Health Minute Audio Summary:
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Lyme disease is perhaps the most undiagnosed and misdiagnosed disease of our time . . . and that’s saying a lot! Like many ailments conventional medicine looks at Lyme in a very restricted sense, both from the point-of-view of cause, as well as treatment, while an increasing number of natural health care practitioners have a much broader viewpoint of the disease. Lyme disease is complicated and can be hard to understand. My purpose in this article is to condense and simplify the best information I have found on the history, symptoms, cause, transmission, diagnosis, and treatment of this condition.
HISTORY OF LYME DISEASE
Lyme disease, also known as Lyme Borreliosis, is an infectious disease named after the town of Lyme, Connecticut, which had a significant outbreak of the condition in 1975. Though presumed to be caused by a tick bite, the cause was not known until 1981 when Borrelia burdorferi was identified by Willy Burgdorfer, Ph.D. Since the 1990’s a number of holistically oriented doctors, including Dietrich Klinghardt, M.D. of Bellevue, Washington and William Lee Cowden, M.D. of Ft. Worth, Texas, have expanded the view of what Lyme is and how to treat it. Nick Harris, Ph.D., President of IgenX, Inc., a research and testing lab in Palo Alto, California states:
If it weren’t for AIDS, Lyme would be the number one infectious disease in the United States and Western Europe.1
SYMPTOMS OF LYME
Name a symptom — that’s about what it gets down to, since Lyme can mimic symptoms of over 350 diseases! Authorities suggest that almost any ill-health symptom may be related to underlying Lyme disease. The most common early, acute symptoms of Lyme resemble flu – fatigue, achy muscles and joints, fever, chills, stiff neck, swollen glands, and headache. But here’s a more extensive list, according to lymenet.org:
Jaw – pain or chewing difficulty
Bladder – frequent or painful urination, plus repeated urinary tract infections
Lung – respiratory infection, cough, asthma, pneumonia
Ear – pain, hearing loss, ringing, noise sensitivity
Eyes – inflammatory pain, light sensitivity, scleritis, drooping eyelid, conjunctivitis, blurring, double vision
Throat – sore throat, swollen glands, cough, hoarseness, difficulty swallowing
Neurological – headaches, facial paralysis, seizures, meningitis, stiff neck, burning, tingling or prickling sensations, loss of reflexes or coordination, MS-like symptoms
Stomach – pain, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting , abdominal cramps, anorexia
Heart – weakness, dizziness, irregular heart-beat, myocarditis, pericarditis, palpitations, heart block, enlarged heart, fainting, inflammation of muscle or membrane, shortness of breath, chest pain
Joint – arthralgias or arthritis, muscle inflammation and pain
Other Organs – liver infection, elevated liver enzymes, enlarged spleen, swollen testicles, irregular or ceased menses
Neuropsychiatric – mood swings, irritability, poor concentration, cognitive loss, memory loss, loss of appetite, mental deterioration, depression, disorientation, sleep disturbance
Pregnancy – miscarriage, premature birth, birth defects, stillbirth
Skin – single or multiple rash, hives
