Post by LymeEnigma on Sept 7, 2007 17:20:54 GMT -8
Lyme on the Brain
One issue that many doctors need to be made better aware of is the full extent of the effects Lyme disease can have on the brain. Dr. Robert Bransfield states in his report, “The Neuropsychiatric Assessment of Lyme:”
Fallon et al. note in their report, “Functional Brain Imaging and Neuropsychological Testing in Lyme Disease:”
I remember when I went to doctor S’s office six months after my tick bite, sick, fatigued, and literally losing my mind. My positive ELISA had just come back, but the Western blot was still in the lab. Dr. S. admitted that there was a possibility I had Lyme disease (but wouldn’t confirm my diagnosis until the Western blot also came back positive), but she insisted that there was absolutely no connection between my sudden explosion of anxiety, depression, and mania and my suspected case of Lyme disease. When my husband spoke up, saying he had known people in the past, back when he lived in New York, who had Lyme disease, and that they all experienced similar mental health issues to mine as a direct result of their Lyme infection, the doctor literally called him a liar and implied that I was simply out of my mind.
It is evident that doctors all across the country are in dire need of proper education on Lyme disease and its many effects on both the body and the mind. I know many of us have suffered because we are, as Dr. Bransfield puts it, “viewed by some as ‘hypochondriacal’ or ‘crazy.’ ... feel[ing] alienated from the mainstream of the healthcare system.” As long as ignorance and judgment prevail over science where the neuropsychiatric effects of Lyme are concerned, we will continue to experience undue bias, and possibly even inadequate treatment, for the psychiatric symptoms many of us are unfortunate enough to develop with this disease.
One issue that many doctors need to be made better aware of is the full extent of the effects Lyme disease can have on the brain. Dr. Robert Bransfield states in his report, “The Neuropsychiatric Assessment of Lyme:”
There are an increasing number of patients with chronic Lyme disease (neuroborreliosis) presenting in psychiatric offices. Lyme disease does not begin as a psychiatric illness. Other symptoms occur in early stage disease. Late in the progression of this disease neurological, cognitive, and psychiatric symptoms predominate. If not well understood, these symptoms are viewed as non-specific and bizarre (www.mentalhealthandillness.com/tnaold.html).
Fallon et al. note in their report, “Functional Brain Imaging and Neuropsychological Testing in Lyme Disease:”
Patients with Lyme disease may experience short-term memory loss, severe depression, panic attacks, unrelenting anxiety, impulsivity, paranoia, obsessive compulsive disorder, personality changes marked by irritability and mood swings, and, rarely, manic episodes or psychotic states. Depression of at least two weeks’ duration, by far the most concomitant secondary psychiatric disorder, may occur in as many as 70% of patients with chronic Lyme disease at some point during their illness (www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?CIDv25pS57PDF).
I remember when I went to doctor S’s office six months after my tick bite, sick, fatigued, and literally losing my mind. My positive ELISA had just come back, but the Western blot was still in the lab. Dr. S. admitted that there was a possibility I had Lyme disease (but wouldn’t confirm my diagnosis until the Western blot also came back positive), but she insisted that there was absolutely no connection between my sudden explosion of anxiety, depression, and mania and my suspected case of Lyme disease. When my husband spoke up, saying he had known people in the past, back when he lived in New York, who had Lyme disease, and that they all experienced similar mental health issues to mine as a direct result of their Lyme infection, the doctor literally called him a liar and implied that I was simply out of my mind.
It is evident that doctors all across the country are in dire need of proper education on Lyme disease and its many effects on both the body and the mind. I know many of us have suffered because we are, as Dr. Bransfield puts it, “viewed by some as ‘hypochondriacal’ or ‘crazy.’ ... feel[ing] alienated from the mainstream of the healthcare system.” As long as ignorance and judgment prevail over science where the neuropsychiatric effects of Lyme are concerned, we will continue to experience undue bias, and possibly even inadequate treatment, for the psychiatric symptoms many of us are unfortunate enough to develop with this disease.