Archive for the ‘Testing’ Category

Diagnosis of Lyme Disease – Johns Hopkins

https://www.hopkinslyme.org/lyme-disease/diagnosis-of-lyme-disease/

Diagnosis of Lyme Disease

Many cases of Lyme disease are initially misdiagnosed. Lyme disease can be difficult to diagnose because early symptoms of fever, severe fatigue, and achiness are also common in many other illnesses. In addition, diagnostic blood tests are not always dependable, particularly in early disease. However, the round expanding red lesion rash is a unique sign that is more specific for Lyme disease, and many times a diagnosis can be made based on the tell-tale erythema migrans rash itself. Yet, it is important to understand that the erythema migrans rash is not always present or recognizable, and symptoms can fluctuate.

Think the Lyme disease rash is always a bull’s-eye? Think again.
Think it’s a spider bite? Think again.
Please refer to our poster of varied rash manifestations as a helpful Lyme disease rash identification tool.

Recognizing the Lyme disease erythema migrans rash can be crucial to early diagnosis and treatment.

Despite common belief, the stereotypical ring within a ring bullseye rash is only present in a minority of Lyme disease patients. Instead, the majority of Lyme disease rashes are uniformly red or blue-red and do not have a central clearing or bullseye. Sometimes the site of the tick bite is clearly visible in the center of this lesion. The erythema migrans rash is almost always round or oval and expands over days to a diameter greater than 2”. The Lyme rash is often confused with a spider bite, despite spider bites not expanding in this way.

Though less common, blisters may appear in the center of a Lyme disease rash and can be mistaken for a spider bite or the rash of shingles.

It is important to note that not all infected tick bites successfully transmit Lyme disease. Tick bite reaction may occur due to skin reactions to substances from the tick bite and may be confused with the rash of Lyme disease. Tick bite reactions may last days to weeks, but unlike the Lyme disease rash, tick bite reactions remain small, do not enlarge, and are not associated with fever or other systemic symptoms.

A typical tick bite site reaction is dime-sized or smaller and does not enlarge each day like the erythema migrans rash of Lyme disease.

Bacteria from the Lyme disease rash can disseminate through the bloodstream and create new erythema migrans skin lesions at other sites distant from the initial bite.

What are the Systemic Symptoms of Lyme Disease?

Systemic symptoms of Lyme disease include:

  • Severe fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, neurologic symptoms and cognitive impairment
  • Cardiac problems, including life-threatening inflammation of the heart called carditis
  • Facial palsy, meningitis, and headaches
  • Swollen knees and Lyme arthritis

How do you diagnose the later stages of Lyme Disease?

Disseminated Lyme disease, due to unsuccessful or delayed treatment, can become disabling. The bacteria can leave the skin where it was initially inoculated by the tick and travel through the bloodstream to numerous systems of the body, primarily joints, heart, brain, muscles and the nervous system.

Late disseminated Lyme disease has a wide range of presentations including joint pain, extreme fatigue, neuromuscular pain, cardiac problems, headaches, and other central nervous system dysfunction. There are some distinguishable signs of later stage Lyme disease including facial palsy in the second stage, and swollen knees in the third stage that are somewhat specific for Lyme disease, but not absolutely, because there are other causes of Bell’s Palsy and swollen knees.

Diagnosis can be confirmed by serology blood tests which measure the antibodies that are formed by the immune system in response to the Lyme disease bacterial infection. Collection of cerebrospinal fluid by lumbar puncture may be indicated in neurologic cases that may involve the central nervous system.

Can you use a serology test to diagnose during the first stage of Lyme disease?

Serology antibody tests are generally more helpful for second and third stages of Lyme disease than first stage Lyme disease. Antibodies take weeks to develop, and if the initial presentation of Lyme disease is in the early stage those antibody tests may be falsely negative because the immune system has not yet had enough time to produce antibodies. If a physician is suspicious of Lyme disease but cannot make a diagnosis by the rash, then the antibody test in that first stage should be repeated 3 to 4 weeks later since a Lyme disease diagnosis can be missed with a false negative test in the first few weeks.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends measuring antibodies by using a two-tier testing process. If an ELISA test is positive, it is then followed by a Western blot test. However, this system can produce some false positive results and high numbers of false negative results, particularly in early infection.

In addition, the immune response to borrelia is heterogeneous, and not all cases are captured by current antibody-based diagnostics. Antibody testing can also be a problem in patients with early disease who are treated with antibiotics. In these cases, a follow up antibody test done after treatment may be negative and never turn positive.

Thus, a negative antibody test does not necessarily rule out Lyme disease and should always be considered in the context of a full health history and clinical assessment.

Current problems with Lyme disease diagnosis & patient care

  • Diagnostic tests cannot yet accurately identify the earliest stage of Lyme disease when making the diagnosis is crucial.
  • The rash is not always present or easily recognized
  • Misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis can make Lyme disease more difficult to treat and lead to prolonged and debilitating illness
  • Early symptoms can be mistaken for a summer flu
  • Lyme disease can involve several parts of the body, including joints, connective tissue, heart, brain, and nerves, and produce different symptoms at different times.
  • Antibody testing done after early treatment may be negative and never turn positive for some cases
  • Borrelia burgdorferi can evade our protective immune system and trigger immune system dysfunction.
  • No reliable blood test is presently available to measure treatment success, necessitating close clinical follow up and improved physician education.
  • Presently there is no vaccine to prevent Lyme disease.

What is the difference between this “indirect” blood diagnostic test and a “direct” test?

Direct diagnostic tests measure the presence of the bacteria directly and are much more reliable than tests looking for indirect measurement of antibodies that measure a person’s immune response to an infection. Lyme disease diagnoses and disease management would benefit from validated diagnostic tests that directly measure the infection such as a culture, PCR test, or antigen detection tests. Those are the kind of tests relied on in the management of other infectious diseases like HIV, hepatitis C or strep.

Does the time of year matter in the diagnosis of Lyme disease?

Since Lyme disease is a tick-borne infection, the seasonality of the disease is linked tightly to the life cycle and behavior of ticks. May, June, July, and early August are the biggest risk months for acquiring first stage Lyme disease in the US. This is the feeding time for nymph and adolescent ticks which are difficult to see. A viral-like illness in those early summer months might be Lyme disease. There is also some transmission of Lyme disease via adult ticks in the fall and winter and throughout the year anytime the temperature is above 40 degrees, but to a lesser degree.

The risk of acute Lyme disease is more of a year-round risk in more temperate regions such as northern California and the pacific northwest. Later stage Lyme disease, however, can manifest at any time.

Is Johns Hopkins trying to discover new ways to diagnose Lyme disease more directly?

Our Center is working on identifying biomarkers to improve diagnostics and to measure treatment success. Our research also supports the advancement of direct diagnostic tests to directly identify the Lyme disease bacteria.

USE OF THIS SITE

All information contained within the Johns Hopkins Lyme Disease Research Center website is intended for educational purposes only. Physicians and other health care professionals are encouraged to consult other sources and confirm the information contained within this site. Consumers should never disregard medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something they may have read on this website.

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**Comment**

Fairly accurate article but deceiving at the same time.  A few points for consideration:

  1. The emphasis on having a rash is hurting patients. In the first ever patient sample in Lyme, Connecticut, only a quarter had a rash. The percentages vary from 25-80%. Hardly a done deal.  While the rash IS diagnostic for Lyme, not having the rash means NOTHING.
  2. I’m thankful the author states it can disseminate quickly.  This can happen far quicker than mainstream medicine cares to admit.  Case in point:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/12/07/igenex-presentation/  Within 4-6 hours after tick bite, little girl develops facial palsy and can’t walk or talk. That’s quick.
  3. Treat each and every tick bite as seriously as a heart attack.  This “wait and see” approach has been dooming patients for decades. To wait for a rash to enlarge is pure folly.  Everyone knows and admits early treatment is everything, so why are we WAITING?
  4. The symptoms listed don’t do this monster justice.  People can have severe psychological dysfunction (hallucinations, memory loss, anxiety, rage, and much more).  Please quit putting this into a 1 minute sound bite.
  5. Can we quit talking about the use of abysmal serology testing?  Seriously, throw that sucker into the trash can. We need doctors to become educated. Until a better test is created, this is a clinical diagnosis that needs astutely trained doctors.
  6. IT MATTERS NOT what time of year you become ill.  Not ONE iota.  To state otherwise shows a complete under appreciation for this organism.  It can sequester anywhere in the body and pop out at will.  Plus, there’s much to show there is FAR more at play than ticks:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/04/02/transmission-of-lyme-disease-lida-mattman-phd/  My initial symptoms were gynecological and in January in Wisconsin – hardly tick weather, yet, seriously infected I became:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/02/24/pcos-lyme-my-story/  Animal studies have existed since the 80’s showing contact transmission, via urine, congenitally, orally, ocularly, via synovial fluid, cow milk, colostrum, and on and on, yet nobody is touching this.  It’s just the Black legged tick, don’t ya know?
  7. Lastly, even ticks are defying the authorities and going everywhere on the backs of birds:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/11/07/ticks-on-the-move-due-to-migrating-birds-and-photoperiod-not-climate-change/  These ticks are chuck full of pathogens and are infecting people with a plethora of things. We need to admit the polymicrobial nature of this and the fact nobody knows what the cumulative effect is on the human body:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/10/30/study-shows-lyme-msids-patients-infected-with-many-pathogens-and-explains-why-we-are-so-sick/

Category:

Activism, Lyme, research, Testing, Ticks, Transmission

What Role Do Co-infections Play in Lyme Disease Diagnosis?

https://www.bca-clinic.de/en/what-role-do-co-infections-play-in-lyme-disease-diagnosis/

What Role Do Co-infections Play In Lyme Disease Diagnosis?

10. May 2019in BCA-clinic

Chronic Lyme disease is an intimidating enough prospect by itself. Unfortunately, a large number of cases are compounded by Lyme co-infections – additional diseases that are transferred simultaneously with the Lyme-causative Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria. Ticks are responsible for all these transmitted infections; they carry the strains that are passed on to their human hosts. Unfortunately, many patients don’t realise that co-infections even exist, and more crucially, many doctors don’t either. It’s extremely important to test for co-infections at the same time as Lyme disease diagnosis, as they can compound or revitalise the primary debilitating symptoms of the umbrella infection. This makes simultaneous diagnosis an important area of study for Lyme-literate doctors.

The majority of co-infections will exacerbate the symptoms of chronic Lyme itself. They modulate and stymy the immune system, as well as providing resistance to therapy. Chronic Lyme disease diagnosis in itself is a controversial topic, whose waters do not need muddying further. Acute Lyme is relatively straightforward to diagnose, if the distinctive bullseye rash is present. This rash – a red circle surrounded by a larger red circle, forming the shape of a bullseye – will be noticeable in the majority of cases, although it can be easily missed. Once the infection develops to chronic Lyme, however, the process of diagnosis becomes much more difficult, as Lyme is not usually considered among potential diseases.

Lyme is sometimes nicknamed ‘the Great Imitator’, due to its symptoms mimicking the symptoms of other significant diseases. The symptoms themselves bear very little resemblance to the initial ones presented by acute Lyme, instead differing in severity from patient to patient. Broadly, they encompass everything from fatigue, joint pain and muscle pain to depression, neurological issues, headaches and sleep disturbances. These symptoms are so broad that it’s easy to see why under-educated doctors will often reach for something more common, like multiple sclerosis or fibromyalgia. When it comes to Lyme, misdiagnosis rates are estimated to be extremely high, with the full extent unknown. Co-infections can cloud diagnosis by adding more symptoms, presenting new ones, or making others more pronounced. To fully benefit Lyme disease treatment, the full spectrum of issues must be investigated and laid out before the process begins.

The full range of symptoms must be examined during Lyme disease diagnosis.

BCA-lab, who are Lyme specialists based in Augsburg, Germany, understand co-infections very well. They will run a full gamut of tests early on in the treatment process in an effort to understand exactly what the patient is suffering from, and how precisely they’re suffering from it. Some of the main diseases they test for can severely change the way Lyme develops within the body, and how it should be treated. Some co-infections can even revitalise the Lyme disease symptoms after the primary Borrelia infection has been dealt with, leading patients to believe that either they are not fully cured, or that they were never suffering from Lyme in the first place.

One of the most common Lyme co-infections is Bartonellosis. If this co-infection is present in the initial tick bite, and is allowed to run amok within the system, it can be expected to have substantial significance to the overarching Lyme infection. The clinical manifestations of both diseases contain numerous overlaps, and the symptoms presented by both are undeniably broad. Bartonellosis is still not well understood by the medical community at large; it was initially thought to be relatively benign. However, the long-term effects and symptoms of the disease are intimidating, especially if paired with Lyme. They include fever, fatigue, joint pain, muscle ache and brain fog. More alarmingly, the disease can have a range of neurological effects, resulting in symptoms such as panic attacks, seizures, depression, epilepsy and psychosis. Many of these symptoms are extremely similar to the ones presented by chronic Lyme, which makes differentiating them at the diagnostic stage a critical first step.

Another common co-infection is Chlamydophila pneumoniae, the primary manifestation of which is the well-known and well-understood pneumoniae. However, left over a long period of time, Chlamydophila pneumonia can severely compromise the body’s immune system by placing it under extreme stress. Upper respiratory infections can be a huge drain on the immune response, especially if they are recurring. Given the fact that chronic Lyme already sends the immune system haywire, Chlamydophila pneumoniae is a very dangerous co-infection, if left to its own devices. To compound this, the infection is quite hard to both detect and treat, as chlamydia are much smaller than other pathogens. Mixed in with Lyme disease and possible other co-infections, it can often go undetected.

Chlamydophila pneumoniae can be one of the more dangerous Lyme co-infections.

 

Bartonellosis and Chlamydophila pneumoniae are just two examples of co-infections that can cause severe problems for Lyme patients if they are not dealt with adequately. Currently, the answer to the question posed by this article, ‘what role do co-infections play in Lyme disease diagnosis’, is simply ‘not enough’. There needs to be a combined and concerted effort on the part of medical health professionals everywhere to engage with co-infections and recognise the danger they pose to Lyme patients. Diagnosis is often the hardest part of the Lyme battle; it’s the stage where we should strive to get everything right the first time. Correct diagnosis across the Lyme disease spectrum lays a strong foundation for successful patient treatment and subsequent recovery.

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**Comment**

Great article overall, just remember this is written by a lab that does testing for profit, so their first priority is selling tests.

Testing throughout the history of Lyme/MSIDS has been extremely poor.  Most testing is serological testing – utilizing blood, where frankly these pathogens do not hang out.  They are stealth pathogens and burrow deep within the body to avoid the immune system, treatment, AND testing.

LLMD’S (Lyme literate doctors) are educated in the symptomology of these diseases and can diagnose you clinically.  Treatment is often a bit of “Let’s try this and see,” approach as everyone is so different with numerous variables.  This is why mainstream medicine is woefully unprepared and uneducated for all of this.  They simply are ignorant.

To date, nobody has a true bead on what the implications of multiple pathogens fighting synergistically to the body are, but this work is screaming to be done as recent research has borne polymicrobialism out to be true:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/10/30/study-shows-lyme-msids-patients-infected-with-many-pathogens-and-explains-why-we-are-so-sick/

Mainstream medicine STILL hasn’t acknowledged or dealt with this FACT.

It makes the CDC/IDSA mono-therapy of doxycycline a true joke. As well as their FDA-approved 2-tiered testing which misses half of all cases.

Bartonella, as mentioned in this article, is a HUGE player that up until recently has been considered a benign disease with required of cat exposure, yet any Lyme literate doctor OR patient will tell you Bart is far from benign, and a plethora of case studies have proven you don’t have to be around cats to contract it.  In fact, personally, it is my Achilles heel.  It’s what I deal with – perhaps forever.

Great read on the types of chlamydia:  https://articles.mercola.com/chlamydia/types.aspx The first two are mentioned in the abstract:

  • Chlamydia trachomatis can be passed from one person to another via unprotected sexual intercourse. Pain English: this is a STD.
  • Chlamydia pneumoniae (C. pneumoniae), a nonsexually transmitted disease that infects the lungs and causes bacterial pneumonia.
  • Chlamydia psittaci is another chlamydia strain that can lead to a rare condition called psittacosis, aka “parrot fever.”

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/10/07/chlamydia-like-organisms-found-in-ticks/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/04/19/first-study-showing-borrelia-chlamydia-mixed-biofilms-in-infected-human-skin-tissues/  Excerpt:  

IN SUMMARY, OUR STUDY IS THE FIRST TO SHOW BORRELIA–CHLAMYDIA MIXED BIOFILMS IN INFECTED HUMAN SKIN TISSUES, WHICH RAISES THE QUESTIONS OF WHETHER THESE HUMAN PATHOGENS HAVE DEVELOPED A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP FOR THEIR MUTUAL SURVIVAL.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/03/09/researchers-identify-herpes-1-chlamydia-pneumoniae-several-types-of-spirochaete-as-major-causes-of-alzheimers/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/04/04/correlation-of-natural-autoantibodies-heart-disease-related-antibacterial-antibodies-in-pericardial-fluid-mycoplasma-bb-chlamydia/  Excerpt:

Mycoplasma pneumoniae antibody positive patients had significantly higher anti-CS IgM levels. In CABG patients we found a correlation between anti-CS IgG levels and Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Chlamydia pneumoniae and Borrelia burgdorferi antibody titers. Our results provide the first evidence that natural autoantibodies are present in the PF and they show significant correlation with certain antibacterial antibody titers in a disease specific manner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Category:

Activism, Bartonella, Lyme, Psychological Aspects, Testing, Ticks, Treatment

New York Doctor Warns of Tick-borne Diseases

https://www.tribtoday.com/life/lifecovers/2019/05/new-york-doctor-warns-of-tick-borne-diseases/

New York doctor warns of tick-borne diseases

Neurologist Dr. Elena Frid of New York, left, and Lyme patient Megan Tilton of Cherry Valley in Ashtabula Township discuss the prevalence of Lyme disease in Ohio. (Tribune Chronicle / R. Michael Semple)

NILES — The ticks are coming — they’re already here — and residents and doctors alike must do a better job with care and treatment.

That was the warning and advice from Dr. Elena Frid, a neurologist and clinical neurophysiologist from New York, who stayed at the Residence Inn by Marriott earlier this month before speaking at the Northeast Ohio Lyme Disease Symposium in Andover.

“Lyme is easy to catch, difficult to diagnose and difficult to treat,” said Frid, who specializes in infections-induced autoimmune disorders. “An average patient with Lyme disease sees 10 doctors over a course of two years before receiving a diagnosis.”

The infection caused by bacteria transmitted by bites from infected deer ticks can cause chronic pain and neurological disorders. It is the fastest-growing vector-borne illness in the United States and across the world, Frid said.

Megan Tilton, 22, of Cherry Valley sat in a wheelchair beside Frid in the Residence Inn lobby.

“The ticks this year are bountiful,” Tilton said. “Literally anybody who goes outside is at risk. They’re in your backyard.

“People really need to understand how serious this is. People get a tick bite, shake it off and think that’s it. If someone had told us 10 years ago, if the doctor had tested for it, I wouldn’t have this chronic illness,” she said. “In most cases, if you treat it right away, you usually get better.”

Tilton was bitten by a tick in 2005 when she was 9 but not diagnosed with Lyme disease until 2012. In the meantime, she suffered headaches, joint pain, fevers and heart dysrhythmia, among other problems. Eventually, her legs quit working. But tests kept turning up negative and some doctors suggested she was making it all up for attention.

Now a senior at Malone University, Tilton is studying clinical laboratory sciences so that she can go into research of tick-borne diseases. She wants to help make sure what happened to her doesn’t happen to anyone else.

“I’ve gotten a lot better,” Tilton said. “I’m back in school. I’m driving. I’m starting to walk again — not very well, but I am.”

After the diagnosis, Tilton’s mother, Connie Moschell, a labor and delivery nurse at St. Joseph Warren Hospital, helped found the NE Ohio Lyme Foundation, a nonprofit organization that raises money for awareness and puts on the annual symposium.

“Our mission is to get money and get local doctors to go through training,” Moschell said. “If you tried to use that money to help patients, you’d run out real quick.”

Frid said, “If you teach one doctor, you treat the whole community. Then patients are not as disabled or impaired because the disease is caught earlier.

“One of the things when I speak is that really to raise money to have local physicians be educated on Lyme disease by attending international conferences to learn more they can serve the community,” she said. “This disease is very underrepresented in its funding. Because of that, our testing for it is poor.”

Research is limited for lack of government funding, she said. Doctors find themselves using information from the 1970s when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified Lyme disease.

“Many physicians are seeing a difference between what they see in textbooks and what they see in the office,” Frid said.

When first discovered, Lyme had been centered mostly southern and eastern coastal states. Then it started moving north and west. Lyme disease has become more and more prevalent in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the two states that border eastern Ohio, and more cases continue to migrate into Ohio, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2017, the last year for which statistics are available, Pennsylvania reported 77.2 incidences of Lyme disease per 100,000 population, up from its three-year average of 66.7 incidences, and West Virginia reported 27.7 cases per 100,000 population, up from the three-year average of 19 incidences. Ohio in 2017 reported 2 cases per 100,000 population, up from its 1.3 three-year average.

Randee Shoenberger, epidemiologist for the Trumbull County Combined Health District, said six probable or confirmed Lyme cases were recorded in both 2017 and 2018 in Trumbull County. The true numbers are uncertain for a number of factors, she said.

Because Lyme often isn’t diagnosed right away and bites often go unnoticed, it’s frequently uncertain where the patient was when bitten by a tick. The health department investigates cases in hopes of pinpointing where it happened.

Also, doctors may give medications to treat the symptoms, which clear up, and the case is never reported to the health department. Other times, victims of tick bites don’t seek treatment.

It just becomes hard to know for sure.

“We’re predicting that it could be a lot. You never know,” Shoenberger said.

The CDC’s database records 31 confirmed cases of Lyme disease in Trumbull County over the 17 years from 2000 to 2016. The greatest number was six in 2004. The least was zero in 2012 and 2016. East Stroudsburg, Pa.-based laboratory TickCheck, which tests for Lyme and tick-borne diseases, estimates that the actual numbers are 10 times greater than cases confirmed by the CDC.

Between 2000 and 2016, 44 confirmed cases were reported in Mahoning County, 28 in Portage, 14 in Ashtabula and 11 in Geauga, according to the CDC.

Symptoms of Lyme disease include headaches, fever, fatigue and joint aches, and to a lesser degree, a minor rash, Frid said.

“Just because there’s no bull’s-eye rash (from a tick bite) doesn’t mean you don’t have Lyme. Fifty percent of patients don’t realize they have a bite, so often it’s missed.”

In most cases, symptoms tend to resolve on their own. But if the immune system is not strong enough to fight it off, then it can progress to chronic fatigue, neuropathy, chronic pain, even muscular dystrophy-like symptoms.

Frid recommends that people ask their doctors how comfortable they are at treating Lyme and how many patients per year they see with Lyme.

“We know the test is inaccurate,” she said. “(Asking questions about doctor comfort levels) will help them ID a specialist who is seeing and testing Lyme patients.”

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**Comment**

Asking a doctor if they are comfortable treating Lyme and how many patients they treat might be a way to sift out those who aren’t going to treat this properly, but a much better way is to contact your local Lyme support groups. They have in hand a doctor list that contains doctors that are specially trained by ILADS (International Lyme & Associated Diseases Society).

Everyone now admits the 2-tiered blood serology testing is abysmal.
Everyone now admits that catching this early with early treatment is imperative.

What isn’t admitted is that the “wait and see” approach has been killing patients. By the time they “wait and see” if patients develop symptoms, the bacteria has moved past the blood/brain barrier and has burrowed deep within the body, making it much harder and longer to treat.

Einstein stated, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Well, docs have been telling patients to “wait and see,” and the results of that experiment have been horrific. Time for a new approach.

Each and every tick bite should be taken as seriously as a heart attack. Do not mess around with this.  In my opinion, each tick bite should be treated prophylactically. A $30 bottle of antibiotics beats $50-200K out of pocket every time in my book, not to mention the avoided pain and suffering.

 

 

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Testing, Ticks

CDC Creates Interactive Training For Diagnosis, Management of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0513-rocky-mountain-spotted-fever-training.html

CDC Creates Interactive Training for Diagnosis, Management of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever

Press Release

For Immediate Release, Monday, May 13, 2019
Contact: Media Relations
(404) 639-3286

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has created a first-of-its-kind education module to help clinicians recognize and diagnose Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF), a sometimes serious and fatal disease spread by the bite of an infected tick.

“Rocky Mountain spotted fever can be deadly if not treated early – yet cases often go unrecognized because the signs and symptoms are similar to those of many other diseases,” said CDC Director Robert R. Redfield, M.D. “With tickborne diseases on the rise in the U.S., this training will better equip healthcare providers to identify, diagnose, and treat this potentially fatal disease.”

The module includes scenarios based on real cases to help healthcare providers recognize the early signs of RMSF and differentiate it from similar diseases. Continuing education credit is available for physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, veterinarians, nurses, epidemiologists, public health professionals, educators, and health communicators.

In 2017, a record number of cases of tickborne spotted fever rickettsiosisexternal icon, including RMSF, were reported to the CDC. While the number of spotted fever cases in 2017 is striking (6,248 cases, up from 4,269 the previous year), fewer than 1% of those cases had sufficient laboratory evidence to be confirmed, pointing to the need to better train health care providers on the best methods to diagnose tickborne diseases.

RMSF is treatable with doxycycline, the antibiotic of choice in people of all ages. Disability and death from RMSF can be prevented when doxycycline is prescribed within the first five days of illness, meaning that early recognition and treatment can save lives. RMSF begins with non-specific symptoms such as fever and headache, and sometimes rash, but when left untreated, the disease can lead to devastating consequences. Severely ill patients may require amputation of fingers, toes, or limbs due to poor blood flow; heart and lung specialty care; and management in intensive care units. Roughly 1 in 5 untreated cases are fatal. Half of those deaths occur within the first 8 days of illness.

For more information about Rocky Mountain spotted fever and other rickettsial diseases:

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICESexternal icon

CDC works 24/7 protecting America’s health, safety and security. Whether disease start at home or abroad, are curable or preventable, chronic or acute, or from human activity or deliberate attack, CDC responds to America’s most pressing health threats. CDC is headquartered in Atlanta and has experts located throughout the United States and the world.

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For More:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/07/10/first-rmsf-death-in-wisconsin/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/09/14/rocky-mountain-spotted-fever-rmsf/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/08/16/new-tick-causes-epidemic-of-rmsf/  Excerpt:

It’s usually spread by the American dog tick and the closely related Rocky Mountain wood tick. But in recent years the bacterial infection has also been spread by the brown dog tick — a completely different species.

The researchers were investigating an epidemic of the infection that broke out in the border town of Mexicali starting in 2008. It’s already sickened at least 4,000 people, according to Mexican government estimates. Several hundred have died, and at least four people have died in the U.S. after crossing the border, according to this report and others.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2015/08/13/severe-case-of-rmsf-had-to-remove-patients-arms-and-legs/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/10/21/all-his-symptoms-pointed-toward-the-flu-but-the-test-was-negative-rmsf-in-connecticut/

Again, testing is abysmal.  Doctors NEED education.

If interested:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/02/19/calling-all-doctors-please-become-educated-regarding-tick-borne-illness-heres-how/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2018/06/06/lyme-education-for-healthcare-professionals/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/03/15/global-lyme-alliance-announces-new-partnership-with-delaware-lyme-board-to-help-educate-physicians-about-lyme-disease/

 

Category:

Activism, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Testing, Ticks, Transmission, Treatment

Vaginal Lesion Associated With Lyme

2019 Jan-Dec;7:2324709619842901. doi: 10.1177/2324709619842901.

Erosive Vulvovaginitis Associated With Borrelia burgdorferi Infection.

Fesler MC1, Middelveen MJ2, Burke JM3, Stricker RB1.

Abstract

We describe a case of acute erosive vulvovaginitis accompanying Borrelia burgdorferi infection. The patient is a 57-year-old woman previously diagnosed with Lyme disease who presented with a painful erosive genital lesion. At the time of the outbreak, she was being treated with oral antibiotics, and she tested serologically positive for B burgdorferiand serologically negative for syphilis. Histological examination of biopsy tissue from the lesion was not characteristic of dermatopathological patterns typical of erosive vulvar conditions. Dieterle-stained biopsy sections revealed visible spirochetes throughout the stratum spinosum and stratum basale, and anti- B burgdorferi immunostaining was positive. Motile spirochetes were observed by darkfield microscopy and cultured in Barbour-Stoner-Kelly-complete medium inoculated with skin scrapings from the lesion. Cultured spirochetes were identified genetically as B burgdorferi sensu stricto by polymerase chain reaction, while polymerase chain reaction amplification of treponemal gene targets was negative. The condition resolved after treatment with additional systemic antibiotic therapy and topical antibiotics. In cases of genital ulceration that have no identifiable etiology, the possibility of B burgdorferi spirochetal infection should be considered.

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For more:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/05/11/lyme-found-in-genital-lesion-sexual-transmission-studies-screaming-to-be-done/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Category:

Lyme, research, Testing, Treatment