Lyme Is 'All in Your Head' – A Wake-Up Call to Mental Health Professionals

From what I know, there's no sure way of diagnosing Chronic Lyme. There is no real proof that it exist. That doesn't mean that the symptoms attributed to Chronic Lyme doesn't exist.

http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/chron...

Now, attributing any symptoms like this to hypochondria should of course only be done by a licenced medical doctor. However I also think that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about hypochondria. I believe that hypochondria is quite akin to synesthesia. It's not really by choice as it affects the perception. Emotional or mental states feed back into the perception in a way that can't be distinguished from "real" perceptions. The pain is felt, not "imagined". But triggered in an unconscious way by the imagination. It might be an evolutionary artefact from developing ways to identify bodily problems in moments of distress. And when the cause of the distress is hard to identify it is attributed to something close by.

I travel to Old Lyme Connecticut at least once a week. This is the town where Lyme disease was diagnosed as a separate condition for the first time.

Its also where the illness gets its name.

We have a lot of ticks.

Scientists link invasive barberry to Lyme disease:

- http://today.uconn.edu/2012/02/controlling-japanese-barberry...

The illness is definitely an imitator which is very scary. I've known people who have drooping faces which resembled a stroke / bells palsy and who eventually got the diagnoses of Lyme. I think the problem with Lyme is that its isolated, its infectious but not contagious (spreadable between humans). This appears to reduce the urgency of research. That said, the bacteria hides and destroys a person mentally and physically.

Which raises a good? question: "Should we treat people with placebos [without their knowledge] if it might improve their lives?"

When I was visiting Colonial Williamsburg they had a medical historian answering questions and the most interesting one to me was "What happened to consumption?"

The disease "consumption" was very common in colonial times, but was never really a formal disease, just a collection of symptoms. As medical science got better it got split into emphysema, pneumonia, and other more specific lung issues.

When I hear about things like Lymes disease, I wonder if we're still at the splitting apart to a more specific diagnoses stage.

One of my friends was basically living this scenario - diagnosed with Lymes disease until he had some new genetic tests done and it was determined that he conclusively had a different neurological condition.

It's hard to remember that in 50 years time they'll look back at shudder at what poor diagnostic and medical tools were available in the 2010s.

After nearly 4 years of my battle with Lyme, I finally found a doctor who cured me with an essentially illegal combination of antibiotics (4x the max daily dosage of doxycycline for 18 months). In her words, this will be bad, but not nearly as bad as not treating your Lyme. I haven't had any symptoms for 3 years now and am in best health I've ever been.

Occasionally, however, I am still reminded of how ignorant our medical institutions are about this disease. Recently I switched to Kaiser and during my intake process I mentioned my chronic Lyme, at which point the MD corrected me that there's no such a thing. He explained to me that he has all those years of experience, and that he has had to correct so many people about their misconceptions about Lyme. According to him, Lyme is like fever that you treat once at a time (and no longer than 4 weeks max). After my push back, he called in their in infectious disease specialist, who repeated the same thing, word by word. They even wanted to know the name of my specialist, claiming that it was irresponsible of her to give me that treatment (I didn't share her info).

I don't doubt that these two gentlemen are doing their best to help out their patients. I also realize that some kid in their practice will unlikely be able to shatter their firm beliefs that they had acquired in their decade-long training at prestigious universities. It just makes me sad that hundreds of other kids will be less lucky than I was, and will be left alone trying to figure out what's wrong with them, because obviously it can't be Lyme.

In words of my angel doctor, Lyme is the worst curable disease out there - it's a shame we don't cure more people.