CAUSE OF CFS/ME IN SUBSET OF PATIENTS

Eleanor Stein MD (FRCP)C Psychiatry and Psycotherapy -
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and related disorders. her website link is here 

Just another specialist who is considering that a sub population of CFS/ME patients may have Lyme Disease.

On her website she shows this very interesting webinar from Janet Sperling MSc :- here 

The NICE guidelines on CFS say that Lyme Disease must be excluded before a diagnosis of CFS is given. Serology in this field is not reliable as this webinar explains and so Lyme Disease should be a clinical diagnosis made by and expert in that field, preferably one that has had considerable experience in diagnosing Lyme Disease.

During this excellent presentation Janet talks about the research below:-

Metagenomic Profile of the Bacterial Communities Associated with Ixodes ricinus Ticks Carpi et al 

link to paper here 

'A total of 108 genera belonging to representatives of all bacterial phyla were detected and a rapid qualitative assessment for pathogenic bacteria, such as Borrelia, Rickettsia and Candidatus Neoehrlichia, and for other bacteria with mutualistic relationship or undetermined function, such as Wolbachia and Rickettsiella, was possible. Interestingly, the ecological analysis revealed that the bacterial community structure differed between the examined geographic regions and tick life stages'

and a pilot study from New Brunswick done at University of Alberta found 158 genera of bacteria in two ticks.

A common myth is that a tick only passes on the odd infection it comes as quite a surprise to me to see just how many bacteria can be passed on by ticks along with other infections.

I found this webinar enlightening but also the questions and answers very interesting - in the absence of reliable testing for Lyme disease she suggests trialing antibiotics.

Her response to concerns over over use of antibiotics is also interesting. 

Here in UK it is surprising how many antibiotics are used with factory farming - they may not be added as standard to feed as in the past but if one animal/bird in a herd/flock is sick the whole herd/flock is given antibiotics even without testing to see if the infection is bacterial, viral or otherwise. What a pity sick people are not given the same opportunity to trial antibiotics for possible underlying bacterial infections.