Yes, I am serious. These days, from what we\u2019re learning about Lyme Disease (more about correct terminology later), anything is possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s who doesn\u2019t have to worry: if you regard yourself as healthy and if asked, \u201cOverall, how do you feel?\u201d And answer, \u201cJust fine, thanks,\u201d then Lyme in any form is very unlikely and testing would be a waste of time and money. In other words, we don\u2019t test populations of healthy people for Lyme, even if they live deep in the Wisconsin woods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But if you\u2019re troubled by undiagnosed longstanding symptoms, get tested for chronic Lyme. This is especially important if you were raised or vacationed in a \u201cLyme area\u201d (New England, Michigan, Wisconsin, northern Illinois). Hopefully, your testing is done in the office of a doctor who knows about Lyme Disease, so that between your test results and her expertise, you can take Lyme Disease off the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not surprisingly, the most common chronic symptom that patients present with in primary care medicine is \u2018fatigue,\u2019 sometimes expressed in colorful terms \u201cMy get up and go got up and went,\u201d all meaning pretty much the same thing. The Wikipedia list of \u201cFatigue-Causes<\/a>\u201d goes on forever. Somewhere on that list is Chronic Lyme or you\u2019ll happen upon the Health Tip<\/a> I wrote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You will soon read that so-called Chronic Lyme Disease is really two quite separate conditions. One is called Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS) and the other Disseminated Lyme Disease (which in turn is subdivided into Stage 1 <early> and Stage 2 <advanced>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The whole mess, PTLDS, Disseminated 1 and 2, are termed \u201cProtean\u201d after the Greek god Proteus, the original \u201cshape-shifter\u201d in myths, able to appear in multiple manifestations. A Protean disease has a great diversity of presenting symptoms. Fortunately, most medical or surgical problems are not Protean. Strept throat presents with sore throat and fever. Mono adds swollen glands and fatigue. Not very \u201cProtean.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lyme?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lyme Disease is \u201cProtean extraordinaire.\u201d Take a look at this Lyme Questionnaire<\/a> by one of the pioneers in the field Richard Horowitz, M.D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And, unfortunately, these symptoms virtually match the ones patients report with long COVID<\/a>. In terms of numbers, long COVID vastly outnumbers chronic Lyme (one out of five COVID patients develops long COVID). Also, long COVID does eventually improve whereas chronic Lyme requires treatment. It was also quite a shock to discover that being infected with COVID could actually \u2018reactivate\u2019 an old chronic Lyme infection in someone who sustained an infected bite decades earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s emerged from this bouillabaisse of symptoms are grim stories of patients who had experienced years and years of misdiagnosis and incorrect treatment. Ally Hilfiger (Tommy\u2019s daughter) spent most of her teenage years in and out of psychiatric hospitals until someone diagnosed her chronic Lyme Disease. The late Kris Kristofferson had once been written off as yet another victim of Alzheimer\u2019s Disease again until a perceptive physician diagnosed Lyme infecting his brain. Kelly Osbourne\u2019s (Ozzy\u2019s daughter) list of symptoms of pain, seizures and psychiatric disturbances lasted for years until she received correct diagnosis and treatment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now pause, right now, and consider what I asked earlier. Namely, if you have any chronic symptom or symptoms that have been going undiagnosed or are not responding to treatment, especially if you\u2019ve lived in a Lyme rich area, ask your doctor to test you for Lyme.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s what to ask for: \u201cDo you mind testing me for chronic Lyme and co-infections using the Western Blot technique?\u201d The \u201cco-infections\u201d are the other bacteria the tick can infect you with during the same bite, Bartonella, Babesia, Ehrlichlia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You will hear one of three responses: \u201cNo. I read there was no such thing as chronic Lyme. Stay off the internet.\u201d (go find another doctor) -or- \u201cOkay, but we start with the ELISA test first and then go to Western Blot.\u201d Politely refuse, pointing out that ELISA misses 50% of chronic Lyme cases. -or- \u201cSure. Go over to the lab.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your Lyme test is \u201cpositive,\u201d there are two possibilities:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The test is reminding you that you got a tick bite in the past, you knew you were bitten, <\/em>you may have had the famous bullseye rash. You were treated for the possibility of Lyme Disease but that treatment was inadequate. This\u00a0is termed \u201cPost Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS)\u201d You need treatment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Or<\/p>\n\n\n\n You were bitten in the past by an infected tick (any age, even childhood) but didn\u2019t know it. Your immune system suppressed the infection possibly for decades and then some event or series of events (stress, COVID) allowed the Lyme infection to wake up and cause chronic symptoms. You need treatment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When you\u2019re asking your doctor for Lyme testing what you really are looking for is the presence of long term untreated Lyme bacteria <\/strong>in your body. You may or may not remember a tick bite, you may or may not had the famous bulls-eye rash. In fact, you never even thought about Lyme until you started reading more about it and you realized you spent a lot of your vacations in the Northwoods of Michigan or Wisconsin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This term for your condition is Disseminated Lyme Disease and gets no arguments from Infectious Disease specialists about whether or not it exists. It is quite real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s the latest summary from Medline<\/a>, the Federal government\u2019s information website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you look at the \u201cLate\u201d symptoms in the document above, you can see how Kris Kristofferson got misdiagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s, or Ally Hilfiger was tagged with a psychiatric diagnosis. Reported cases of Parkinson\u2019s Disease, autism, and schizophrenia and have turned out to be disseminated Lyme, as have chronic heart rhythm disturbances, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, hypothyroidism, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and virtually every autoimmune disease. When these turn out to be disseminated Lyme, just about all of them will respond to antibiotic therapy.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n And\u2014there are two pieces of \u2018best news\u2019 to end this Health Tip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, as helpful as the Western Blot test can be for Lyme diagnosis, results can sometimes be \u2018equivocal,\u2019 neither firmly \u2018positive\u2019 nor completely \u2018negative.\u2019 The Gold Standard test agreed upon by all L.L.D.\u2019s (Lyme Literate Doctors) is by Igenex Labs<\/a> which was unaffordable for many patients. However, WholeHealth Chicago<\/a> patients can use their health insurance for this valuable confirmatory test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, ozone infusions for chronic Lyme continue to gain ground on a worldwide basis. WholeHealth Chicago is one of the few centers in the Midwest with a specific Lyme protocol using a combination of herbs, antibiotics and your ozonated blood to treat your chronic infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Be well,<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Edelberg, M<\/em>D<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yes, I am serious. These days, from what we\u2019re learning about Lyme Disease (more about correct terminology later), anything is possible.\u00a0 Here\u2019s who doesn\u2019t have to worry: if you regard yourself as healthy and if asked, \u201cOverall, how do you feel?\u201d And answer, \u201cJust fine, thanks,\u201d then Lyme in any form is very unlikely and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2087,"featured_media":31856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[121,2866,2867,2868],"class_list":["post-31855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lyme-disease-morgellons","tag-chronic-lyme-disease","tag-lyme-disease-awareness","tag-lyme-treatment","tag-richard-horowitz"],"yoast_head":"\r\n