It\u2019s springtime and will soon be nice and warm. We\u2019re so thoroughly tired of being trapped inside that a woodland romp sounds perfectly delightful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But please remember that ticks are lurking. They can latch onto your ankles and fall into your hair and when they bite (which you won\u2019t even feel), they\u2019ll attach themselves and empty their gastrointestinal tract into your bloodstream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ticks are a cesspool with legs and this story can end with Lyme disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The total number of Lyme disease cases, caused by the organism Borrelia burgdorferi<\/em>, is definitely on the rise. The current guesstimate from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is 476,000 a year, a dramatic increase from the 30,000 annually they estimated just a decade ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, even the CDC is uncertain if this is an overestimate or an underestimate. Thousands of cases are treated as Lyme but are not reported anywhere. Likewise, thousands of cases of Lyme disease are simply missed by both patient and physician only to surface years later in one of the two forms of chronic Lyme disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We see a lot of patients with chronic Lyme at WholeHealth Chicago, largely because Lyme carries a real prejudice from the past, when doctors told patients there was no such illness and patients believed their doctors. As a result, many people have been ill for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are three faces of Lyme disease:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Acute Lyme Disease<\/u> No one argues about the existence of acute Lyme disease. You\u2019re in the woods in a Lyme-rich area. You get bitten by a tick, you see a red rash or you don\u2019t, and have a flu-like illness. Doctors in the Northeast and the upper Midwest see so much of this that they simply start patients on antibiotics without waiting for any test results (which can take weeks to turn positive).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disseminated\/late-stage\/untreated Lyme <\/u> Sometime in the past you (or your child) got bitten by a tick, didn\u2019t notice it, never saw a rash, and attributed the resulting illness (headache, fever, muscle aches) to a summer flu. You got better and totally forgot about the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your symptoms went away because your immune system stepped in and did its job. Although the B. burgdorferi<\/em> has spread through your body, it\u2019s in a dormant (sleeping) state. It could remain suppressed like this for years–decades, even–and never give you a lick of trouble. You\u2019d never be tested for Lyme disease because you\u2019re healthy, but if you were tested you\u2019d show positive antibodies for Lyme. Very likely quite a few healthy people living in Michigan or Wisconsin would test positive for Lyme, but since they\u2019re fine, we don\u2019t test or treat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (From random patients: \u201cI never knew I might have Lyme\u201d or \u201cI don\u2019t remember any tick bite\u201d or \u201cI never had one of those bulls-eye rashes.\u201d In other words, no definitive Lyme history except living or vacationing in a Lyme-rich area or going to camp in one as a kid. Is that enough history for the possibility of disseminated\/late-stage\/untreated Lyme? Yep!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other illnesses get suppressed like this. 90% of us have antibodies for Epstein-Barr, most never remembering a case of mononucleosis. Same with shingles (herpes virus), the fungus Candida, and TB. This is our immune system doing its job efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, for some people with suppressed Lyme, let\u2019s fast forward 20 or 30 years. Something triggers the B. burgdorferi<\/em> to awaken and you start developing a plethora of seemingly unrelated symptoms (fatigue, episodes of fever, joint pains that move around your body).<\/p>\n\n\n\n You go to your doctor, who orders some basic tests and finds nothing. You look for other opinions. Someone finally does a screening test for Lyme, but the result is iffy and the doctor admits she doesn\u2019t know what to do with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You finally get an appointment with a rheumatologist, who refers you to an infectious disease specialist or Mayo Clinic. Both of them tell you (really!) they\u2019re not seeing Lyme patients because (listen up) \u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as chronic Lyme disease.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here is the list of\u00a0untreated\u00a0Lyme symptoms from the CDC.<\/a> Obviously, not all patients get all these symptoms:<\/p>\n\n\n\n What you have that mainstream physicians won\u2019t recognize is disseminated\/late-stage\/untreated Lyme disease. You were infected but never knew it, were never diagnosed, and therefore never treated and now the once-dormant B. burgdorferi<\/em> is waking up throughout your body and causing trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is why we at WholeHealth Chicago get phone consultations from all over the country beginning with \u201cI know I\u2019ve got Lyme but my doctor says he doesn\u2019t know anything about it and won\u2019t treat it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you ever came across the phrase \u201cLyme wars,\u201d this is it. The war, which got quite nasty, has been between infectious disease specialists in major medical centers and primary-care physicians on the front lines dealing with chronically ill patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The basis of the Lyme wars was the lack of a 100% conclusive test that both sides could agree on. Even now, although tests have improved, they\u2019re far from 100%. Without a perfect test, places like Mayo were unwilling to prescribe long-term antibiotics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, frontline Lyme-literate physicians believe in treating the patient, not the lab test, and thus prescribe antibiotics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Post-treatment Lyme<\/u> If all this isn\u2019t grief enough, post-treatment Lyme disease is a third face of Lyme, one that even doctors familiar with Lyme disease argue about among themselves. These are the people who were correctly diagnosed with Lyme disease months or years earlier and by all recognized standards had adequate treatment. After treatment, they seemed much better. Not perfect, but better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But then, even the \u201cbetter\u201d didn\u2019t last. Over time, sometimes years later, they start having Lyme symptoms again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s going on here? One of two possibilities: first, some of the organisms from the initial infection escaped the antibiotic and went into a dormant state. These are called \u201cpersisters\u201d and necessitate another course of antibiotics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or, and this is a possibility as well, the dormant organisms are too dormant to trigger a Lyme infection, but instead are triggering an autoimmune-like disease. The patient\u2019s immune system, working to suppress the dormant Lyme, is turning against the patient herself and now we\u2019re dealing with an autoimmune disease and treat it as such.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This, by the way, is also thought to be occurring among the Covid-19 long-haulers. Is it a persistent coronavirus or has it turned into an autoimmune phenomenon?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What exactly do we mean when we say \u201cchronic Lyme disease?\u201d It\u2019s either untreated\/disseminated\/late-stage Lyme or post-treatment Lyme, two separate manifestations of infection with B.bergdorferi<\/em>. The untreated type definitely requires something (herbs, antibiotics) to kill the organism. Post-treatment Lyme often requires similar treatment, and if it fails it may be because an autoimmune component predominates.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLet\u2019s clear the air on Lyme <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Treating Lyme at WholeHealth Chicago<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n