Dr. Benjamin Natelson found that they could differentiate between
Lyme Disease and ME/CFS by looking at proteins in the spinal fluid of
patients. (Dr. Natelson had done previous proteomics studies looking
at the differences between ME/CFS and GWS.) Included in the subset
unique to ME/CFS patients were proteins implicated in Alzheimer's and
Parkinson's diseases, supporting the idea that ME;/CFS has an
underlying neurological cause.
Lyme Disease in Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
By Adrienne Dellwo, About.com Guide July 7, 2011
If you're well enough to brave the hot weather, you need to be on
alert for more than sunburn and heat stroke -- you also need to watch
for ticks.
Ticks cause Lyme disease, which has a lot of symptoms in common with
fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Some doctors
believe Lyme can trigger ME/CFS, but this is controversial. What we do
know, however, is that Lyme's effect on the immune system is very
similar to ME/CFS.
Even a healthy immune system can't defeat Borrelia burgdorferi, the
bacterium that causes Lyme disease, but it tries really hard. That
means the immune system switches into overdrive and starts attacking
everything it can -- your joints, your organs, and your nervous
system. Chronic immune activation depletes the body's resources as
well. Some doctors say Lyme disease is frequently misdiagnosed as
fibromyalgia or ME/CFS because they're so hard to tell apart.
In ME/CFS, the immune system is chronically activated, but so far
there's no widely accepted explanation for why. While it's not as
common a belief, some researchers do suspect infection may be behind
some cases of fibromyalgia as well, and we know fibromyalgia involves
immune system dysregulation.
I recently heard from a man I used to work with who's always been
extremely athletic and outdoorsy. He was a big strapping guy with a
booming voice and seemingly endless energy. He contacted me because
he'd found out about my illness and wanted to let me know he'd been
wiped out by Lyme. It's hard to imagine that bulldozer of a man laid
out by illness, but he is.
So if the strongest immune system can't handle Lyme, what do you
suppose it would do to us? The symptoms -- which are almost identical
to ours -- would almost certainly compound our existing problems and
add a whole new set of them as well. One ME/CFS researcher who focuses
on infectious agents says the subgroup of patients with Lyme are the
hardest ones to treat.
That covers why you don't want it, so how do you prevent it? My
About.com colleague Carol Eustice, Guide to Arthritis, has some
excellent resources for you:
How to Protect Yourself Against Lyme Disease -
http://arthritis.about.com/od/lyme/ht/protectionlyme.htm
Guide to Lyme Disease - http://arthritis.about.com/od/lyme/a/lyme_disease.htm
I learned some great information from those articles that I'll use to
protect myself and my children when we're out in the woods this
summer.
Join the discussion here:
http://chronicfatigue.about.com/b/2011/07/07/lyme-disease-in-fibromyalgia-chronic-fatigue-syndrome.htm
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