[dbbolton]

Here are some links to the CDC's statistics and maps on Lyme disease for those interested:

https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/graphs.html

https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/maps.html

https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/tables.html

As an aside, it's tricky interpreting certain stats regarding epidemiology. The incidence is the number of new cases in the population in a given time frame, and prevalence is the total number of people known to have the disease in the population. Sometime a disease can appear to be "on the rise" because there is increased surveillance and screening for the disease, or because diagnostic methods have improved, which naturally lead to an increased incidence and prevalence.

Disclaimer: I'm not arguing that Lyme Disease isn't real, isn't serious, or anything along those lines. But from a medical perspective, we deal with fear of Lyme way more often than the actual disease. Some parents will bring their child into the clinic every time they think they may have seen a tick within arm's reach of them. And when someone presents with an attached tick, it's more often than not an adult wood tick (which can transmit RMSF and tularemia but are not B. Burgdorfi vectors).

When you are bitten by a tick, or any insect, some inflammatory response is expected, i.e. your skin will probably turn red. It doesn't automatically mean it's erythema migrans (bull's eye rash). But to muddy the waters even further, as little as 50-80% of confirmed LD cases had the EM sign, and many don't recall a tick bite whatsoever.

But if you are in an endemic area, clinical suspicion for LD is high, we should be able to prove you have the disease with lab tests, right? Well, unfortunately Borrelia are notoriously difficult to culture, so that's out. The CDC recommends a two-step testing process.

Step 1 is the Enzyme Immunoassay (EIA). If your EIA is negative, LD is ruled out. If it is positive or "indeterminate" (2nd most common outcome after negative in my experience), you move on to the Western blot which looks for antigenic proteins associated with the disease. It is considered positive if 2 specific bands are visualized or if at least 5 of a list of 10 other bands are seen. The problem is that these bands can take up to 6 weeks after exposure to become detectable. If you have no idea when/if you were actually exposed, this test is a shot in the dark. To top it all off, it can also come back "mildly" to "moderately" positive for LD.

So if your EIA is negative, or if your WB is 2/2 or 5+/10 positive, we can give you a definitive answer. Otherwise, it comes down to clinical judgment and weighing the risks and benefits of treatment. If you were bitten by a tick, got a rash, had no drug allergies, the safer play is to assume LD, give antibiotics, and forgo the serologic testing that may or may not give an answer.

TLDR - Lyme Disease is complicated.

[notabee]

Please also add that antibiotics are not risk free. A lot of the post-Lyme stuff people mention sounds a lot like what happens when you obliterate your microbiome, thrash your gut integrity, and your body mounts a big inflammatory response to the mess in your gut. C. Diff and SJS are two other potentially deadly consequences of just throwing powerful antibiotics around without knowing for sure that they're needed.

[internetman55]

Is this actual medicine or blogger stuff? I don't mean to be dismissive but most people I've seen talk about "microbiome" "gut" etc. seem somewhat quacklike

[lymeeducator]

The CDC is actually harmful with the misinformation and test suggestions they provide. I have Lyme, Bartonella, Mycoplasma, at least from 1 tick bite. Western medicine does a horrible job at analyzing the symptoms, testing, educating and treating their patients. The labs are pretty unreliable as are the antibody requirements for + test. 1) It's very common to get more than 1 infection from a single tick bite (CDC says it's not). This greatly complicates recovery. The study that the CDC relies on suffers from a small sample size and heavy selection bias (see uptodate.com). 2) Ticks can transmit multiple bacteria in less than 30 minutes depending on circulation and host. 3) CDC recommended tests have a false negative rate approaching 60%. ELISA does not even have repeatable results from the same blood sample. Western Blot ignores 2 Borellia specific antibodies (31,34) that were part of a problematic vaccine in the mid 1990s. 4) Vaccines are improbable given how the bacteria can adjust its outer surface protein (triggering antibodies) and its multiple forms (spirochete, biofilm, round body). 5) The CDC treatment guidelines are bullshit and usually result in a relapse 4+ months later as low energy, headache, sore tendons, brain fog, arthritis, heart, etc symptoms. Thus most people are unsuccessfully treated with short term doxycycline, steroids (make it worse), anti-depressants, MS treatments, etc... all expensive pharmaceutical treatments that fix some symptoms while hurting the long term health of the patient without every discovering the underlying cause. 6) I've gone through part of the CDC treatment before educating myself and realizing it was mostly bullshit. I know a number of people that have had similar difficulties. 7) A healthy immune system combined with prolonged pulsed herbal medicines(TCM/western) and/or multiple pulsed antibiotics (hard on GI and its immune function) seem to be the best treatment option. 8) There are number of bacteria in our natural environment that our immune system eventually cannot fight off. Many of them result in things like MS, Alzheimers, arthritis, heart damage, etc. 9) Medical science needs better testing of immune signaling (cytokines, chemokines, etc) before and after treatments. Most labs cannot test for many of these and insurance won't cover it. 10) Labs like igenex, fry, galaxy, dnaconnexions, etc have much better procedures for testing and will look at all specific/shared antibodies than common labs. For example, 41 is an early Lyme antibody shared with Chlamydia. The CDC requires 3+ Lyme specific antibodies to make a positive (IgG and IgM). 11) Reading "Healing Lyme" by Buhner gives a scientific overview backed by a ton of research that the CDC ignores. 12) ilads.org is comprised of doctors who actually treat Lyme and deal with patients ...

[adsfqwop]

You should format your post. I think many people auto-downvote such a wall of text.

Other than that, I think it's information worth considering. Lyme has become a huge political disease, which is really unfortunate for the chronically ill patients who are left in the middle of this battle.

[lymeeducator]

My carriage returns were absent on the original post which I could not update. This should read better ;-)

The CDC is actually harmful with the misinformation and test suggestions they provide. I have Lyme, Bartonella, Mycoplasma, at least from 1 tick bite. Western medicine does a horrible job at analyzing the symptoms, testing, educating and treating their patients. The labs are pretty unreliable as are the antibody requirements for + test.

It's very common to get more than 1 infection from a single tick bite (CDC says it's not). This greatly complicates recovery. The study that the CDC relies on suffers from a small sample size and heavy selection bias (see uptodate.com).

Ticks can transmit multiple bacteria in less than 30 minutes depending on circulation and host.

CDC recommended tests have a false negative rate approaching 60%. ELISA does not even have repeatable results from the same blood sample. Western Blot ignores 2 Borellia specific antibodies (31,34) that were part of a problematic vaccine in the mid 1990s.

Vaccines are improbable given how the bacteria can adjust its outer surface protein (triggering antibodies) and its multiple forms (spirochete, biofilm, round body).

The CDC treatment guidelines are bullshit and usually result in a relapse 4+ months later as low energy, headache, sore tendons, brain fog, arthritis, heart, etc symptoms. Thus most people are unsuccessfully treated with short term doxycycline, steroids (make it worse), anti-depressants, MS treatments, etc... all expensive pharmaceutical treatments that fix some symptoms while hurting the long term health of the patient without every discovering the underlying cause.I've gone through part of the CDC treatment before educating myself and realizing it was mostly bullshit. I know a number of people that have had similar difficulties.

A healthy immune system combined with prolonged pulsed herbal medicines(TCM/western) and/or multiple pulsed antibiotics (hard on GI and its immune function) seem to be the best treatment option.

There are number of bacteria in our natural environment that our immune system eventually cannot fight off. Many of them result in things like MS, Alzheimers, arthritis, heart damage, etc.

Medical science needs better testing of immune signaling (cytokines, chemokines, etc) before and after treatments. Most labs cannot test for many of these and insurance won't cover it.

Labs like igenex, fry, galaxy, dnaconnexions, etc have much better procedures for testing and will look at all specific/shared antibodies than common labs. For example, 41 is an early Lyme antibody shared with Chlamydia. The CDC requires 3+ Lyme specific antibodies to make a positive (IgG and IgM).

Reading "Healing Lyme" by Buhner gives a scientific overview backed by a ton of research that the CDC ignores. 12) ilads.org is comprised of doctors who actually treat Lyme and deal with patients ...