RELAPSING ILLNESS

Many people with chronic illnesses suffer with relapses, remissions, flare ups - Rheumatoid Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis, ME/CFS, to name just a few but it is also a recognised pattern in Lyme Disease. 

Ben Luft NIH researcher of many years with the Lyme disease spirochete had something to say on the subject at the Institute of Medicine Workshop on Lyme disease and other tick borne illnesses in 2010 here

But the nature of Lyme disease is it's a relapsing disease.

In 2009 I met a young lady at a Lyme Disease Conference organised by Lyme Disease Action here, she told me of the huge improvements in her health on long term antibiotics.

Recently I was sorry to hear that she had relapsed and once again was struggling to get appropriate treatment from her NHS doctors, even with her history of recovery the first time around. 

An Ecologist/Entomologist/Evolutionary biologist living in Scotland she tells her health story on her new blog here in the hope that it will help raise awareness and help other sufferers of Lyme Disease. 

Her first post is of particular interest because she shows a video of her abnormal or Myopathic gait, symptoms of neurological Lyme disease and I am sure many with Multiple Sclerosis and other Neurological illnesses will identify with this gait - the difference being that with antibiotics this abnormal gait has previously and can again become normal. Link to her first blog post here 

'Toots' as she calls herself goes on to share some Lyme Overview presentations, a good Rant about the denial of this disease and then her latest post about the Four weekly cyclical nature of Lyme disease - I wonder how many patients with Chronic illnesses have documented their symptoms and discovered they too have a four weekly cycle, which is one of the hall marks of Lyme disease.

I look forward to hearing more from Toots on her journey of recovery and wish her all the best, this disease is not for the faint hearted. Our medical authorities marginalize those with Chronic Lyme Disease, without paying due attention to all the emerging science which shows that Chronic Lyme Disease is a very different condition than an Actute case of Lyme Disease.