This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

ssmme,

No one on this forum is an expert on whether lyme can cause an MS-like disease. So I don't think you should draw conclusions on the cause of your MS based on these posts.

I especially do not think you should take the attitude that even if your MS was caused by lyme that you cannot or should not treat it. You need to do research about that. There are plenty of people who were formally dx'd with MS, later treated for lyme and are much better now. Compare that with the general prognosis of MS (except for the current wonder cures where your immune system is wiped out, you are cured, but you still have to stay on immuno-modulating drugs because you aren't totally cured until your immune system is retrained---and then you are cured, until your MS comes back and you have to be cured again).

Contrary to the tone set in these posts there are a good many highly respected researchers who think it is entirely possible that lyme causes some people to get the disease we describe as MS. Furthermore, a differential diagnosis of MS v. Neuroborreliosis is exceedingly challenging if one admits to the absolutely abysmal state of testing for lyme.

One final thing about the radiology assistant site. Am I the only one who picked up the quite unscientific tone the author took when describing the issue of differential between MS and Lyme??.....I'm quoting from the website in the MS section under Reporting,

"If a patient is clinically suspected of having MS and the MR-images support that diagnosis, than you should not consider the possibility of Lyme's disease and neuro-SLE in the differential diagnosis, because they have such a low prevalence.
There must be other ways to impress your collegues.
These diagnoses are only worth mentioning if there are clinical findings that support these diagnoses"

What the heck it that about?............so we throw out a possible lyme (not Lyme's-a pet peeve of mine) diagnosis because, in the opinion of these docs, it's rare..????.....
Clinical findings???? They can be and often are exactly the same in MS and lyme. Now what? and what does impressing colleagues have to do with anything?



[/b][/u]

We went to a Lyme literate doc who took blood and sent it to the Igenex lab in northern California. Jeff was negative. It was money well spent.
AC

_________________
Husband dx RRMS 3/07
dx dual jugular vein stenosis (CCSVI) 4/09
dual stents placed 5/09
CCSVI in MS

did this too, when first diagnosed lyme is a very unlikely but possible chance that maybe it's not ms.

_________________
Had ms for over 19 years now.

I worked as a field archaeologist in Ireland from the age of 15-24 - diagnosed aged 25 with RR-MS.

I've always put Lyme out of my mind because no medical professional has ever mentioned it to me, but there is a bit of a possibility that all those summers working outdoors.......there's always been the attitude of we don't have Lyme in Ireland....but I know that's not true.

But in some ways it also joins the "never will know unless they biopsy your brain" comment from my former horrible neurologist when I asked about neurosarcoidosis - I had sarcoidosis age 19 but it disappeared without treatment.....

Lyme, Lupus, Neurosarcoidosis............? Or just MS.

It does make me wonder because Rebif did to me what the Original Poster mentioned it did to him.

_________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Concussus Resurgo
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RR-MS dx 1998 and Coeliac dx 2003
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Copaxone, Cymbalta. EPO, Fish Oils, Vitamin D3 2000 IU daily, Cal/Mag/Zinc, Multivitamin/mineral, Co-Enzyme Q10, Probiotics, Milk Thistle.

Robbie,
Why is it very unlikely????

Certainly not unlikely because of your location.

We vacation in Big Lake Rideau every second year near Portland, Ont. and our dear little dachsund got lyme there last summer (got pics of his "classic" bullseye). Within two weeks he was lame and had a bells palsy. Your area is very endemic for borrelia.

Certainly not unlikely because the lyme tests your doctors give you are definitive proof you do not have lyme.

Here is a link to 17 citations concerning seronegativity as a real problem in lyme diagnosis. These tests are abysmal! Why do doctors still rely on them?
http://www.lymeinfo.net/medical/LDSeronegativity.pdf

Certainly not unlikely because the symptoms, and pathologic processes like, lymphocyte activation, MMPs production, autoantibody production-for neuronal proteins and myelin basic proteins and, of course, demyelination are exactly the same in MS and Lyme.

Here are two interesting papers:
http://msj.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/5/6/395
http://www.aaem.pl/pdf/aaem0024.pdf

Certainly not unlikely because having an MS-like illness has never been associated with lyme. Or that diagnosis of MS is never mistaken for lyme. Here is a nice "real life" patient story (I know the gentlemen featured). Or that people diagnosed with MS who are later treated for lyme never get better.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/health ... 51337.html


So please tell me, truly, why is it very unlikely?

Hi Peta,
I probably have asked youthis b4 on private Messaging but what antibiotics did they put you on for 9 months? I might ask for IV antibiotics if I can, did they do it to kill off Lyme?

L x

Peta,

12 years is quite a run, especially after three attacks so close together. I'm glad Copaxone is working well for you, and I'm sure your extensive antibiotics did nothing to slow progression. Or was it your spontaneous remission or combustion or whatever.

I don't think our friend Dave (from the article you reference) feels it is spontaneous remission. He saw doctors for 7 yrs trying to get to the bottom of his ailments. Finally he received a definitive dx of MS with lesions and Avonex treatment. During lyme treatment he felt a distinct cause and effect of the antibiotic treatment, with classic Herxheimer's seen in a spirochetal infection, followed by slow improvement. Apparently the federal government also feels he had lyme because he is, without a doubt, cleared once again to fly people (maybe even you) around on Delta Airline's jets. The FAA is one tough cookie, you know.

We all sort through info differently and "feel" a lot of things and ways. I feel you are a resounding abx success and plan to include your success when pontificating on the subject of abx use for MS.....it'll go something like this,

I know this fellow (very nice fellow, really) who was having rapid progression and multiple relapses after a dx of MS. He did 9 months of IV (ceftriaxone?) followed by some oral abx for lyme. He subsequently continued with Copaxone treatment one year after abx treatment, and has seen no progression in 12 yrs. I "feel" it was the abx that he benefited from.

How's that?

I also don't believe in spontaneous remission. I think there is always a cause an effect...if you had done nothing Peta I think you would have continued down the path you were going originally. I don't believe in coincidences either, my gut feeling is that the abx removed something taxing your immune system which prevented further attacks. I am just keen to know what abx they gave you.

L x

Your right sojourner I retract the word very it was a little much



this must be close to very unlikely ????

_________________
Had ms for over 19 years now.

Robbie,

Have you read this from 2006.
It discusses distribution of lyme carrying ticks in Canada.

[/url] http://www.canlyme.com/ogdenetal2006.pdf[url]


You know Robbie, I think the Canadian govt' just might be behind on this. Here is a fact---geographic distribution of MS and Lyme disease are EXACTLY the same all around the world except in Canada. This flies in the face of reason. Researchers are finding larger number of lyme carrying ticks all over Canada. So how is it possible that lyme in Canada is so rare? The only conclusion is that it is there, but is diagnosed as something else.

My god! our dog was in Ont. on an island on a lake for 6 days and came home sporting a lovely rash on his tummy (if not on his tummy, we wouldn't have seen it). Given that three of five of us in our family have or are battling lyme disease we have really rethought our future vacation plans----no more Big Rideau for us. The risk is too great.

Given the challenges of lyme diagnosis saying lyme is rare in Canada is another great example of circular logic. Goes something like this:

Lyme is rare, so don't diagnose it, because lyme is rare, so don't diagnose it....Throw in a very unreliable blood test that doctors believe is reliable, and you have a recipe for disaster.

So Robbie, Great! your MS (and everyone else here) was not caused by a complex milieu of bacteria, gone chronic/latent and able to cause mayhem in your body, which is difficult to treat because of our lack of knowledge and the complexity of the pathogen.

It's every man for himself and I don't intend to follow the lead buffalo off the cliff.

Um..
Robbie said he went to a Lyme literate doc and had the Igenex blood work done when he was first diagnosed with MS. That's what my hubby did, too. They were both negative. I really don't think there's an argument here.

Why are we going off on Robbie?

AC

PS Rocephin is the IV antibiotic of choice for many Lyme literate docs. Usually a 9 month course.

_________________
Husband dx RRMS 3/07
dx dual jugular vein stenosis (CCSVI) 4/09
dual stents placed 5/09
CCSVI in MS

seems that way, so do you have ms or lyme?

_________________
Had ms for over 19 years now.

Peta,

"Quacks" have a long history of changing our world with new ideas, understandings, innovations, and treatments.

A short list:
Galileo
Semmelweiss
Mendel
Darwin

Here is a research paper citation heavy presentation by our physician (Yale trained, did his undergraduate at U of Penn.). Despite much "feeling" to the contrary there is a great deal (and mounting) body of knowledge about the nature of diagnosis, treatment and understanding of lyme
disease and the pathogen that causes it.

http://www.ilads.org/lyme_research/chronic_lyme.html
Quack, Quack, Quack