Coincidental distribution of (top) multiple sclerosis and (bottom) Lyme disease. (Sources: Lymedisease.net and NASA)
“Tara Geraghty observed a contemporary phenomenon while she watched her husband’s health decline and doctors reject even looking into the possibility of her husband having Lyme and not ALS: “There’s something about Lyme disease that no one wants to talk about it,” she told The Valley Breeze.
Indeed, there seems to be an inexplicable culture of squashing investigation into Lyme disease. Many today think that people who have persistent or late-stage Lyme are either pretending or imagining it, and dismiss them offhand. While this happens often in the United States, Australians seem to have particular challenges being acknowledged: This woman, who suffered up to 11 seizures per day, told the UK Daily Mail, “They would ship me off to psychiatrists who just kept saying, “I don’t know why they keep sending you to me.” She had been unable to walk; after pursuing a controversial treatment in Germany, she can now walk and has resumed nursing school, according to the article. The debate over chronic/persistent Lyme disease is too complex to detail here; the reality is that existing research both argues againstand in favor of versions of the interpretation, and evidence exists supporting “persister” strains of bacteria that are not killed off by the standard short-term application of antibiotics. Whether “chronic Lyme” is due to ongoing infectious disease or an autoimmune or other disorder triggered by the initial infection wasn’t settled here — and won’t be settled here.”
