This week I am going to talk about how some people are misdiagnosed with MS when they actually have Lyme Disease. I got the idea for this from a comment that was left on the MS a few weeks ago. After I read the comment that she left I knew I had to find out more about this. There is so many reports out about this subject but I have found they are hard to digest and get through. I am going to post a summary of what I have found on the subject. (Please know that there are reports out there but they hard to understand and I am going to do my best to high light all the interesting things I am reading. If I get some thing wrong please let me know so I can correct it!)
- I read where it says that they patients are getting the diagnoses of “probably MS” and not an official diagnoses of MS. While they are undergoing treatment for MS they aren’t seeing any improvement in their symptoms in fact they may be getting worse.
- MS and Lyme Disease both attack the central nervous system and leave the same type of lesions on the nerves.
- One site I read said that people that are treated with steroids may seem like they are getting better but they are actually just having the symptoms of the Lyme Disease masked by the steroids
That is all that I could find about it. Most of what I could find was articles were patients stories. I debated about posting the woman’s comment that left on my blog but I decided that I am going to. If you are reading this and would like me to take it down I will just let me know!
I think that it is worth your while researching Lyme Disease thoroughly.
You will find the blood tests miss 50% of cases.
The MRI scan is the same for Lyme Disease as for MS.
There is research that shows that many patients with MS have a spirochetal infection- which Lyme Disease is.
Treatment for Lyme Disease is antibiotics long term.
Treatment for MS -Steroids is contra indicated for Lyme Disease because it allows the bacterial infection to progress whilst appearing to supress the symptoms.
Tom Grier a microbiologist wrote 4 excellent lectures found in the right hand column of my blog he was also diagnosed with MS and then found it was Lyme Disease and recovered on appropriate antibiotics.
Lyme Disease is an emerging illness and there is much controversy over it so don’t expect much guidance from your neurologist do your own research and good luck.
They do not yet know what causes MS they only assume it is auto immune whilst the controversy rages over Lyme Disease how many MS patients are being missed when just simple antibiotics can restore health.
I know that she says a lot of what I wrote over but she does have other information in there that I think is great as well. This was one of the hardest MS posts I have written because it was hard to find documentation on this subject because Lyme Disease is a newer condition. I hope it was somewhat helpful though!
Sources:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/15949/multiple_sclerosis_patients_should.html?cat=5
http://www.google.com/search?q=lyme+disease+and+MS&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGGL_en___US367