LYME IS A BRAIN DISEASE (neuroborreliosis)
By Virginia T. Sherr 7-31-05
Lyme borreliosis is a brain disease as well as a multisystemic disease caused by spirochetal bacteria.* Quite frankly, it is an infection that has been burdened with a thousand inaccurate medical diagnoses. The manner in which the current pandemic of tertiary Lyme disease, neuroborreliosis, has usually been handled— either angrily dismissed or strangely misdiagnosed–throughout the 30 years following its “discovery,” has blemished the historic excellence of modern American Medicine.
After all the years, neuroborreliosis is still actually considered rare by a majority of physicians, most of whom are spirochetally naïve. Officially tallied patients (the numbers showing a dip down to 19,804 cases in 2004 after flawed reporting styles were instituted), when combined with uncounted cases may approach upward of an annual quarter million new borreliosis infections in the USA alone. And Lyme infections have been verified as present on all but one continent, globally. The disease is more often than not accompanied by several of a half-dozen or so of the other serious tick-borne co-infections that currently have been identified.
Losses of acuity in the human brain’s visual cortex have been observed as early as 6 hours following the toxic bite of an infected tick. Lyme may persist after too brief a period of treatment or if there has been no treatment, and may result in chronic infections whereupon Lyme borreliosis becomes a potential cause of every symptom in medical and psychiatric lexicons. It is the “Great Imitator” of this Millennium, spirochetal paresis (neuro-syphilis) having been its precursor and its model.
Chronic or persistent Lyme disease–neuroborreliosis–seldom is identified by the symptoms of its most frequent form—subacute encephalitis–an infected/inflamed brain as well as an infected nervous system. However, this is the form in which it most commonly exists. Unfortunately, the syndrome that is falsely considered typical–a bull’s eye rash, fever, positive Elisa test, and/or a swollen large joint–occurs in fewer then half of proven cases. Instead, Lyme borreliosis confirms itself in subtle to profound neuro-psychiatric symptoms, such as overriding confusion, loss of organizational skills, decreased concentration, memory loss, mood disorders, irritability, and unprovoked rages–to mention just a few. These symptoms can be very obvious to an experienced professional practicing in a Lyme-endemic area. However, cerebral-behavioral symptoms of neuro-Lyme remain invisible to those whose diagnoses are solely based on old-fashioned concepts limited only to the aforesaid doctor-viewed rashes, swollen knees with positive Elisa blood tests.
Blood tests completed by local labs most frequently show false negatives due to general laboratories’ inadequate understanding of proper diagnostic technique and choices of poor quality spirochetal samples on which to base tests. Of course, insurance companies prefer their negative tests. As mentioned, Lyme can rapidly go from Stage One (Early borreliosis) to Late (Tertiary) Stage disease following attachment of an infected deer tick’s or other vector’s bite so that quick and competent treatment are of the greatest importance. Later, accurate findings by sophisticated laboratories may be helpful, especially if Late Stage symptoms appear many years after the infection.
Over the years, I have been asked to create a compendium of my published and unpublished works on the subject of Borrelia’s neuropsychiatric epidemic. These literary contributions advocate for correction of medical neglect–the usually inadequate, sometimes cruel, diagnostic and treatment neglect experienced by victims of chronic Lyme borreliosis and its co-infections. I also have had articles published in an effort to attract attention from Organized Medicine—attention badly needed on behalf of a nearly invisible but serious epidemic that is more significant by far than anything this country has experienced since the Spanish Flu of 1918, the causative spirochete being less immediately deadly than was the virus of that epidemic, but deadly, nonetheless, cerebrally.
Sadly, Organized Medicine has mostly ignored or deserted the field of neuro-Lyme’s immense proportions. The American public rapidly is becoming jaundiced toward doctors’ lack of up-dated knowledge of spirochetal science and, having read the latest (indeed copious) peer-reviewed recent literature for themselves, are turning to other disciplines—even to veterinarians for accurate medical advice on the subject of Lyme disease and its co-infections. Veterinarians are more up to date on the diagnosis and treatment of human Lyme than the “Diagnose-and-treat-by-the-old-Guidelines” types of powerful but passé Academic physicians who cling to outdated medical dogma.
I have written about the rampant epidemiology of neuro-Lyme disease and its potent co-infections (especially the red cell parasite that causes babesiosis) and the fact that these are being systematically ignored, minimized, or distorted by this Nation’s overseeing Healthcare Agencies. Astoundingly, there are Agencies that, in ignorance or arrogance, may actively persecute the victims of such borrelial, pan-systematic illness, traumatizing parents and children as well as their treating physicians. There are those in authority who sponsor the official separation of children from parents whose only sin is that they persist in seeking help for their ailing children. Tragically, those authorities are empowered to permanently remove sick or partially healed young ones from their devoted families.
To their everlasting shame, medical authorities have stood by while innocent mothers have been sent to jail for insisting that their children were ill and again have stood by while the parent’s belief was verified by the death of their sick child while under State “care.” The rights of patients and their treating physicians have been trampled by governmental and insurance agencies in ways reminiscent of the era when AIDs was trivialized and its victims spurned as “psychosomatic.” Today’s infected millions worldwide show how wrong they were. The phenomenon of that epidemic is being repeated with the spread of Lyme borreliosis. My writing is an effort to illuminate this dark and now vast expanse of Medicine and to inspire activism and compassion for those patients who are suffering in agony while having to hear caretakers say, “I don’t know what you are worried about–you look just fine–maybe you are just depressed.” Or as one unknowing, dismissive and flippant doctor joked to a frightened patient who came to him for treatment and reassurance, “Well, we all have to die of something, sometime.”
http://www.thehumansideoflyme.net/index.php
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A new paper on Neuro Lyme disease by Brain Fallon MD:
http://cait.cpmc.columbia.edu:88/dept/pi/nyspi/LymeDisease/documents/Fallon_Inflammation-and-central-nervous-system-Lyme-disease_2009.pdf
Check out this very comprehensive article on Neuro Lyme assessments by Robert Bransfield MD at:
http://www.mentalhealthandillness.com/tnaold.html
Both are very interesting reads!
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A lot of different papers on NEURO-COGNITIVE LYME DISEASE
http://www.lymeinfo.net/neuropsych.html
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NEUROLOGICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF LYME DISEASE IN CHILDREN
Dorothy M. Pietrucha, M.D., P.A.
Pediatric Neurology
3318 Route 33
Neptune, New Jersey 07753
CONTROVERSIES IN NEUROBORRELIOSIS
Audrey Stein Goldings, M.D.
Lyme Disease Conference
October 23, 1992
The objectives of this handout are to cover issues which are not even handedly addressed in the current literature on Lyme disease. I will:
1. present a practical approach for making the diagnosis of neuroborreliosis,
2. explore the other side of the post-Lyme syndrome (ie: the likelihood of chronic ongoing infection),
3. discuss the relationship between MS and Lyme,
4. critique the current regimens published for treating neuroborreliosis and
5. present my own approach which may differ from some leading authorities.
I hope to provide the reader with a broader understanding of neuroborreliosis so that he or she may better use current and evolving knowledge for clinical decision making.
http://www.lymenet.de/literatur/steing.htm
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J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 15:326-332, August 2003
© 2003 American Psychiatric Press, Inc.
Regional Cerebral Blood Flow and Cognitive Deficits in Chronic Lyme Disease
Brian A. Fallon, M.D., John Keilp, Ph.D., Isak Prohovnik, Ph.D., Ronald Van Heertum, M.D. and J. John Mann, M.D.
Subjects
The average age of the 11 Lyme disease patients was 44.2 years (SD 12.4; range 19–63). The duration of symptoms was 59.5 months (SD 57.5; range 6–170), and the length of time since diagnosis was 18.9 months (SD 17.1; range 2–60). The duration of prior oral antibiotic treatment was 7.9 months (SD 7.3; range 0–19), and the duration of prior IV antibiotic treatment was 2.0 months (SD 1.1; range 1–4). The symptom history since the onset of Lyme disease included the following: memory loss (11/11), excessive fatigue (11/11), sleep disturbance (11/11), arthralgias (11/11), word-finding problems (10/11), headaches (9/11), radiculopathy (8/11), irritability and mood lability (8/11), recalled tick bite (5/11), physician diagnosed erythema migrans (4/11), and arthritis (4/11). Five of the 11 patients had had prior spinal taps, with 3 of the 5 revealing abnormal CSF results (2 ELISA positive for Borrelia burgdorferi and 1 with elevated protein). Eight of the 11 had had prior MRI scans, 4 of whom had abnormal results (one or more white matter hyperintensities).
Discussion
What is striking in this study is the finding that there is an alteration of presumed white matter blood flow in the brains of patients who have chronic Lyme Disease and complain of cognitive deficits. Each of the 11 patients in our sample reported ongoing mild to severe cognitive problems that were confirmed on objective neuropsychological testing. As a group, when compared to published norms, the Lyme patients had significant deficits in verbal memory, which was demonstrated using both the Wechsler Memory Scale and the Buschke Selective Reminding Test. Memory deficits such as these are typically seen in samples of patients with Lyme encephalopathy.2,29
In conclusion, this cerebral blood flow study using Xenon133 demonstrated that patients with persistent Lyme encephalopathy have areas of decreased perfusion that appear to affect primarily the cerebral white matter. This decreased perfusion is associated with cognitive impairment. Future functional imaging studies that use more sophisticated tools (such as PET and/or fMRI) to examine biological and behavioral challenges need to focus on delineating white matter abnormalities in order to better characterize the pathophysiology of Lyme encephalopathy.
Dr. Fallon received support from a New York State Psychiatric Institute Research Support Grant & from the Lyme Disease Association to conduct this study.
http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/15/3/326
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Spirochetes on the Brain by Robert Bransfield
Any standard of diagnosis for late stage, chronic Lyme disease must incorporate the fact that it is a very complex disease with not only CNS, but also many other different presentations in its later stages. Therefore, the diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease is considered by personally perform¬ing a thorough and relevant history and examina¬tion, ordering and/or reviewing relevant labora¬tory tests in the proper context, and exercising sound clinical judgment by a licensed physician who is knowledgeable and experienced about chronic Lyme disease and is held accountable for his decisions.
http://www.mentalhealthandillness.com/Articles/SpirochetesOnTheBrain.htm
