Archive for the ‘Lyme’ Category

Imaging Techniques Reveal Brain Abnormalities From Post-Treatment Lyme Disease

https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2022/11/imaging-techniques-reveal-brain-abnormalities-from-post-treatment-lyme-disease?

Imaging techniques reveal brain abnormalities from post-treatment Lyme disease

By VICKY ZHU | November 8, 2022  

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COURTESY OF MATT HAUGHEY / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Brain imaging techniques can help scientists understand what is going on inside the heads of patient populations.

In their recent study published in PLOS ONE, Dr. John Aucott and Cherie Marvel found that unexpected white matter activity in the brain, a symptom normally considered pathological, was found to be correlated with better outcomes in patients with post-treatment Lyme disease (PTLD).

PTLD occurs in patients who have received treatments for Lyme disease but have yet to fully recover. Persistent complaints about cognitive difficulty are one of the symptoms.

Aucott is an associate professor in the Division of Rheumatology at the School of Medicine. He is also the director of the Lyme Disease Clinical Research Center and a clinical-translational researcher in Lyme disease with a focus on PTLD.

He stressed that PTLD affects 10% to 20% of patients who were previously diagnosed with and treated for Lyme disease in an interview with The News-Letter.

“Post-treatment Lyme disease is not a trivial problem. It is a problem that should be noticed,” he said.

Marvel is a cognitive neuroscientist and an associate professor of Neurology at the School of Medicine. She has been using brain imaging methods to look at different cognitive and motor functions, primarily in clinical populations.

In an interview with The News-Letter, Marvel noted that the complaints of PTLD patients did not align well with the standard cognitive or neuro-psychological testing.

“So we thought we should look inside the brain. The way we can do that non-invasively is through functional MRI,”she said.

Participants were asked to perform working memory tasks while their brain activity was recorded by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). fMRI measures brain activity by detecting increased oxygen level in areas of activation.

Aucott highlighted that the decision to use an fMRI test for the study was intentional.

“The mystery behind post-treatment Lyme disease is whether there is something biological going on. Tests that are normally available to clinicians, such as regular MRI or CT, scans can’t identify these,“ he said. “So we hypothesized that stress tests under fMRI would be more sensitive to any biological changes.”

All participants performed two tasks. The easier task, which was the control condition, required participants to remember two letters for a short duration. After, the screen would show a new letter, and the participant would need to evaluate whether it was one of the two letters previously shown.

The harder task, which was the experimental condition, required participants to count two alphabetical letters forward of the same two letters and remember the new letters. Then, they were asked if a newly-appeared letter was one of the two new letters.   (See link for article)

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**Comment**

It is disingenuous to use the PTLD moniker for many reasons:

  1. It denies persistent infection
  2. It only includes the smaller subset of patients that have bee diagnosed and treated early and omits the larger subset of patients that are diagnosed and treated late
  3. Those with persistent symptoms may develop secondary psychosomatic & psychiatric disorders.  By using the PTLD moniker, treatment will only address the secondary conditions, but continue to deny life-saving antimicrobials
This is crucial because ignoring these facts will only propagate the continuing under-treatment (or denying treatment altogether) of severely ill patients

SUMMARY:

  • The researchers found expected brain activity in the gray matter but also in the white matter, which wasn’t expected.
  • White matter cells communicate signals between gray matter.
  • The finding caused the researchers to look more closely at the phenomenon.
  • Axial diffusivity (water leaking along the axon) is how the neurons relay electrical signals to each other and increased axial diffusivity was correlated with better outcomes and few symptoms.
  • Aucott states this response appears to be the body’s compensatory response to slower cognitive functions and is similar to a positive response to injury.
  • The researchers want to follow patients longitudinally as well as look for inflammatory markers through cerebral fluid samples.

Category:

Lyme, Psychological Aspects, research

STARI: The Southern Tick-Borne Illness That Looks, Smells, and Acts Just Like Lyme Disease

https://rawlsmd.com/health-articles/stari-the-southern-tick-borne-illness-that-can-mimic-lyme-disease?

STARI: The Southern Tick-Borne Illness That Can Mimic Lyme Disease

by Stephanie Eckelkamp
Updated 10/27/22

There’s a false narrative that tick-borne diseases aren’t much of a problem in southern states, but we know this to be far from the truth. Not only is Lyme disease present, but ailments like Heartland virus, ehrlichia, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever can be a big problem for people and pets — so it’s important to keep yourself protected.

One primarily southern tick-borne pathogen that’s gotten very little attention is STARI (southern tick-associated rash illness). STARI has caused confusion among doctors and patients because some of its early symptoms closely mimic those of Lyme disease. The promising news: STARI appears to be far less detrimental to long-term health than Lyme.

Here, we cover the signs and symptoms of STARI, how it differs from Lyme, what ticks carry it, and how to protect yourself.

What Is STARI?

STARI is an emerging zoonotic disease transmitted by the bite of the Lone Star tick, which often results in a red, ring-like rash with a central clearing that is almost indistinguishable from the erythema migrans bullseye rash sometimes seen in Lyme disease. The exact causative pathogen is still up for debate — while it was once thought to be caused by the Borrelia lonestari spirochete bacterium, this spirochete has not been detected in all cases of the illness.

binoculars icon

Where Is It Most Commonly Found?

STARI isn’t a reportable condition, meaning it’s not required to be reported to public health agencies at local, state, or national levels. Therefore, it’s hard to get a clear breakdown of where exactly STARI is most concentrated, plus it may be misdiagnosed as Lyme. But in general, you can expect to find it where you’d discover Lone Star ticks — throughout south-central, southeastern, and eastern states.

While these ticks may be more concentrated in the south, their range spans eastward from central Texas and Oklahoma and up the Atlantic coast as far north as Maine. And scientists believe they’ll only get more common in northern states as global temperatures rise.

icon of human and warning symbol

What Are the Symptoms?

A key feature of STARI is the red, ring-like rash with a central clearing surrounding the area of a tick bite. This rash usually appears within a week of the tick bite and may expand to three inches in diameter or more. The STARI rash is generally smaller, more circular, and less tender than a Lyme disease rash (which can reach 12 inches in diameter). Keep in mind that the saliva of Lone Star ticks can irritate the skin, so redness and discomfort aren’t always signs of infection. Nevertheless, any skin irritation after a tick bite is always worth monitoring.

bullseye rash on womans leg

Other symptoms of STARI may include:

  • Fatigue
  • Headache
  • Fever
  • Muscle aches
  • Joint pain

Fortunately, no long-term symptoms related to STARI have been reported, and the tick-borne illness hasn’t been associated with arthritic, cardiac, or neurologic manifestations in patients.

STARI vs. Lyme: What Are the Key Differences?

While there is clearly a lot of overlap between the symptoms of STARI and the early symptoms of Lyme disease, data suggests patients with STARI are less likely to experience neck stiffness, joint stiffness, and swollen lymph nodes than patients with Lyme, as well as the more severe symptoms mentioned above. Additionally, a study from 2005 comparing STARI patients in Missouri to Lyme disease patients in New York noted several other differences:

  • STARI patients were more likely to recall a tick bite than Lyme patients.
  • The time from tick bite to rash onset was shorter in STARI patients (approximately six days).
  • STARI patients with a rash were less likely to have other symptoms.
  • STARI patients were less likely to have multiple skin lesions than Lyme patients, and (as mentioned above) they tended to have rashes that were smaller and rounder.
  • STARI patients recovered more rapidly after antibiotic treatment than Lyme patients.

icon of medical capsule

How Is It Diagnosed and Treated?

Because scientists haven’t actually determined the exact causative agent (e.g., whether it stems from a bacterium, virus, parasite, etc.) that leads to STARI, diagnostic tests have not been developed. Doctors typically use a patient’s symptoms, geographic location, and the possibility of a tick bite to make a diagnosis. Of course, due to the fact that there is significant overlap in the symptoms of STARI and Lyme disease, there’s a real possibility for misdiagnosis.

It’s unknown whether antibiotics help treat STARI, but because this illness so closely resembles early Lyme, doctors often prescribe them to be safe. To date, STARI symptoms have resolved following oral doxycycline treatment, but it’s uncertain if the drugs do anything to speed recovery.

How to Protect Yourself

You certainly want to do what you can to protect yourself from the bite of a Lone Star tick. In addition to STARI, these ticks are known to transmit ehrlichiosis, Heartland virus disease, Bourbon virus disease, and tularemia. The bite of a Lone Star tick can also sometimes lead to alpha-gal syndrome, a potentially life-threatening allergic reaction to red meat.

Lone Star ticks are known to aggressively target and bite both humans and pets. So taking steps to protect yourself and to prevent them from hitching a ride into your home on Fido is key.

Some good strategies:

  • Wear protective clothing when out in nature and shower afterward
  • Avoid brushy areas and stay on the trail when hiking
  • Perform regular tick checks
  • Use an effective tick repellent, featuring essential oils like oil of lemon eucalyptus or insecticides such as DEET, picaridin, or permethrin.

If you get bitten, remove the tick promptly and carefully, following the steps in this article. If you save the tick, you might want to consider sending it to a laboratory such as IGenex or Ticknology to be tested for pathogens.

Pets should be subject to frequent tick checks, too, and you should strongly consider putting your dogs on some type of oral tick-preventative treatment. (Read this article for veterinary-approved tips on protecting your pets from tick-borne pathogens.)

Bottom Line

STARI is a tick-borne illness that closely resembles early Lyme disease, but fortunately, it is unlikely to cause long-term illness, and it may respond well to antibiotic treatment. However, you also have to be mindful of coinfections — the Lone Star ticks that transmit STARI may also transmit a variety of other serious bacterial and viral infections.

As with any tick-borne illness, prevention is the best medicine. But taking steps to boost your body’s natural defenses by eating a nutritious diet, exercising, getting enough sleep, and consuming phytochemical-rich herbs, including Japanese knotweed, cat’s claw, andrographis, Chinese skullcap, reishi, cordyceps, and garlic, may also offer a layer of protection and support overall health before or after a tick bite.

Dr. Rawls is a physician who overcame Lyme disease through natural herbal therapy. You can learn more about Lyme disease in Dr. Rawls’ new best selling book, Unlocking Lyme. You can also learn about Dr. Rawls’ personal journey in overcoming Lyme disease and fibromyalgia in his popular blog post, My Chronic Lyme Journey

REFERENCES
1. Abdelmaseih R, Ashraf B, Abdelmasih R, Dunn S, Nasser H. Southern Tick-Associated Rash Illness: Florida’s Lyme Disease Variant. Cureus. 2021;13(5):e15306. Published 2021 May 28. doi:10.7759/cureus.15306
2. Lyme Disease. Mayo Clinic website. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/lyme-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20374651
3. Lyme Disease Maps: Most Recent Year. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/datasurveillance/maps-recent.html
4. Slide show: Guide to different tick species and the diseases they carry. Mayo Clinic website. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tick-species/sls-20147911?s=7
5. Southern Tick-Associated Rash Illness. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. https://www.cdc.gov/stari/index.html
6. Upstate tick expert predicts huge season for ticks. Upstate Medical University website. https://www.upstate.edu/news/articles/2022/2022-03-24-ticks.php
7. Wormser GP, Masters E, Liveris D, et al. Microbiologic evaluation of patients from Missouri with erythema migrans. Clin Infect Dis. 2005;40(3):423-428. doi:10.1086/427289
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**Comment**
It must be understood that patients in the South have had an extraordinary hurdle to overcome regarding tick-borne illness as “authorities” simply state it doesn’t exist there.  For years, and to this day, doctors illogically look at a map and announce it can not be Lyme disease.
Please remember ticks travel on birds, reptiles, mammals, and go everywhere.

http://  Approx. 5 Min

Dr. Alan McDonald, Dr. Klinghardt, & Dr. Martz on Borrelia, Lyme, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, MS and more

Clip from Under Our Skin

It’s important to remember that new strains of borrelia and other coinfections are being discovered continually.  Rather than studying this crucially important topic and how it affects testing, diagnosis, and treatment, researchers receiving government grants are forever stuck on ‘climate change,’ a hotly contested topic which hasn’t helped patients in over 40 years.

Category:

Lyme, Prevention, Ticks, Treatment

Anaplasma, Babesia odocoilei, and Lyme in Ticks – Found Widely Across Eastern Canada

https://www.jelsciences.com/articles/jbres1586.pdf

Tick-Borne Pathogens Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Babesia odocoilei, and Borrelia burgdorferi Sensu Lato in Blacklegged Ticks Widespread across Eastern Canada

John D Scott1 *, Elena McGoey2 and Risa R Pesapane2,3*

Corresponding author(s) John D Scott, Upper Grand Tick Centre, 365 St. David Street South, Fergus, Ontario N1M 2L7, Canada E-mail: jkscott@bserv.com DOI: 10.37871/jbres1586 Submitted: 13 October 2022 Accepted: 26 October 2022 Published: 27 October 2022 Copyright: © 2022 Scott JD, et al. Distributed under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0

Abstract

Blacklegged ticks, Ixodes scapularis, can transmit single or multiple infections during a tick bite. These tick-borne, zoonotic infections can become chronic and cause insidious diseases in patients.

In the present tick-pathogen study, 138 (48.9%) of 282 ticks collected from 17 sites in 6 geographic area in eastern Canada harbored various combinations of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (Lyme disease), Anaplasma phagocytophilum (human anaplasmosis), and Babesia spp. (human babesiosis). Overall, 167 microbial infections were detected and, of these, 25 ticks had co-infections and two ticks had polymicrobial infections.

  • the prevalence of Babesia spp. was 15.2%
  • the ratio of Babesia odocoilei to Babesia microti was 41 to 1 with this sole B. microti being detected in Nova Scotia
  • we provide the first documentation of B. odocoilei in the Maritimes
  • Eastern Ontario had an infection prevalence for B. odocoilei of 25%―the highest among the areas surveyed in this study
  • the predominant Babesia sp. was B. odocoilei

Based on our findings, health-care practitioners need to recognize that I. scapularis ticks removed from patients may be carrying multiple tick-borne pathogens.  (See link for article)

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For more:

  • https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2021/05/28/study-shows-babesia-odocoilei-is-pathogenic-to-humans/  Study found B. odocoilei in two of 19 participants. DNA amplicons from these two patients are almost identical matches with the type strains of B. odocoilei in GenBank. In addition, the same two human subjects had the hallmark symptoms of human babesiosis, including night sweats, chills, fevers, and profound fatigue. Based on symptoms and molecular identification, we provide substantive evidence that B. odocoilei is pathogenic to humans. Dataset reveals that B. odocoilei serologically cross-reacts with Babesia duncani.

Category:

Anaplasmosis, Babesia, Lyme, research, Ticks

N.S. Mother Says Health-Care System Won’t Treat Her Daughter’s Lyme Disease

https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/n-s-mother-says-health-care-system-won-t-treat-her-daughter-s-lyme-disease-

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Uncategorized

Lyme in Pregnancy: Associations With Parent & Offspring Health Outcomes – An International Cross-sectional Survey

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2022.1022766/full

Front. Med., 03 November 2022
Sec. Infectious Diseases – Surveillance, Prevention and Treatment
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2022.1022766

Lyme borreliosis in pregnancy and associations with parent and offspring health outcomes: An international cross-sectional survey

Katherine Leavey1, Rachel K. MacKenzie1, Sue Faber2, Vett K. Lloyd3, Charlotte Mao4,5, Melanie K. B. Wills6, Isabelle Boucoiran7,8, Elizabeth C. Cates1, Abeer Omar9, Olivia Marquez1 and Elizabeth K. Darling1*
  • 1McMaster Midwifery Research Centre, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
  • 2LymeHope, Ontario, ON, Canada
  • 3Department of Biology, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB, Canada
  • 4Dean Center for Tick Borne Illness, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston, MA, United States
  • 5Invisible International, Cambridge, MA, United States
  • 6G. Magnotta Lyme Disease Research Lab, Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada
  • 7Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) Sainte-Justine, Montréal, QC, Canada
  • 8Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada
  • 9Trent/Fleming School of Nursing, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada

Background: Lyme disease (LD) is a complex tick-borne pathology caused by Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato bacteria. Currently, there are limited data regarding the health outcomes of people infected during pregnancy, the potential for perinatal transmission to their fetus, and the long-term effects on these children. Therefore, the primary objective of this survey study was to investigate the impact of LD in pregnancy on both the parent and their offspring.

Methods: A seven-section survey was developed and administered in REDCap. Although recruitment was primarily through LD-focused organizations, participation was open to anyone over the age of 18 who had been pregnant. Participant health/symptoms were compared across those with “Diagnosed LD,” “Suspected LD,” or “No LD” at any time in their lives. The timing of LD events in the participants’ histories (tick bite, diagnosis, treatment start, etc.) were then utilized to classify the participants’ pregnancies into one of five groups: “Probable Treated LD,” “Probable Untreated LD,” “Possible Untreated LD,” “No Evidence of LD,” and “Unclear.”

Results: A total of 691 eligible people participated in the survey, of whom 65% had Diagnosed LD, 6% had Suspected LD, and 29% had No LD ever. Both the Diagnosed LD and Suspected LD groups indicated a high symptom burden (p < 0.01). Unfortunately, direct testing of fetal/newborn tissues for Borrelia burgdorferi only occurred following 3% of pregnancies at risk of transmission; positive/equivocal results were obtained in 14% of these cases. Pregnancies with No Evidence of LD experienced the fewest complications (p < 0.01) and were most likely to result in a live birth (p = 0.01) and limited short- and long-term offspring pathologies (p < 0.01). Within the LD-affected pregnancy groups, obtaining treatment did not decrease complications for the parent themselves but did ameliorate neonatal health status, with reduced rates of rashes, hypotonia, and respiratory distress (all p < 0.01). The impact of parent LD treatment on longer-term child outcomes was less clear.

Conclusion: Overall, this pioneering survey represents significant progress toward understanding the effects of LD on pregnancy and child health. A large prospective study of pregnant people with LD, combining consistent diagnostic testing, exhaustive assessment of fetal/newborn samples, and long-term offspring follow-up, is warranted.

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**Comment**

And that long-term offspring follow-up will never happen unless independent researchers take it upon themselves.  Our government just wants this to all go away – except for acute cases for which a lucrative “vaccine,” can be created, which is always viewed as a magic-bullet and will be a cash-cow with big profit margins.

The little we know about congenital Lyme has come primarily from Dr. Jones, RIP and a nurse who personally gathered all the research done on congenital Lyme disease out of the goodness of her heart and out of necessity for her own family.  This is typically how we finally get some answers, and frankly the best way to get real answers that are helpful.

Aren’t you tired of funding research with our tax dollars that doesn’t help patients?

For more:

Category:

Lyme, Pregnancy, research