Is a Tick Bite Causing Your Depression?

The symptoms your doc could be missing

From Prevention magazine
By Leah Zerbe


However you feel about the mild winter we just experienced (Yay for less shoveling! Boo for global warming!), one thing no one’s excited about: The explosion in the tick population it caused. And while most people know that ticks can carry Lyme disease, many of us know very little about the hard-to-pin-down disease. Here’s how to recognize the symptoms and protect yourself from Lyme disease.

What is Lyme disease? There’s a reason experts call it “The Great Imitator.” Lyme disease results from inflammation caused by Lyme bacteria, and the symptoms can mimic everything from rheumatoid arthritis and lupus to anxiety disorders and depression. Most often the result of a tick bite, Lyme disease's range of devastation is daunting: The same Lyme germ causing joint pain in one person could lead to symptoms associated with multiple sclerosis and Lou Gehrig's disease in another.

Read more:

http://www.prevention.com/mind-body/emotional-health/what-you-need-know-about-lyme-disease

Lyme and Alzheimer's conections

Some researchers have been wondering whether there might be a connection between Lyme Disease and Alzheimer's Disease. Here is a brief rundown on that research, with a few citations. This comment appeared on the CaliforniaLyme Yahoo group on Aug 10, 2012:

Several connections have been made between Lyme disease and Alzheimer's
disease (AD). Spirochetes have been found in brain tissue of those that
died of AD but not in controls that died of other causes (Miklossy, 1993).
Pieces of Borrelia DNA were found spliced into human DNA in another study
(MacDonald, 2006). Since it is DNA that forms protein strands, this foreign
DNA pieces that were spliced into the human DNA could very well cause the
formation of the tangled proteins that characterize AD. Miklossy (2011)
also found that about 90% of people with AD had spirochetal infections in
their brain. About 25% of these spirochetes were Borrelia, the others were
spirochetes common in dental infections. These are just a few of the
studies that have been done, linking infection of some sort, often
spirochetes, to AD. Other infections join in causing the damage, just like
in Lyme diseasel

MacDonald, (2006). Transfection "junk" DNA - a link to the pathogenesis of
Alzheimer's disease? Medical Hypothesis.
Miklossy, (1993). Alzheimer's disease - A spirochetosis? Neuroreport.
Miklossy, (2011). Alzheimer's disease - a neurospirochetosis. Analysis of
the evidence following Koch's and Hill's criteria. Journal of
Neuroinflammation.

Anne Mears, RN, MSN/IH