Symptoms of Lyme Disease and Co-infections

One tick bite can cause many infections and each infection has its own set of symptoms.  Lyme disease specifically refers to infection with a bacteria called Borrelia and I understand that there are several Borrelia species throughout the world and that they in turn can take on one of three forms.  A comprehensive antibiotic therapy is directed at each of these forms.  At this point in time, I am being treated with Bicillin which will only stop the spirochete form from multiplying.  The Plaquenil and Minocycline that I was on prior to this were meant to deal with the cyst and L-form (cell-wall deficient form) bacteria but I was taken off them due to my gut problems.

There are so many symptoms that can be attributed to Borreliosis alone but when you include symptoms that may be also caused by co-infections the symptom list becomes overwhelming.  An individual in the early stages of Lyme disease is not going to present with all the symptoms but very slowly over time more and more symptoms are likely to appear as the disease spreads to different organ systems.

I found a web-page that has tried to put these symptoms in some order.  Here is what Mum was looking for.  Read More

The most likely co-infections are Babesia and Bartonella infections but I have not been tested for these.  They are expensive tests only done in the USA. I have a positive history for Mycoplasma Pneumoniae but I have tested negative to Rickettsia (scrub typhus), Q-Fever, Leptospira and Chlamydia.

The following is Dr. Burrascano's 2005 Symptom List Chart

Some relevant quotes:
"Like syphilis in the 19th century, Lyme disease has been called the great imitator and should be considered in the differential diagnosis of rheumatologic and neurologic conditions, as well as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, somatization disorder and any difficult-to-diagnose multi-system illness."  Ref: http://www.ilads.org/lyme_disease/about_lyme1.html