Pa g e 24
W is c onsin Ch ristian N e w s .c om
Volume 26, Issue 2
What You Didn’t Know About Lyme Disease
By Dr. David Lange, Genesis Primary Care May 2025 Not being one to shy away from con- troversial subjects in medicine or take a different approach to solving a problem, let’s talk about a sub- ject that is close to all of us and likely has
are concerned about your symptoms, please be checked, as ignoring Lyme disease can have real consequences.
many seek testing is that 40% of Lyme patients do not develop a rash. The deer tick also carries other bacteria that can cause infections and many physicians don’t test for those very often as they are less common.
bilitating which makes a person desperate. I don’t suspect that most of the Lyme clinics are truly trying to take advantage of desperate per- sons, but they sure seem to make a lot of money on unproven treatments. Of all the controversies and conspiracies men- tioned thus far, this last item has earned me the most hatred. The “Lyme literate” provider never really seems to cure anyone and in my experi- ence patients jump from one to another one hoping the next has the answer. I have gone away from strictly being an allopathic physician and understand that I don’t have all the an- swers, but I can see patterns and trends. Just saying. What should not be controversial is treatment. I am going to skip diagnosis and prevention in the interest of time. If the tick has been attached less than 24 hours, nothing is truly needed. Oth- erwise the treatment is a single dose of antibi- otics. I am more than happy to provide the preventive dose of antibiotics even in this cir- cumstance. Wood ticks do not require antibiotics. How- ever, I have seen cellulitis develop as a result of a wood tick bite, so consider that diagnosis should a rash develop. Doxycycline and amox- icillin are probably the two most used antibiotics. Both are safe when used preventatively. They are not just inexpensive, but a single dose of ei- ther is not likely to have too many complications from it. For full treatment, anything less than three weeks seems inadequate. I do see providers giving the appropriate antibiotic for just two weeks and many times the patient’s symptoms have not resolved.
Despite being called Lyme disease, the con- stellation of symptoms was first described in the
affected most in one way or another: Lyme dis- ease. This near ubiquitous infection, at least for those residing is Wisconsin, is both is both part of the background of outdoor life and quite frightening at the same time. I get asked a lot about this infection and have had to dispel many myths about it. While I will never claim to be an expert, I am not Lyme illiterate either. Lyme disease (not Lyme’s disease) is named after the community. (It is not named after a per- son hence it is not a possessive pronoun which is why there is no “s” at the end of the name). This community seemed to have had a particu- larly bad run of infections initially thought to be Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. When parents pressed the local doctors about why all of a sud- den many of the children had this rare condition, investigation eventually turned up the Lyme dis- ease bacteria. It is a bit of an unusual bacteria because of its shape. There are quite a few family members in this bacteria species that can cause disease, but they seem to be fairly regional. Wisconsin, as is the case across most of the known range of Lyme disease, has just the one. There is no need to be tested for an extensive battery of variations of the bacteria unless you are a world traveler. While I will not claim that the test is per- fect, it has been well refined over the decades that it has been available and should be trusted. I think one reason that the test is claimed to not be accurate is that people are convinced the symptoms they are having are the result of Lyme disease. In reality, like many diagnoses, there are a lot of common symptoms that can be attributed to something else. Many times these symptoms are temporary and resolve on their own. If you
1970s by a LaCrosse physician after one of his colleagues was vacationing in Medford, Wis- consin. The technology of the day apparently did not let them characterize the bacteria and it was just an interesting syndrome that re- sponded to antibiotics. But it may date back even farther than that. A natural human mummy (the Ice Man), found in the Alps in 1991, died around 3300 BC and he reportedly tested pos- itive for a variation of Lyme disease. Unlike an- other recent illness, I don’t expect a lab leak to be the source of this bacteria. The tick that transmits this infection is com- monly known around us as the deer tick, al- though I have heard some call it the bear tick. Deer and mice are the natural hosts for this tick, humans just get in the way sometimes. The most contagious tick is the juvenile tick. These are even smaller than the already small adult tick and often go without notice. Deer ticks are the “good relatives” of the tick world; they leave after 3 days. A wood tick will stay until re- moved. The statistic that I have always heard is that 60% of Lyme patients never see the tick that bit them. I think another reason why so
There is also a virus that the tick can transmit, but that is self limited and symptoms resolve on their own. To make matters more scary, there is “tick creep.” That is my term for ticks that nor- mally have been found in other parts of the country but now seem to be found in Wiscon- sin. Another concern I hear about is chronic Lyme. There is no doubt a post infection cluster of symptoms can develop. It is not a continuing in- fection though. Once treated with the appropri- ate antibiotic, the bacteria is dead. I was listening to a podcast a couple of years ago and the person being interviewed was talking about long COVID and how the inability to rid the body of spike protein was causing many of the symp- toms. He said this was like the body’s inability to remove a portion of the Lyme bacteria cell wall and how that caused ongoing symptoms. My mind was blown, suddenly everything I had been seeing with these patients made sense. Now if I could just find what rids the body of that bit of nasty. The spike protein detoxifiers do not seem to be that helpful. Unfortunately this ongoing set of symptoms can be quite de-
I don’t like long courses of antibiotics but I have seen too many failures with anything less.
Wherever you fall in this conversation, take the time to enjoy what nature has to offer, but be safe, check for ticks and seek attention for this when needed. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. (Ben Franklin) GenesisPrimaryCare.com Please see the display ad on Page 20 of this issue of Wisconsin Christian News).
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