Archive for the ‘Lyme’ Category

New Study Finds Evidence of Lyme Bacteria in Brain Tissue

https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/health/new-study-finds-evidence-of-lyme-bacteria-in-brain-tissue-news-center-maine-tick-week-deer-dog-cdc-tulane-university-borrelia-burgdorferi-lab-disease/97-

New study finds evidence of Lyme bacteria in brain tissue

The research shows how pathogens that cause Lyme can linger in the body despite early treatment.
 

MAINE, Maine — According to the U.S, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Lyme disease can cause long-term health effects including fatigue, chronic pain, heart issues, and neurological problems.

The CDC says most symptoms caused by the tick-borne illness can be treated successfully with antibiotics if caught early.

A new study by Tulane University shows that Lyme bacteria can persist in a patient’s brain. Researchers found Lyme bacteria in the brain tissue of an elderly woman even after she had received 10 days of antibiotics following a tick bite.

Dr. Monica Embers, Ph.D., is an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans. She and other researchers at the Tulane National Primate Research Center conducted the study in collaboration with the Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. 

The study was recently published in “Frontiers in Neurology,” the leading peer-reviewed journal for neurologists. It’s a breakthrough that could lead to changes in recommendations for treatment, including longer courses of antibiotics to address a growing public health crisis. (See link for article)

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**Comment**

Excerpt:

“This is not a pathogen you want in your brain,” she said.

But that’s exactly what researchers found in a 69-year-old woman who donated her brain to Columbia University for research before she died from dementia-related complications.

The woman received 10 days of antibiotics.  She went on to develop late-stage Lyme.

Despite years of IV treatment, the woman suffered from sleep disorders, personality changes, and dementia. Lyme pathogens were also found in her spinal cord. 

Embers states that Borrelia evades the immune system by changing its proteins and burying into the body.  It can also evade antibiotics.

Lyme bacteria is persistent and evasive in the human body.

A doctor goes onto state that blood testing is often negative.

 

Another woman was mentioned in the article who had to hunt to find practitioners willing to treat her.  After finding two, she finally got relief after going on a regimen of antibiotics, anti-viral medications, and supplements; however she still suffers from numbness & leg pain.

Her Lyme journey is featured in the book, “The Waiting Room: Invisible Voices of Lyme.”  

Watch Dr. Embers’ full interview below.

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None of this is new, and everything experienced by these patients has been experienced by thousands of others for 40 years.  Spirochetes were found in Vicky Logan decades ago.

Vicky’s doctor, Dr. Kenneth Liegner wrote a lengthy book chronicling Vicky’s story and his unrelenting efforts to get her IV treatment which kept her alive.  

He also gave details about a 2001 International Lyme Conference in New York where attendees were censored by having their microphones shut off whenever they brought up the issue of chronic Lyme disease. Wormser denied to Liegner that the event was CDC sponsored, which is an important detail as it possibly could have been opened up by legislators; however, distributed materials showed the event was in fact CDC-sponsored.

But the real zinger occurred when Liegner requested an autopsy on Vicki and the pathologist not only refused, he refused to even let an outside pathologist use the facilities to perform it.  

The reason?  Wait for it…..

……danger of infection to himself and his staff.

But, I thought Lyme disease was benign and similar to the common cold – easily cured with 21 days of doxy?

Liegner wasn’t about to let the ball drop and found a way to get Vicki to the Chief of Neuropathology at Columbia Presbyterian where her autopsy results are now available to all.  Without this critical step, propelled by Liegner, the pathologist at Hudson Valley Hospital would have successfully prevented medical knowledge of chronic and neurologic Lyme disease as well as the cause of her hypotension, a missed diagnosis of myocardial infarction.

Under “Microscopic Description” it states, “The autopsy shows histopathologic findings consistent with the neurological manifestations of chronic Lyme disease.”

In the 1800’s, Texans had the battle cry, “Remember the Alamo.”

For Lyme patients, advocates, and the doctors who dare to treat them, we have a battle cry too:

“Remember Vicki Logan.”

Call me crazy, but the continued denial of Borrelia persistence despite a plethora of research demonstrating it in both animals and humans is akin to the current COVID madness despite effective treatments, and denial of COVID injection adverse reactions and deaths.  Our corrupt public health ‘authorities’ and conflict-riddled researchers have already determined what fits in their accepted narrative and a persistent infection just doesn’t fit, as it would render the need for lucrative Lyme vaccines null and void and we certainly can’t take away that lucrative cash cow.

Category:

Lyme, research, Treatment

Combating Isolation By Creating Online Space For Teens With Lyme & Coinfections

https://www.lymedisease.org/online-space-teens-lyme-disease/

Combating isolation by creating online space for teens with Lyme disease

By Camille Deschapelles 

Many of you reading this don’t need me to explain what often happens when you bring up chronic Lyme disease to others. You’ve probably dealt with it plenty of times.

When you talk about your chronic illness that affects you every day, people assume it’s like a two-week cold. In places outside of the Northeastern US, Lyme is often assumed to be rare. This makes it even less likely that people will believe your diagnosis.

Some illnesses automatically bring out sympathy and consolation from others. But Lyme generally brings about confusion, even after an awkward and often long-winded explanation.

Here’s a bit little about me. I’m 17 years old and was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at 14, and later chronic Lyme and Bartonella at 16. My arthritic symptoms greatly limit what I can do most days.

This was especially true at the start of my treatment. If I mustered up the strength to hang out with my friends, I would limp behind them or struggle to keep up as they rushed through shopping malls or parks.

Although they would always ask what was wrong, I never wanted to get into the nitty gritty of my complicated diagnosis and treatment. So, I’d brush it off, telling them it was just a small injury. When I pulled out my pills after meals, I’d swallow them off to the side so my friends couldn’t see.

When school started in person, I tried to avoid limping and used the stairs instead of the elevator. I didn’t want anyone to know, because I knew that none of them would understand even if I explained it to them. Thus, I absolutely refused to talk about my illness with others.

A breakthrough

But this denial kept everything bottled up inside. Then, I came across an article by a 17-year-old girl who dealt with Lyme disease throughout high school. She wrote about feeling robbed of teenage experiences that she should have enjoyed, because of a disease that went undiagnosed for too long.

Those were my exact thoughts and feelings! That article has stuck with me, as I realized that, of course, there are other people like me. Other teenagers with Lyme who feel just as lonely and isolated as me and would give anything for people to understand them.

I searched for support groups for those with Lyme disease. But most groups I found were made up of adults who didn’t have the same experiences as me – going to school while sick, missing out on social events like prom, or the combined weight of being a teenager and a Lyme disease patient. My parents put me in touch with some adults they knew with Lyme, but talking to them, while helpful, was sometimes awkward.

On-Lyme

I decided to make my own support network. Called On-Lyme, it’s an online community of adolescents with Lyme and co-infections. I chose a Discord server to be the core of it because it’s essentially a large group platform that makes it easy to chat with others casually.

[Editor’s note: Discord is an online platform that allows users to communicate with voice, video, text messaging, media and files.]

Through this, I’ve made meaningful connections with people in different states, countries and even continents. Other teens have shared their stories with people who won’t judge but sympathize. We complain about painful symptoms, the messed up medical system, or laugh about Shrek. We share advice and comfort each other when times are tough.

My closest online friends are fellow Lyme patients. One lives in Massachusetts, and we Zoom call weekly, talking about whatever is on our minds. Lyme does come up often. It’s easy with her. I know that she understands my frustrations with friends or experimenting with a new round of antibiotics.

My other friend lives in Scandinavia. We talk almost every day, regardless of the distance or time difference. Our shared experiences connect us in a way that I don’t feel with even my closest in-person friends.

The importance of community

With a disease as stigmatizing as Lyme or Bartonella, it’s important to have a supportive community behind you. A community that understands and sympathizes with you. And while teenagers and young people with Lyme aren’t the most common types of Lyme patients, we still exist.

So, to the teen out there who is desperately searching for others who understand, I hope this article impacts you like the one that I read impacted me.

Find comfort in knowing that you aren’t alone, and that there are better days ahead, even if today sucks.

That’s something I’d wish someone who understood how bad it was in the moment could have told me months ago.

For those rough days, for those good days, and the ones in between, On-Lyme or whatever support community you end up falling into is there for you. You are stronger than you know and will get through this. But it doesn’t hurt to have some people backing you up as well.

Camille Deschapelles lives in Florida. Click here to reach the On-Lyme website.

Related Posts:

  1. TOUCHED BY LYME: Teens with Lyme–Finding the light IN the tunnel
  2. TOUCHED BY LYME: When teenagers have Lyme disease
  3. TOUCHED BY LYME: Helping teens stay sane while quarantining
  4. Connecting with other “teen Lyme-a-beans”

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Psychological Aspects

It’s a “Gene-Environment-Immune Complex”…How Mycotoxins Impact Lyme, Autism, and PANS

https://www.ledamedical.com/so/34NiwbJuo?

It’s a “Gene-Environment-Immune Complex”….How Mycotoxins impact Lyme, Autism and PANS

Mycotoxins from mold can invade the body thru exposure to contaminated food and water, respiratory inhalation of spores and through contact with mucous and cutaneous membranes.

Decades of data link mycotoxins as a neurotoxic and immunotoxic inducing agent. In fact, several studies that examined the neurocognitive impact of mycotoxin exposure in children show a higher incidence of neurotoxic mold in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Additionally, children exposed to mold for more than two years show a statistically significant drop of 10 IQ points when compared with their mold free counterparts. Extensive exposure in both children and adult show increased pain syndromes, movement disorders like Chorea and Parkinson’s disease as well as neurocognitive disorders akin to dementia and delirium.

Knowing the neurological and immunological effects of mycotoxins from mold exposure, how does it affect those with behavioral, neurological disorders like ASD, autoimmune encephalopathy and pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome (PANS)?

Multiple studies link pathobiology of mold/mycotoxins specifically to Autism and other symptoms that mimic Autism like PANS and autoimmune encephalopathy. Mycotoxins play a gene-environment interaction that is thought to contribute to dysfunctional progression of neurodevelopment.

The mycotoxins once in the body elucidates a strong immune reaction leading to significantly elevated cytokines. These cytokines permeate throughout the body and often cross over the blood brain barrier. Those exposed can experience increased GI permeability or “leaky gut”, elevated oxidative stress responses and inflammation. This appears to stem in the gut where the mycotoxins provoke a reactive oxygen species release in the epithelial cells which line the inner gut wall. The mycotoxins will colonize in the GI system, disrupting the healthy normal flora. As a result of this disruption, a chronic inflammatory response occurs.

Many studies show the link between chronic gut inflammation and neurological and psychological ailments like depression, anxiety, OCD all common symptoms of ASD, neuro-Lyme and PANS/Autoimmune Encephalopathy.

Other studies link mycotoxins to increased autoimmune disorders and development of autoantibodies in the brain. When this occurs, the nervous system is inflamed leading to significant cognitive struggles, brain fog, mood disorders and involuntary tics and movement disorders. This is the typical progression of Autoimmune Encephalopathy, PANS and some components of ASD.

So how does this connect with Lyme?

Applying the inflammatory, immune and GI effects of mycotoxin illness to Lyme simply adds another layer of symptom severity. Lyme and other tick-borne illnesses are known to provoke an inflammatory cytokine response. Borrelia Burgdorferi specifically provokes anti-neuronal antibodies which can travel peripherally causing brain inflammation. The inflammatory response of tick-borne illnesses like Lyme can further trigger leaky gut and blood brain barrier permeability. More circulating cytokines begets increased inflammation and the vicious cycle continues.

Any significant trigger of chronic inflammation in the body can trigger neuroinflammation and leaky gut. Most individuals can weather the storm with intact immune systems. Those unfortunate to house genes linked to ASD, methylation dysfunction and/or those afflicted with Lyme, Mold or both struggles to clear the inflammation, compounding the symptomatic response.

A study by DeSantis and others studied 52 Autistic children compared to 58 neurotypical children. Results showed the ASD children had a significantly higher mycotoxin load, specifically Ochratoxin A. 

Many integrative providers believe in the Gut-Brain and inflammation connection. This study like many others support this theory and what we as providers see in clinical practice.

We welcome you to contact our office 212-288-8832 for more information and to schedule your one-on-one evaluation and treatment option appointment with one of our clinicians.

LEDA MEDICAL

Written by Somer DelSignore NP

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Category:

Autism, Lyme, Mold, PANS

Can Lyme Disease Trigger An Autoimmune Disease?

https://danielcameronmd.com/can-lyme-disease-trigger-an-autoimmune-disease/

CAN LYME DISEASE TRIGGER AN AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE?

elderly man with Lyme disease and autoimmune disease taking his temperature

An increasing number of studies indicate that Lyme disease may ignite an autoimmune reaction in some individuals or symptoms may mimic an autoimmune disease. In their report, “Lyme arthritis presenting as adult-onset Still’s disease,” researchers describe the first known case of Lyme disease triggering Adult-Onset Still’s Disease, an auto-inflammatory condition that can impact the entire body (systemic disease).

By 

Adult-onset Still’s disease (AOSD) is often thought to be an autoimmune disease, but is, in fact, a systemic auto-inflammatory condition, believed to be caused by an over-reactive immune response to an infection, such as Lyme disease. As Cimmino points out, both diseases share several clinical characteristics.¹

Still’s disease can cause “a triad of high fever, salmon-colored nodular rash and arthritis and/or arthralgia,” explains Ocon in the British Medical Journal.² Lyme disease can also present with fevers, atypical rashes and arthritis and/or arthralgias.

Both conditions were first identified in children. Still’s disease was initially considered a severe version of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), while Lyme disease symptoms were originally attributed to juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA).

Lyme disease and autoimmune diseases

A growing number of studies indicate that Lyme disease may trigger an autoimmune response in some individuals or symptoms may mimic an autoimmune disease.

The authors suggest, “[Lyme disease] could be a great mimicker of other autoimmune diseases like DM.”

Case Presentation: Still’s disease

A 61-year-old man presented with a “complaint of intermittent spiking fevers, night sweats, generalised malaise, as well as a history of erythematous circular rashes on his right upper extremity,” writes Ocon.²

He was diagnosed clinically with Lyme disease and received two 10-day courses of doxycycline, but continued to suffer from fevers, chest pressure, a dry cough, along with malaise and arthralgia.

The man was subsequently diagnosed with Still’s disease, as he met the criteria with a fever greater than 102.2°F for at least 1 week; a characteristic rash; a white cell count of at least 10,000; lymphadenopathy, and elevated liver transaminases.

He was treated successfully with intravenous steroids and anakinra (a humanised interleukin-1 receptor antagonist), which is used to modulate the immune system.

Author’s Takeaway:

“For the first time, we describe a case of AOSD precipitated by Lyme disease.”

“Lyme disease is a rare trigger of adult-onset Still’s disease, likely mediated via immune system inflammatory activation.”

“AOSD presented with a rare manifestation of haemorrhagic pericarditis and tamponade.”

“We believe that the immunological response to Lyme disease may have triggered AOSD via a hyper-activated immune system.”

UPDATED: July 1, 2021

Related Articles:

Could Lyme disease be another infection associated with Guillian Barre syndrome?

Lyme disease manifests as autoimmune disorder, Sjogrens Syndrome

References:
  1. Cimmino MA, Trevisan G. Lyme arthritis presenting as adult-onset Still’s disease. Clin Exp Rheumatol. 1989;7(3):305-308.
  2. Ocon AJ, Kwiatkowski AV, Peredo-Wende R, Blinkhorn R. Adult-onset Still’s disease with haemorrhagic pericarditis and tamponade preceded by acute Lyme disease. BMJ Case Rep. 2018;2018:bcr2018225517. Published 2018 Aug 16. doi:10.1136/bcr-2018-225517
  3. Cross A, Bouboulis D, Shimasaki C, Jones CR. Case Report: PANDAS and Persistent Lyme Disease With Neuropsychiatric Symptoms: Treatment, Resolution, and Recovery. Front Psychiatry. 2021 Feb 2;12:505941. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.505941. PMID: 33603684; PMCID: PMC7884317.

For more:

Category:

Bartonella, Lyme, research, Viruses

How Lyme Disease Can Affect Your Vision

https://www.lymedisease.org/padula-lyme-affects-eyes/

TOUCHED BY LYME: How Lyme disease can affect your vision

Aug. 4, 2021

Dr. William Padula is a noted expert on how Lyme and other tick-borne diseases can affect the eyes.

According to his website, the following can all be symptoms of tick-borne illness: blur, visual fatigue, double vision, headaches associated with visual activities, light sensitivity, losing place when reading, seeing words appear to double or become double when reading, and more obscure problems often not associated with vision such as difficulty with balance, spatial orientation, memory, comprehension, feeling of being overwhelmed by being in a busy environment, and sensitivity to sound.

The website notes: “The cause of the visual symptoms is because the tick-borne disease affects visual processing in the brain.”

Recently, Dr. Padula has discovered two eye-related biomarkers for tick-borne infection. (A biomarker is something that can be found by examination or testing that indicates the presence of a particular disease or condition.)

In an article published by Healio, Dr. Padula reports:

“My colleagues and I have demonstrated that the presence of a hazy, white ring of peri-papillary ischemia around the optic nerve — especially in children or adults younger than 60 years who would not be expected to have ischemic changes — is associated with tick-borne infection. One way that spirochetes hide from the immune system is by building up protective biofilms. We believe that these biofilms clog the narrow capillary vessels just around the perimeter of the optic nerve, blocking blood flow.”

Dr. Padula recommends that optometrists and ophthalmologists who observe this condition in patients who also have convergence insufficiency or focusing should rule out the possibility of tick-borne infection.

In the same article, Dr. Padula also discusses something called the Visual Evoked Potential (VEP) test. He says that abnormal results on this test strongly indicate tick-borne disease.

As we in the Lyme community know well, it often takes a long time for people to get properly diagnosed with tick-borne infections. If eye doctors become alert to these biomarkers, that could speed up the process considerably.

Click here to read the article on Healio.

Click here to visit Dr. Padula’s website

TOUCHED BY LYME is written by Dorothy Kupcha Leland, LymeDisease.org’s Vice-president and Director of Communications. She is co-author of When Your Child Has Lyme Disease: A Parent’s Survival Guide. Contact her at dleland@lymedisease.org.

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Category:

Biofilm, Eye Issues, Lyme