Lone Star Tick Carrying Heartland Virus Found in Georgia: Researchers
By Katabella Roberts
March 17, 2022U
Lone star ticks carrying a virus that could potentially prove fatal to humans have been discovered in Georgia, a new study reported Wednesday.
The Heartland virus is an emerging infectious disease that can cause symptoms such as fever, diarrhea, fatigue, muscle or joint pain, headache, nausea, and a loss of appetite, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Many individuals who have been diagnosed with the Heartland virus have had to be hospitalized due to their symptoms and some who had underlying health conditions have died.
There are currently no vaccines or medications that work to prevent or treat infection of the virus and antibiotics do not work. (See link for article)
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SUMMARY:
1 out of every 2,000 specimens contained Heartland virus and confirm active transmission
Heartland virus was first discovered in two men in northwest Missouri in 2009. They were both hospitalized with high fevers, diarrhea, muscle pains, low counts of white blood cells and platelets, as well as other symptoms related to tick-borne diseases.
More than 50 cases have been reported in Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee as of Jan. 2021, however, everything reported by the CDC regarding tick-borne illness is notoriously low.
Retroactive analysis discovered that a 2015 death that was labeled as an unidentified illness was in fact Heartland Virus.
While the article states there aren’t any treatments for Heartland virus, that is soundly FALSE. Mainstream medicine unfortunately has bought and propagated this horrific lie. There are many anti-viral medications and supportive treatments as well as anti-microbials like blood ozone, high doses of oral or IV vitamin C, herbs, and others which work effectively for viruses. All we have to do is look at the COVID debacle to quickly learn that those who deny viral treatments are either ignorant or have an agenda. Go here for an excellent video on industry corruption and suppression of drugs that work. In fact, after my experience with the miraculous way ivermectin stopped COVID in its tracks (at every stage of the illness), I’m hoping research will be done on this drug as well as HCQ for tick-borne and mosquito-borne viruses like Heartland, Bourbon Virus, and even West Nile Virus.
Advice: the best and most effective way to deal tick-borne illness is to avoid it in the first place. This means that you will need to preemptively plan your outdoor adventures by being prepared. This addresses three prongs: your yard, your pets, and you.
All of this does not guarantee you will not be bitten by a tick but it will certainly help. If you are bitten by a tick, immediately act on it. The “Wait and See” approach has doomed thousands upon thousands to chronic/persistent symptoms that can affect your life in major ways.
Rather than give medical advice about recommended treatment, please see the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS – how to handle a tick bite):
“ILADS recommends that prophylaxis (preventive treatment) be discussed with all who have had a blacklegged tick bite. An appropriate course of antibiotics has been shown to prevent the onset of infection.
When the decision is made to use antibiotic prophylaxis, ILADS recommends 20 days of doxycycline (provided there are no contraindications).The decision to treat a blacklegged tick bite with antibiotics often depends on where in the country the bite occurred, whether there was evidence that the tick had begun feeding, and the age of the person who was bitten. Based on the available evidence, and provided that it is safe to do so, ILADS recommends a 20-day course of doxycycline.
Keep in mind this advice ONLY covers Lyme disease, and ticks can spread 19 and counting other diseases – each necessitating different medications. So just because you take doxy prophylactically also doesn’t guarantee you won’t get symptoms caused by a different pathogen(s). This is why it’s important for you to educate yourself on symptomology caused by other tick-borne infections, as well as work with a trained Lyme literate doctor who is also knowledgeable about this.
Seems nothing is a sure thing in Lyme-land, but being prepared is always the best choice and makes you a tougher target.
For more on the Lone Star tick:
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/10/12/lone-star-ticks-have-swarmed-aquinnah-biologist-says/Although not known to carry Lyme, they can cause ehrlichiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, as well as a red meat and or dairy allergy. Unlike deer ticks, lone star larvae stay in groups of 2,000-8,000 until they are nymphs which means those who brush up against a cluster could have hundreds to thousands attaching simultaneously.
Doctors debate, patients suffer: The fight over chronic Lyme disease in Wisconsin
Mainstream medicine says the tick-borne infection is a short-term ailment. But some patients insist they have Lyme-caused symptoms that last for years.
Maria Alice Lima Freitas is pictured at her home in Middleton, Wis., on Oct. 6, 2021. Freitas believes she has been suffering from Lyme disease since 2015. She has seen a large number of doctors, who she says have varying degrees of belief in her diagnosis. She is among thousands of patients in Wisconsin who believe they have a long-term version of the disease called chronic Lyme. Mainstream medicine considers Lyme a short-term illness that generally resolves quickly with antibiotics. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
Reading Time: 12minutes
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If life had gone as planned, Maria Alice Lima Freitas would be in medical school, inspired by the career of her father, a surgeon who practiced in Brazil. But instead of changing careers, the 49-year-old therapist retired from University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Freitas says her undiagnosed Lyme disease has sapped her energy, fogged her thinking and caused pain in her neck, shoulders, hands and right knee. She has three times deferred her entrance into medical school while struggling with myriad symptoms that she attributes to Lyme.
Most of her doctors say she is mistaken, and that her symptoms, which began in 2015, are due to rheumatoid arthritis.
Maria Alice Lima Freitas is pictured at her home in Middleton, Wis., on Oct. 6, 2021, with her husband John Oppenheimer. Freitas’ life and career have been upended by a series of symptoms — including joint pain and brain fog — that she blames on chronic Lyme disease. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
Freitas is among thousands of Wisconsinites who say they are suffering from a chronic or long-term version of the disease. The infection comes from tiny ticks primarily found in the northeastern United States, including in Wisconsin — which is a hot spot for Lyme, ranking No. 5 among states for Lyme cases in 2019.
Nationally, Lyme disease infects an estimated 476,000 people a year. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services reports the state had 3,076 estimated cases of Lyme disease in 2020 — a doubling in the past 15 years. But medical entomologists say Lyme cases in the state could be 10 times higher than reported.
The medical establishment calls Lyme a short-term disease that usually quickly resolves with antibiotics. Self-described “Lyme-literate” practitioners argue patients like Freitas suffer from a long-haul version of the disease, often called chronic Lyme disease.
The orthodox position held by most scientific experts and some professional associations — and endorsed by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — is that Lyme disease is an acute infectious disease. Clinical diagnosis is based on a “bull’s-eye” rash, other specific symptoms and two-tiered antibody tests. Treatment is by short courses of oral antibiotics. And persistent symptoms rarely occur.
The standard antibody testing for Lyme disease, cleared by the Food and Drug Administration and endorsed by insurance companies, has been criticized by patients and practitioners as inadequate to detect all cases of the disease. Some practitioners offer alternative tests and treatments, but insurance does not cover the cost of their care. And in extreme situations, such doctors risk disciplinary action.
For most people, Lyme disease is treatable and curable. Most patients report their symptoms cleared after a short course of antibiotics if the infection is recognized and treated early. Another 10-20% of patients develop more severe cases whose symptoms include debilitating pain, fatigue, brain fog, irritability and sleep disorders.
Dark-skinned patients face particular difficulties in getting a Lyme diagnosis. Identifying the red target symbol over light skin tone is easy for light-skinned people, but not so with dark skin tones. A recent UCLA study found that 34% of Black patients with Lyme disease had neurological complications compared to just 9% of whites, suggesting the disease may not have been recognized for many Black patients in earlier stages when it’s easier to treat.
Patients with persistent symptoms struggle to get a diagnosis. Wisconsin Watch has spoken with five people in addition to Freitas whose persistent, subjective symptoms fall outside of the mainstream definition of Lyme as an acute disease. Caught in the middle of the debate, they face emotional, physical, mental and financial exhaustion as they bounce between specialists in search of explanations for their pain.
“The best way I can explain…I’m going through hell, (and) keep on going,” Freitas said.
Diagnoses: Viral infection, arthritis
Freitas’ Lyme journey began in March 2019 as she battled monthly bouts of fever. She had trouble falling back to sleep late at night. Her hair rapidly fell out. And her body ached and her neck was stiff. She suffered from severe pain in her joints, bones and chest. She also felt tired. At first, Freitas attributed the exhaustion to the bladder surgery she had undergone in April. Fevers hit her in June and again in July.
The unbearable pain made it hard for her to work. It felt like someone was scraping the inside of her right knee with a knife. By August of that year, Freitas took a medical leave, unable to work.
The black-legged tick, or deer tick, is the vector of the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. Deer ticks are present everywhere in Wisconsin where there is forested habitat. Pictured clockwise from top left: nymph, larva, adult male, adult female. Deer ticks have three life stages, the larva becomes a nymph, which then becomes an adult. (Courtesy of UW-Madison Department of Entomology)
She checked into a Madison hospital for a couple of days. She said the doctor ordered a variety of tests — but not for Lyme. Freitas was diagnosed with a viral infection, which she said failed to explain her full slate of symptoms, including electric sensations on her face and arms and forgetfulness.
Four summers earlier, Freitas said she similarly felt eye pain, knuckle pain, fatigue, forgetfulness and headaches. She recalled a rash that had stayed on her leg for at least three weeks. Freitas saw a rheumatologist at St. Mary’s in early July 2015.
The doctor noticed a red spot on her leg, but it was not the classic Lyme sign of “bull’s-eye” rash. She recalls being tested for Lyme, but the two-step testing came back negative.
The doctor deemed the red spot a likely spider bite and diagnosed her with arthritis. After taking pain medication for a month, Freitas began to feel better. When more symptoms took hold in 2019, she sensed that viral infection alone did not explain them. Freitas started reading articles about Lyme disease.
Her husband, John Oppenheimer, recalled his wife devouring medical journal articles. Freitas has a bachelor’s degree in biology from UW-Madison and a master’s in marriage and family therapy from Edgewood College. In late 2018, a Florida-based medical school had admitted her to a pre-med program, but her declining health disrupted those plans.
Freitas floated the Lyme hypothesis to a rheumatologist, who felt the joint pain and hand swelling looked more like rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Test results also suggested Freitas may have RA.
Questions about testing
Freitas was not convinced.“I have other symptoms that can’t be explained by RA,” she said. She had read journal articles about the difficulty in Lyme diagnosis, finding the recommended tests are “pretty fallible.”
CDC recommends a two-step testing process for determining whether a person has Lyme disease. Both blood tests must come out positive — or at least indeterminate — for a Lyme diagnosis to be made, the agency recommends.
The two tests measure antibodies that can remain in a person’s system for months or even years and therefore may not indicate an ongoing infection.“It cannot tell when you got infected,” said Elitza Theel, who directs Mayo Clinic’s Infectious Diseases Serology Laboratory.
Maria Alice Lima Freitas is comforted by group leader Alicia Cashman during a meeting of the Madison Area Lyme Support Group at the East Madison Police Station in Madison, Wis., on Feb. 8, 2020. Freitas believes she suffers from chronic Lyme disease but has struggled to find doctors who agree. She wept frequently throughout the meeting — the first one she had attended— as other participants shared their personal experiences. She later said she became emotional after realizing she was not imagining her symptoms. She attended the meeting with her husband John Oppenheimer, left. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
And the testing has other drawbacks. “It cannot tell what disease severity (is), and it cannot tell whether or not you responded to treatment,” Theel said. “It’s important to remember that we’re not making a diagnosis based on a test result alone.”
She went on to say that the testing also cannot be used to detect other infections that may cause Lyme-like symptoms. “You would have to test for those other infections,” she said.
Freitas tested positive in the first stage of testing but not the second, showing three bands instead of the five that the CDC says are proof of Lyme disease.
She asked the rheumatologist to order a different type of test from IGeneX, a California-based commercial laboratory, hoping that the insurance company would at least cover some cost. It didn’t.
“It’s expensive. I don’t have the money. I’ve been out of my job since August,” Freitas recalled.
The results from that $2,600 test came in December 2019. It indicated she did have Lyme disease. However, the IGeneX testing is not conclusive, either, Theel said. “Their criteria are less stringent than the CDC,” she said, “which will lead to a higher number of false positive results.”
Her rheumatologist refused to accept the result, Freitas and Oppenheimer said, calling it a “shit test.”
Health woes lead to self-doubt
Oppenheimer said Freitas, once wildly independent, increasingly depends on him as she struggles with her health. The two met when she was a single mom driving a Madison Metro bus and juggling classes at the UW-Madison. Oppenheimer had overheard her speaking in Portuguese, and he tried to put together a phrase that he could speak in the same language. That led to a first date — and in 2011, marriage.
But these days, Oppenheimer said, his wife is “very drained.”
And even friends and family members question whether the symptoms Freitas describes are real.
Maria Alice Lima Freitas is pictured at her home in Middleton, Wis., on Oct. 6, 2021, with her husband John Oppenheimer. “The best way I can explain … I’m going through hell, (and) keep on going,” Freitas says. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
“When everybody is saying that it is not Lyme,” Freitas said, “you start to question yourself.”
She tried a four-week course of doxycycline, the first-line antibiotics therapy for treating Lyme disease, prescribed by another rheumatologist. She began to feel better, with less pain and less brain fog. However, the symptoms returned once she completed the treatment. She even found herself starting to stutter.
Oppenheimer himself was diagnosed with Lyme disease as a 19-year-old. At the time, he was living less than 50 miles from Lyme, Connecticut, the community for which the disease was named.
He described an “arrogant unwillingness” by the medical establishment to recognize what he believes are his wife’s ongoing symptoms of Lyme disease.
“(I’m) just trying to be there with her and seemingly nothing to be able to do, and it’s horrible to watch,” he said.
Lyme controversial from the start
In autumn 1975, Polly Murray, an artist and mother of four in Lyme, reported to the state health department that she and her children were suffering from mysterious maladies, including stiff and swollen knees and rashes. And neighboring children were having similar hard-to-explain symptoms.
Physicians diagnosed the children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Another mother from the area, Judith Mensch, also contacted the state health department. Finally, the cluster aroused the attention of the Connecticut public health authorities. Yale University’s Dr. Allen Steere, who was still a rheumatologist-in-training, began searching for a cause.
Robert A. Aronowitz, a medical historian at the University of Pennsylvania, said the divide between mainstream medicine and Lyme patient advocates started early — with Patty Murray herself. He noted that Murray created local Lyme support groups starting in the 1980s that began to position themselves “in opposition to the leading Lyme disease physicians and scientists and their view of the disease.”
In her 1996 book, The Widening Circle, Murray warned of long-term cases of the disease. “To me, the fact that some cases seemed to be chronic, lasting for many years, meant that somehow the infection smoldered in some patients and was set off by an immune reaction, perhaps patients were being repeatedly re-infected by the organism,” she wrote.
Two camps, two approaches
Freitas saw a long string of mainstream physicians for a diagnosis — rheumatologists, an infectious-disease specialist, family medicine doctors and emergency room physicians.Then, in the spring of 2020, she began seeing out-of-network doctors in and outside of Wisconsin, and many of them didn’t take insurance.
A survey of more than 2,400 U.S. patients found that 50% of the respondents reported seeing at least seven physicians before a Lyme diagnosis, and more than half continued to suffer symptoms for at least six months after the recommended short course of antibiotics.
Maria Alice Lima Freitas pays about $1,200 a month for medicine, vitamins and treatment for her chronic Lyme disease. She is pictured at her home in Middleton, Wis., on Oct. 6, 2021, with her husband John Oppenheimer. Freitas is now being treated by Dr. Samuel Shor of the Tick-Borne Illness Center of Excellence in Woodruff, Wisconsin. She says her brain is still sometimes foggy but emotionally she is much better and feels optimistic that a doctor is finally taking her symptoms seriously. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
In January 2021, Freitas borrowed $4,000 from her mother-in-law and flew to Washington, D.C., to receive intravenous antibiotic therapy. The treatments failed to help; in fact she dropped 30 pounds in a matter of weeks. “I thought I was gonna die because I couldn’t eat,” Freitas said.
She continued to search for doctors.
On May 19, Oppenheimer and Freitas drove from their house in a quiet neighborhood in Middleton to northern Wisconsin.
They were on their way to a virtual visit with Dr. Samuel Shor. The Virginia-based internist works for the Tick-Borne Illness Center of Excellence in Woodruff, Wisconsin. Shor, who also is a clinical associate professor at George Washington University, sees patients in Wisconsin via telemedicine, charging $490 for an initial consultation.
As the former president of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS), Shor adheres to diagnoses and treatments that the mainstream Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) generally rejects. Dr. Paul Auwaerter of Johns Hopkins Medicine, a former president of IDSA, calls physicians who treat patients for chronic Lyme “antiscience” and a danger to patients and the medical profession.
“It is disappointing to me that people resort to name-calling from either side,”
said Dr. Elizabeth Maloney, a family physician from Minnesota who helped write the latest guidelines on Lyme disease treatment. “It’s not helpful, and it does undermine patients’ confidence in our profession as a whole.”
The guidelines issued by IDSA maintain the group’s recommendations against antibiotic treatment for patients with persistent symptoms. It has also removed a previously endorsed term — Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS) — for defining patients with persistent symptoms after short courses of antibiotic therapies.
“They don’t even want to go into that quagmire anymore,” said Maloney, who leads the Partnership for Tick-Borne Diseases Education. “They do not really talk about what to do with patients who do not fully recover. It’s kind of a black box.”
The disease is complex. If untreated, Lyme can have wide-ranging effects on skin, joints, nervous system or the heart. The infectious agents attack connective tissue and can move around and “find their own way to … various parts of the body,” said Dean Nardelli, an associate professor who studies later-stage Lyme disease at the UW-Milwaukee’s Biomedical Sciences Lab Programs.
In a 2019 article in the journal Antibiotics, Shor said chronic Lyme is “often dismissed as a fictitious entity.” He and his co-authors consulted more than 250 peer-reviewed articles pointing to “a multisystem illness with a wide range of symptoms,” either continuously or intermittently, lasting at least six months.
“Signs and symptoms may wax, wane and migrate,” they wrote.
Other pathogens to blame?
Shor and his co-authors, including Maloney, propose that the lingering symptoms are caused by several pathogens from the Borrelia burgdorferi family or other tick-borne pathogens.
Nardelli said there’s a variety of symptoms and severity in Lyme disease patients, and those symptoms can be caused by the inflammatory responses against the microbes.
“Inflammation is a huge part of the immune response. It’s one of the frontline defenses we have, and it has this negative connotation, but it is intended for good,” he said. “Your immune response (is) trying to kill the bug … and in doing so, can cause damage, essentially.”
Maria Alice Lima Freitas is pictured at her home in Middleton, Wis., on Oct. 6, 2021, with some of the treatments she takes for Lyme disease and other co-infections. She says she currently pays about $1,200 a month in medicines, vitamins, supplements and treatment costs.(Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
Some theories suggest that variants of the Lyme bacteria are resistant to antibiotics. Others argue that chronic Lyme is caused by a powerful immune reaction — or it may even trigger an autoimmune disease. The central neural networks may be altered, having a significant impact on symptoms — or a combination of these factors.
Nardelli is investigating Lyme-related arthritis that persists after treatment with antibiotics. He said science can be a slow process of acquiring new knowledge, and it’s “tough” for patients who are suffering with no clear answers.
That can lead them to seek out untrustworthy practitioners or fall for costly treatments that don’t work. “You go out and find doctors that diagnose everything as Lyme disease,” Nardelli said.
For complicated cases, Maloney said physicians should approach patients as a detective would, whittling away other possibilities until getting to a diagnosis.
“The whole goal is to get people the right diagnosis so they can get the therapy that they need,” she said.
Freitas said she trusts Shor, who has embraced her IGeneX test results for Lyme and has also diagnosed her as having several afflictions: babesiosis, which has some of the same symptoms as Lyme and can come from the same ticks; bartonella, also known as cat scratch fever; and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Alternate treatments offer relief
Freitas now takes Epsom salt baths on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and uses an infrared sauna for “detoxification,” saying it makes her body feel better.
And she now takes 30 pills each day, interspersing antibiotics with herbs and dietary supplements, which cost upwards of $1,200 a month.
Maria Alice Lima Freitas says since starting treatment for chronic Lyme disease, she has begun to regain weight and her mind has become a bit clearer. “I’m getting out of the graveyard,” she says. She is seen at her home in Middleton, Wis., on Oct. 6, 2021. S. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
“For babesia … I’m taking liquid gold … Mepron,” said Freitas. “It’s really expensive. It’s 50 bucks for 80 milliliters, which lasts two weeks.”
She gave up dairy, gluten, and sugar to reduce inflammation.
And she meets with Shor monthly online from her house at a charge of $250 per visit, which insurance does not cover.
“It was to me (that) the money is well paid. I’m having peace of mind,” Freitas said. “I feel like I’m getting better.”
Freitas said she started gaining back some weight in June. Her mind has become a bit clearer. Her long-term memory seems back a bit, too. “I’m getting out of the graveyard,” she said.
Said Oppenheimer to his wife: “What I’m seeing is you’re better relative to the beginning of (2021), because you’re still not good.”
For Freitas, the struggle for recognition — and relief from her symptoms — continues. She and her husband remodeled their home over the summer, refurbishing their two-story house with a plan to rent out one level to pay for Freitas’ ongoing treatments.
And she still holds out “a little flame of hope” of one day becoming a doctor — just like her dad.
Former WPR/Wisconsin Watch reporter Bram Sable-Smith contributed to this story. The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
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**Comment**
Probably one of the most thorough, well-researched articles I’ve read to date. Please share with others and drop Ms. Wang a “Thank you” note. She has cut through the Chronic Lyme debate with a sharp knife, revealing the human suffering it causes. Also, a big “Thank you” to Maria who was willing to share her story in the hopes of helping others bypass the pain she’s had to go through.
And a quick reminder that in my experience, people get help due to the efforts of other patients willing to take the time to educate others. You are truly needed and important in this war.
A tick survived for 27 years in a researcher’s laboratory including eight without food—a new record for the species.
Julian Shepherd, associate professor of biological science at Binghamton University in New York, also found that a female tick was able to store sperm and reproduce from it four years after the last male tick in his study group died.
Although the tick discussed here is the Argus Brumpti, a species of soft tick found in southern and east Africa, it reveals just how hardy and persistent these little monsters are. Again, tick and the diseases they transmit have nothing to do with the weather or so-called “climate change.” They are marvelously ecoadaptive and simply hide under leaf litter or snow when weather becomes inclimate.
The climate change moniker is a ruse for obtaining highly sought after government grants from corrupt institutions who are in bed with Big Pharma, Big Tech, and mainstream media. Researchers continue to push this false climate narrative despite much evidence to the contrary obtained by independent researchers who are not bound by ‘the powers that be’ who are pushing and only doling out grants to those that promote it.
Kerry teacher Karin O’Shea needs urgent treatment for chronic Lyme disease after being misdiagnosed for 12 years
By Aoife Breslin
Feb. 14, 2022
With only one option left, housebound Kerry woman Karin O’Shea must go to Germany in order to receive urgent treatment for Chronic Lyme disease after believing her diagnosis to be Fibromyalgia for 12 years
Kerry woman Karin O’Shea contracted Lyme disease from the bite of a tick when she was a teenager and went undiagnosed for 12 years.
Now, she needs urgent treatment.
When Karin became ill in her teens, she was misdiagnosed with Fibromyalgia. She was able to manage her symptoms through medication and lived a normal life.
In 2020, the 26-year-old saw a rapid deterioration in her health. After endless GP visits, countless consultants, MRI’s, X-rays and hospital admissions, there were no answers.
Speaking with RSVP Live, Karin shared her experience:
“Me and my GP extended every avenue but there were still no answers.
“So, I had to send my bloods to Germany myself to test for Lyme disease and the results came back positive, as well as showing chronic immune suppression.”
Karin was tested for Lyme disease under the Irish system when she was 14 years old, but her results came back negative.
This was due to her chronic immune suppression; her body wasn’t creating enough antibodies and the Irish system detects antibodies in order to get results. (See link for article and video)
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**Comment**
Another heart-breaking story of misdiagnosis which has caused yet another case to fester and worsen.
SUMMARY:
O Shea finally obtained appropriate treatment which included 5 antibiotics a day.
Due to her late stage case, she had horrific side-effects, and her body rejected the treatment.
Patient is now housebound due to severe neurological symptoms.
Her remaining option is to travel to Germany for a month of intensive treatment followed by a 6 months of rehabilitation.
She’s been told she has a 70% chance of obtaining remission and should get quality of life back.
O Shea’s advice to others:
“I want people to know if you do get a tick bite, go straight to the doctor and demand two weeks antibiotics, regardless of if you have the bulls-eye rash or not.
I couldn’t agree more, but I’d demand a month’s worth.
She also states that she was untreated because she never got the EM rash. She then states that only 50% get the rash, but it can actually be far less than that, is highly variable, and should never be used to keep people from being diagnosed. While the EM rash IS DIAGNOSTIC for Lyme, not having it means nothing.
The article doesn’t mention co-infections which are almost always an issue with chronic patients and require other medications. They also make cases much more severe. My educated guess is she’s going to St. George Hospital where she will be treated with hypothermia and IV antibiotics, among other modalities. Here’s the story of a woman who got this treatment. I also write about the treatment in the comment section as well as questions I posed to Dr. Douwes, head of St. George Hospital, when he spoke at an ILADS convention.
If you want to support Karin on her journey to recovery click here.
Welcome to another Inside Lyme Podcast with your host Dr. Daniel Cameron. In this episode, Dr. Cameron will be discussing the case of a 71-year-old woman who was initially diagnosed with Ehrlichia, a tick-borne illness but later developed Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
The woman’s initial symptoms occurred over a 3-week period and included: generalized weakness, dizziness, visual changes, chills, a fever, neck and abdominal pain.
After presenting to the hospital, she was diagnosed with Ehrlichia, a tick-borne illness, based on a low platelet count, elevated liver function tests, an insect bite, a positive Ehrlichia test by PCR, and absence of another illness.
The woman was treated with doxycycline and her symptoms improved.
Click top link to watch a video discussing Ehrlichia-induced Guillain-Barre Syndrome
However, approximately one week later, she returned to the hospital with worsening symptoms and “numbness and areflexia in her lower extremities which progressed since her first encounter,” the authors write.
She developed an unsteady gait, which required a walker and had tingling in her feet and difficulty urinating. She required a straight foley catheterization.
“Although ehrlichiosis is not a common cause for GBS, the pathogenesis is like Lyme disease or Campylobacter jejuni,” the authors write.
“This patient had clinical symptoms that were like tick-borne illness yet as her disease progressed, it illustrated the need for an expanded differential diagnosis.”
The woman was diagnosed with an acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, often referred to as Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
There was no evidence of another tick-borne illness including Lyme disease, Babesia, Heartland or Bourbon Virus.
The patient improved significantly with IVIG and was discharged to a rehabilitation center.
“Although ehrlichiosis is not pathognomonic for Guillain-Barre, it is important to not rule out as a cause,” the authors point out. “With the COVID-19 outbreak, there have been reported cases of GBS induced by COVID. It too can cause an immune response to the nervous system.”
Bourbon virus
“There have been reported cases of tick-borne illness that have not recovered despite tetracycline treatment,” reports Kosoy et al.2
They cite the case of a 50-year-old male from Eastern Kentucky who was found to have several tick bites, enlarged Lymph nodes, a macular papular rash, low platelets, low white count, and complaints of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, followed by fever, myalgias, headaches and arthralgias.
The patient’s labs were negative for known tick-borne pathogens and he failed tetracycline treatment.
“Multiorgan failure developed, and he died 11 days after illness onset from cardiopulmonary arrest,” the authors write.
The man was later diagnosed with the Bourbon virus, a newly recognized tick-borne illness.3
Guillain-Barré Syndrome
Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) is an acute autoimmune demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy that induces rapid and progressive flaccid weakness, according to Malhis.1 GBS can be life threatening if it progresses to involving the diaphragm.
There are a number of causes of GBS. Respiratory and gastrointestinal infections can lead to GBS. Lyme disease, tick-paralysis, HIV, and West Nile Virus can also lead to GBS. There is also a very slim chance (1 in a million) that a flu vaccine can lead to GBS.
Treatment for GBS includes intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) therapy or plasma exchange. Steroids have not been helpful in treating the condition. An estimated 85% of patients recover their independent ambulation.
The authors conclude: “It is important to keep a broad differential as sometimes common syndromes do not always come from common pathogens and with the COVID-19 pandemic having similar results, we are learning new things that may potentially be new standards in medical education.”
The following questions are addressed in this Podcast episode:
What is the Guillain-Barré Syndrome?
What is the treatment for Guillain-Barré Syndrome?
What is the Bourbon and Heartland virus?
Why are there concerns for individuals with COVID-19?
Thanks for listening to another Inside Lyme Podcast. Please remember that the advice given is general and not intended as specific advice to any particular patient. If you require specific advice, please seek that advice from an experienced professional.
Inside Lyme Podcast Series
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References:
Malhis JR, Mahmoud A, Belote A, Ebers A. Case of ehrlichiosis induced Guillain-Barre Syndrome in a 71 year-old female. IDCases. 2021;26:e01301. doi:10.1016/j.idcr.2021.e01301
Kosoy OI, Lambert AJ, Hawkinson DJ, et al. Novel thogotovirus associated with febrile illness and death, United States, 2014. Emerg Infect Dis. May 2015;21(5):760-4. doi:10.3201/eid2105.150150
This article states that COVID can also induce GBS, which begs the question – why would Dr. Cameron believe and encourage Lyme/MSIDS patients to get the COVID injections? The article admits that COVID can cause an immune response to the nervous system, which Lyme/MSIDS patients are already struggling with. Illogical.
Please read and understand the risks of the COVID injections – and there are many:
Madison Area Lyme Support Group 