Lyme Handbook

Excerpted from the Huffington Post: (08/28/2013)

Do you have symptoms that come and go? Are you on a medication merry go round? Have you been to 10 or 20 doctors without relief? Maybe you’ve been misdiagnosed.

Lyme disease, caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, is the No. 1 vector borne spreading epidemic worldwide. People often attribute uncomfortable symptoms to aging, stress, or the “aches and pains of daily living,” especially if blood tests and body scans are normal. What if you have Lyme and don’t know it?

It’s not uncommon to get Lyme. If you’ve ever been for a walk in the woods, laid in the grass, live in or visited a Lyme-endemic area, or have a pet cat or dog, you may have exposed yourself to Lyme disease and associated co-infections. There is even the possibility of contracting Lyme if you were born to a mother who has been exposed. Tick born infections can also be transmitted from blood transfusions. This is scary, as Lyme has been found to persist in stored blood, and Ehrlichia and Babesia (two co-infections) have been reported in patients receiving blood transfusions.

Lyme Looks Like Other Diseases

Symptoms of Lyme vary, and you’re more likely to express the disease if your immunity goes down and stress goes up. One clue is that discomfort plagues you! It’s like a spinning dial, changing symptoms every hour, or day. You see, Lyme is a multi-systemic illness, and may affect every part of the body causing fatigue, stiff neck, headaches, light and sound sensitivity, tinnitus (ringing in the ears), anemia, dizziness, joint and muscle pain, brain fog, tingling, numbness and burning sensations of the extremities, memory and concentration problems, difficulties with sleep (both falling asleep and frequent awakening), chest pain and palpitations and/or psychiatric symptoms like depression and anxiety.

I interviewed Dr. Richard Horowitz, a board-certified internist in Hyde Park, N.Y., who has treated more than 12,000 chronically-ill patients with Lyme disease. This expert physician has noticed the trend of varying symptoms. He’s dubbed it “Lyme-MSIDS,” short for Multiple Systemic Infectious Disease Syndrome.

MSIDS is like Pandora’s box. It involves not only the bacterial and parasitic infections mentioned above, but also associated viral and fungal infections, immune issues, inflammation, hormonal disorders, mitochondrial dysfunction (the mitochondria are the part of the cells responsible for energy production), sleep disorders, environmental toxins with heavy metals, and detoxification problems.

For more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/suzy-cohen-rph/lyme-disease_b_3697817.html

~ by Rob on September 6, 2013.

Posted in babesiosis, Lyme
Tags: babesiosis, Bartonella, Coinfections, Ehrlichiosis, Lyme, Lyme Disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever