6/28/14 6/28/14

'Chronic' Lyme disease overdiagnosed according to original expert

'Chronic' Lyme disease, according to Dr. Allen Steere who first identified the spirochetal contagion caused by ticks in the town of Lyme, Connecticut, is a seductive but all too often misleading diagnosis that may prevent patients from finding the care that they need.

9/7/13 9/7/13

Hepatitis C antibody-postive patients need but often don't get confirmatory testing

Hepatitis C infection needs to be confirmed by PCR (RNA or DNA amplification) because antibody levels can remain high for many years after the infection is completely cleared by antimicrobial therapy or innate immunity. This is true for numerous other pathogens as well including Borrelia b. (Lyme disease). A paper just published in The American Journal of Medicine documents that RNA testing for hepatitis C is often not done.

9/4/13 9/4/13

Chronic Lyme disease, post-Lyme disease syndrome and insights from the pathophysiology of sepsis

Chronic Lyme disease, now correctly termed post-Lyme disease syndrome (PLDS), has challenged and confused practitioners and patients unfamiliar with the potential autoimmune sequelae of infection... The principles of managing autoimmunity, triggered by infection or not, entail discernment of the multiple underlying mechanisms contributing to loss of immune tolerance of self-tissue...This must be borne in mind by the clinician managing either autoimmunity triggered by Lyme or other infections

11/4/12 11/4/12

Lyme disease, neuropsychiatric symptoms and autoimmunity

As with other chronic infections, the most devastating effects of Lyme disease can occur from the immune system losing tolerance for normal tissue as it cross-reacts while attacking the pathogen. A paper just published in The Open Neurology Journal reviews the body of knowledge on the neuropsychiatric symptoms of Lyme disease and other infections as an immune mediated neurodegenerative disorder, enlarged by a wealth of citations.