Chronic Lyme disease - discussion thread

"Experts warn that celebrity tell-alls and rampant “pseudoscience” surrounding Lyme is fuelling misdiagnoses. “Lyme disease has been plagued with misinformation for decades,” said Andrea Love, the executive director of the American Lyme Disease Foundation. “Unfortunately, there are instances of celebrities bringing attention to Lyme when it is unlikely they actually were infected with this bacteria.”"

What's been fueling misdiagnoses - both false negatives and false positives - is a combination of dreadful diagnostics and contested symptoms that has been around for 40 years. A steady stream of propaganda hasn't helped. It's also been a situation characterized not so much by pseudoscience as bad science all around, and has been pretty much from the get-go.

Just a strange article. It has the feel of something written almost a quarter century ago. If this found its way into a US-based journal today, I suspect the push-back would be immediate and substantive. There should be little tolerance for unregenerately one-sided positions anymore (irrespective of if it's the ALDF or ILADS or whomever). There's just too much we still don't know.

 

Mine was not from a tick bite, but from some unknown insect when I was on holiday in the Canaries. I'd had a nasty bite on my ankle which cleared up enough on the way home to not seek help...big mistake. Further down the line I was diagnosed with Borelliosis but which strain remains unknown. True Lyme disease is Borellia Burgdorferi, the American strain. There are at least 6 of over 300 strains of borellia that can cause Lyme-like disease, many being of European origin, inc the Canaries. This is why so many people have a negative Elisa test as this is specific to B Burgdorferi I believe.