology help us find a cure for Lyme disease faster?

Markku: This is not really a field in which I am knowledgeable, but I believe that better molecular and immunological methods may give possibilities for new diagnostics and for the development of new drugs. What I really hope is that there will be better and more specific laboratory tests for Lyme Borreliosis in the future. I think that one of the key issues is to harmonize the laboratory methods so that we can get a better understanding of the epidemiology of Lyme disease in Finland.

C M Rubin is a child and family health and education advocate.  She is the author of a number of award winning books as well as the widely read online series THE GLOBAL SEARCH FOR EDUCATION.

Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld

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**Comment**

I disagree with two tenets in this paper:

  • Chronic Lyme is rare.  I personally, as well as my husband, and most I deal with have improved immensely or even reached remission with lengthy treatment utilizing numerous antimicrobials and other modalities.  As they say, “The proof is in the pudding.”  Lyme spirochetes have been found in the autopsied brain despite treatment.  There are also extensive global research showing the persistence of the organism in 700 peer-reviewed papers (as well as coinfections that often come with Lyme): Peer-Reviewed Evidence of Persistence of Lyme:MSIDS copy  Please keep in mind that everything is rigged against reporting chronic infection. Globally, doctors work under the CDC/IDSA’s myopic focus on the acute phase and frank denial of persistent infection.  It doesn’t surprise me at all that a Finnish researcher also cow-tows to this thinking.  It’s rampant.
  • That we need yet more research on the acute phase of Lyme.  Frankly, that’s about all we have.  We desperately need researchers to quit myopically focusing on this phase of the illness and study the thousands upon thousands with chronic/persistent symptoms who often do to not test positive on the abysmal CDC 2-tiered testing, which is rigged to not pick up chronic infection, and do not have the “classic” EM rash.  These two variables have kept the sickest patients from being studied.

Category:

Anaplasmosis, Babesia, Bartonella, Borrelia Miyamotoi (Relapsing Fever Group), Lyme, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Ticks, Tularemia