"The diagnosis rests heavily on the clinical symptomatology. When there are clinical signs, e.g., rash, aseptic meningitis, optic neuritis, arthritis, an appropriate differential diagnosis must be pursued. On a clinical basis, "chronic fatigue syndrome" or "fibromyalgia" cannot be readily distinguished from chronic Lyme Disease. Indeed, accumulating experience suggests that Lyme Disease may be a frequent cause of fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue (8,12)."
"The clinical features of chronic Lyme disease can be indistinguishable from fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. These illnesses must be closely scrutinized for the possibility of etiological Borrelia burgdorferi infection."
Fibromyalgia
"The outcome of treating fibromyalgia secondary to Lyme disease with nonantibiotic regimens has been poor. The most encouraging clinical trial showed success in only one of 15 patients and only modest improvement in 6 of 15 individuals with fibromyalgia despite 2 years of treatment.
Antibiotic therapy has been much more effective than supportive therapy in symptomatic patients with fibromyalgia secondary to Lyme disease.
Fibromyalgia treatment alone without antibiotics raises the risk of conversion to refractory chronic Lyme disease and/or exacerbation of an undiagnosed persistent infection and is not recommended. Increasingly, clinicians do not feel comfortable treating fibromyalgia in Lyme disease without antibiotics."
1: Przegl Lek. 2000;57(7-8):424-6.Links [Tick spirochetosis--Lyme borreliosis][Article in Polish]
Nowakowski G, Kochańska-Dziurowicz A, Widala E. Instytut Medycyny Pracy i Zdrowia, Srodowiskowego w Sosnowcu.
Lyme boreliosis is currently the most common tick-borne infection. It may cause various clinical symptoms depending on organ localization and duration of the infection. The disease may be symptomless, subclinical or with full clinical manifestation.
Usually three clinical stages may be distinguished. In stage I erythema migrans and flu-like symptoms usually develop. In stage II, connected with the infection spreading with blood and lymph, beside joint pains, neuroboreliosis appears, sometimes the disease involves other organs such as heart, eyes, testicles, joints. Stage III, chronic in its character, usually develops in patients who had previously reported joint and neurological complaints. Encephalopathy and fibromyalgia accompany joint involvement.
Diagnostics of Lyme borreliosis is based on clinical evaluation and laboratory test including culture of the bacteria obtained from biopsies and serological tests.
There are no established standards of the treatment--some examples of the therapy are presented in the paper. The disease if not treated has a progressive course in most causes, however in some patients it can resolve spontaneously even with no treatment.
East Afr Med J. 2005 May;82(5):267-9.Links Lyme disease: report of two cases.Jowi JO, Gathua SN. Kenyatta National Hospital, P.O. Box 19624-00202, Nairobi, Kenya.
Lyme disease is a tick-borne multisystem disease. It was first described in Lyme, Connecticut, USA in 1975. Cases have been reported in Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Australia and Great Britain.
It is an inflammatory disease that has varied clinical manifestations ranging from skin rash (erythema migrans), arthritis, fibromyalgia, and regional lymphadenopathy, cardiac conduction defects to neurological manifestations of meningoencephalitis, Bell's palsy, peripheral neuropathy, and painful radiculoneuropathy.
There has been no case record of Lyme disease in Kenya and indeed literature on Lyme disease in Africa is very scanty. We present two cases of Lyme disease with predominant neurological manifestations; outline their clinical presentation and management.
PMID: 16119758 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
1: Curr Pain Headache Rep. 2002 Aug;6(4):284-8.
Rheumatic mimics and selected triggers of fibromyalgia.Daoud KF, Barkhuizen A. Oregon Health and Science University, Division of Rheumatology, 3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road, Portland, OR 97201, USA.
Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain syndrome of unknown etiology characterized by diffuse pain and tender points, which have been present for more than 3 months.
Many patients with systemic illnesses can have diffuse pain similar to that found in fibromyalgia, including rheumatic diseases such as polymyalgia rheumatica, rheumatoid arthritis, idiopathic inflammatory myopathy, systemic lupus erythematosus, and joint hypermobility.
Osteomalacia and thyroid disease are also in the differential diagnosis of diffuse pain and are imminently treatable. In addition, there has been interest throughout the past 10 years in infectious diseases including hepatitis C, Lyme disease , coxsackie B, HIV, and parvovirus infection, which may cause or trigger fibromyalgia. This paper provides a framework to use when identifying these diseases as part of the evaluation of a patient with chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain.
"Multiple infectious agents have been associated with the development of either full-blown fibromyalgia (e.g. hepatits C), or with symptom complexes extensively overlapping with that syndrome (e.g. chronic Lyme disease)."
J Autoimmun. 2006 Nov;27(3):145-52. Epub 2006 Oct 30. Links Fibromyalgia, infection and vaccination: Two more parts in the etiological puzzle. Ablin JN, Shoenfeld Y, Buskila D. Department of Rheumatology, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, 6 Weizman St., 64239 Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Versicherungsmedizin. 2004 Mar 1;56(1):25-9. Links [Appraisal of Lyme borreliosis] [Article in German]
Hausotter W. Lyme borreliosis is due to infection with a tick-borne spirochete. The variety of signs and symptoms and also the laboratory tests of this multisystem illness often cause great problems in the appraisal of this disease. Frequently indispositions are associated with positive antibody tests for Borrelia burgdorferi. Terms as fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome are often connected with the diagnosis of Lyme disease. Outdoor workers such as farmers, foresters, hunters, woodcutters and gamekeepers in areas of endemic disease take a great occupational risk of infection with borreliosis. In the German health and social insurance the appraisal of this disease is of great importance. Affected working people can receive financial compensation. Not only serological investigations with the presence of specific antibodies, but also clinical findings must be considered.
East Afr Med J. 2005 May;82(5):267-9. Links Lyme disease: report of two cases. Jowi JO, Gathua SN. Kenyatta National Hospital, P.O. Box 19624-00202, Nairobi, Kenya.
Lyme disease is a tick-borne multisystem disease. It was first described in Lyme, Connecticut, USA in 1975. Cases have been reported in Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Australia and Great Britain. It is an inflammatory disease that has varied clinical manifestations ranging from skin rash (erythema migrans), arthritis, fibromyalgia, and regional lymphadenopathy, cardiac conduction defects to neurological manifestations of meningoencephalitis, Bell's palsy, peripheral neuropathy, and painful radiculoneuropathy. There has been no case record of Lyme disease in Kenya and indeed literature on Lyme disease in Africa is very scanty. We present two cases of Lyme disease with predominant neurological manifestations; outline their clinical presentation and management.
Lyme arthritis. Massarotti EM. Tufts University School of Medicine, Itzhak Perlman Family Arthritis Treatment Center, Division of Rheumatology, New England Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. [email protected]
Infection with B. burgdorferi can cause a large joint inflammatory arthritis in patients who have not been treated for early Lyme disease; the knee is the most common joint affected. The diagnosis depends on a history of known exposure to the spirochete, characteristic clinical features, and serologic studies (ELISA and Western blot) confirming exposure to the spirochete. In most patients, antibiotic therapy is curative, but in a smaller percentage of patients, the presence of the HLA-DR beta 1*0401 haplotype can trigger treatment-resistant arthritis, in which antibiotic therapy is ineffective; in these instances, remittive agents, such as hydroxychloroquine and methotrexate, are indicated. Arthroscopic synovectomy may be considered when antibiotic therapy is not curative. Fibromyalgia can follow infection with B. burgdorferi but is unresponsive to antibiotic therapy; it is treated with tricyclic antidepressants and an exercise program. (MY NOTE- IF YOU WANT IT TO GET BETTER- YOU HAVE TO TREAT THE INFECTION!) Lyme arthritis is the only chronic inflammatory arthritis in which the specific cause is known and can be cured. As such, it serves as an excellent model with which to study the pathogenesis of more common inflammatory arthritides, such as rheumatoid arthritis.
Przegl Lek. 2000;57(7-8):424-6. Links [Tick spirochetosis--Lyme borreliosis] [Article in Polish]
Nowakowski G, Kochańska-Dziurowicz A, Widala E. Instytut Medycyny Pracy i Zdrowia, Srodowiskowego w Sosnowcu.
Lyme boreliosis is currently the most common tick-borne infection. It may cause various clinical symptoms depending on organ localization and duration of the infection. The disease may be symptomless, subclinical or with full clinical manifestation. Usually three clinical stages may be distinguished. In stage I erythema migrans and flu-like symptoms usually develop. In stage II, connected with the infection spreading with blood and lymph, beside joint pains, neuroboreliosis appears, sometimes the disease involves other organs such as heart, eyes, testicles, joints. Stage III, chronic in its character, usually develops in patients who had previously reported joint and neurological complaints. Encephalopathy and fibromyalgia accompany joint involvement. Diagnostics of Lyme borreliosis is based on clinical evaluation and laboratory test including culture of the bacteria obtained from biopsies and serological tests. There are no established standards of the treatment--some examples of the therapy are presented in the paper. The disease if not treated has a progressive course in most causes, however in some patients it can resolve spontaneously even with no treatment.
"Symptoms consistent with fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue syndrome develop in patients who have had clear-cut Lyme disease, even after adequate treatment."
This just made my day!
Posted by Tincup (Member # 5829) on :
Well dear sir...
You are certainly easy to please.
Posted by bettyg (Member # 6147) on :
ADDED this post/site to my newbie info....
Posted by D Bergy (Member # 9984) on :
The Marshall protocol is used for these diseases as well a Lyme. This site seems to have quite a bit of info on L-form bacteria and all of these diseases.
D Bergy
Posted by DakotasMom01 (Member # 14141) on :
Great Info, Thank You!!
Posted by Robin123 (Member # 9197) on :
Responding to a statement in the article from Tufts Univ(about halfway down the article listings - Med Clin North Am 2002), 8th line down: "Fibromyalgia can follow infection with B burgdorferi but is unresponsive to antibiotic treatment;" --
I treated mine with clindamycin 150mg 3-4x/day. Within one week fibromyalgia pain went to zero and stayed that way for six months.
I had to take a break of a year and a half before the clindamycin would treat the Lyme again. It's been working for the past nine months so far again.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)