Overview

Lyme Disease is a tick-borne disease caused by the spirochete bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi.

The initial presentation is a "bulls-eye target lesion" surrounding a tick bite, but the chronic symptoms may be noticed long after the initial target lesion has faded.

The most common chronic symptoms of Lyme Disease are fatigue, weakness, paresthesias, neck/shoulder pain, headache, dizziness, migrating muscle or joint pain, fever, psychotic symptoms (depression, schizophrenia), back and sciatic pain, night sweats or awakening between 2 and 4 AM. As discussed below, additional co-infections may add additional symptoms [Schwarzbach2016].

Lyme Disease is associated with autistic disorders [Bransfield2008  🕮 ], Chronic Fatigue Syndrome [American Lyme Disease Alliance], Fibromyalgia [Sigal1988  🕮 ], Multiple Sclerosis, Myelopathies, Polyneuropathies, Brain tumors, Encephalopathy [Murray1992  🕮 ], Meningitis, Encephalitis, Neuritis, Mania, Depression, Schizophrenia, Anorexia [Fallon1994  🕮 ], Parkinson's Disease [Cassarino2003  🕮 ], and dementia [Fallon1994  🕮 ].

In addition to the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, many patients may suffer coinfection by other tick-borne bacteria, including Babesia spp. Bartonella spp. Ehrlichia chaffeensis Anaplasma phagocytophilum Rickettsia spp. and Coxiella burnetii In addition, immune suppression may lead to additional opportunistic infections, including Chlamydia pneumoniae Chlamydia trachomatis Mycoplasma spp. Yersinia spp. Toxoplasma gondii Coxsackievirus Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) Cytomegalovirus (CMV) Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) Kaposi' s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (HHV-8) and Human betaherpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) [Schwarzbach2016]. The presence of these coinfections can lead to apparent variations in the symptom picture of "Lyme Disease." Note that these co-infections are intracellular parasites, and hence difficult to treat using conventional antibiotics.

Please also see Go to Informal study by American Lyme Disease AllianceInformal study by American Lyme Disease Alliance which was cited by [Schwarzbach2016].

Please see conventional, complementary, and alternative medical treatments for important background information regarding the different types of medical treatments discussed on this page. Naturopathic, Complementary, and Alternative treatments that may be considered include:

Diagnosis

Go to ArminLabsArminLabs reports a sophisticated panel of sensitive and specific tests for Lyme disease as well as other tick-borne diseases.

Dr. Weyrich has not yet evaluated this lab.

Treatment

Conventional Treatment

Early treatment with antibiotics can prevent progression to chronic disease; later treatment is less successful.

Naturopathic, Complementary, and Alternative Treatments

Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)

According to the Low Dose Naltrexone home page [LDN], LDN has been seen to benefit many different neurodegenerative diseases associated with autoimmune processes, including Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson's Disease. Although Dr. Weyrich is not aware of any reports of treating Lyme disease using LDN, Dr. Weyrich speculates that Lyme disease may also respond to LDN.

Dr. Weyrich has been trained to use Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN). However, Dr. Weyrich has not treated any cases of Lyme disease with LDN.

Please see What is Low Dose Naltrexone? for more information.

Neurotransmitter Balancing

Neuro Research [Hinz2015] reports that Lyme Disease can be benefited by balancing neurotransmitter levels in the body.

Dr. Weyrich has been trained in neurotransmitter balancing protocols, but has not treated Lyme Disease using this technique.

Please see What is Neurotransmitter Balancing? for more information.

References