Lyme Disease & The Placebo Effect

This article quoted in the NYT certainly makes you wonder whether Dr Sarno is right when he speculates about the existence (or non-existence) of Lyme Disease as the cause of all kinds of symptoms that long-term sufferers say they are experiencing:

http://www.slate.com/articles/healt..._effects_and_misleading_anecdotes.single.html

I know I had a tick bite on March 9th of this year, after which I experienced all kinds of symptoms, including chronic colds and rashes. Only trouble was that I was tested and the results came up with no Lyme Disease, a high white blood cell count and nothing particularly remarkable. Only coincidence was that I was bitten on the anniversary of my father's death. Sounds pretty body-mind to me! Makes you wonder whether people with so-called chronic Lyme Disease actually are suffering from PPDs or TMS and are in turn "blaming" their arthritic symptoms on the old tick bite as they desperately look for a physical cause? Sounds a lot like people who say the pain in their back or butt is due to an old injury they had 15 years ago playing football.

 

An interesting article BruceMC , I remember two years ago after being fatigued for quit some time
I came across an article talking about lymes disease and how you'll have chronic fatigue and hard to breath and so on
then I remembered about a month earlier pulling a tick off my shoulder - then wow,
talk about symptoms I got the rest of the symptoms to go with what I had.
Surprisingly my Dr. told me it was just a myth, it didn't exist- of course I believed the internet and the media over him
and went got myself a round of penicillin. 30 days later I was like a young kid again , breathing good
and no fatigue, The back pain even temporarily left since body pain is another symptom of lymes disease
now im not sure either or but im convinced I didn't have any lymes disease- it was just my imagination giving me what id read
a big dose of my focus gone off to panic mode.
Aint it nice to know we didn't develop meningitis
im not making light of this - although I do believe its TMS

 

Trouble with Lyme Disease is that everyone's heard about it and is afraid of it. There are signs all over a local Bay Area county park warning everyone that ticks in the area have been found to carry Lyme. I know that my old school doctor of 40 years regarded Lyme disease with a great deal of skepticism. But I do know a waitress up in Yosemite who is absolutely certain her late husband had Lyme and ultimately died from it. I remain highly skeptical simply because it's a condition that's worked its way into the public imagination, very much the way back pain has. If you had a tick bite a while back and then for some reason start having rheumatic symptoms, the first thing most people will do is start thinking Lyme Disease. OMG I've got it and there's no cure! There's no doubt though that you can get a nasty infection from any kind of tick bite whether Lyme Disease is present or not.

 

Wouldn't surprise me at all to be another emotion-based physical manifestation!

 

I definitely had Lyme disease back in 2003. I noticed a huge bite on my leg, it looked a little like a spider bite, so I phoned the doctor just to ask what it might be, hoping to save myself a trip. I was only mildly concerned. The nurse said not be concerned if there was no obvious ring around it. At that time I didn't perceive a ring around the bite, so I put it out of my mind. Within the next week, I developed huge rings around the bite, Bell's Palsey, terrible headaches and muscle aches, and flu symptoms. When I finally showed up at the doctor's office, they sent me immediately to the hospital to be tested because it had to be reported to the health authorities in my state. They did a test that pretty much confirmed it, gave me a boatload of antibiotics and sent me on my way. That was on a Monday, the weekend before I had felt really awful. (I finally left work Monday afternoon because I felt so bad and my face was really messed up from the Bells Palsey.) I started taking the antibiotics (I had to take them for 5 weeks), and took Tuesday off work. By Wednesday, I felt well enough to work half a day and back to work after that. Once I began the antibiotics, the headaches, flu symptoms and muscle aches got much better. The Bell's Palsey took about 2 months to go away completely.

I never had any symptoms after that or any ill effects from the experience. I have never associated that experience with Lyme as anything more than it was. I do believe that I also have TMS, that my intermittent chronic pain is not associated in any way with Lyme. I had episodes of TMS long before ever having had Lyme. I do think that some sort of chronic Lyme after treatment or in someone who never obviously had the disease is nonsense. Some people will go to ridiculous lengths to find some physical reason for their chronic pain when it is often TMS related. I have no doubt that antibiotics could provide a placebo effect.

 

That's awesome chickenbone, thanks for letting us know- now we know
im glad you got better, that sounds aweful what you went through
like I said, I took the antibiotics and got better, I know for me it probably wasn't or was it
I still have a little bit of that red mark- not much but a little? hum

 

Does "pretty much confirmed it", chickenbone, mean that the tests detected evidence of Lyme in your blood? I had all kinds of symptoms after my tick bite in March, but the lab never found Lyme or anything else weird about my blood. Also, was the tick head embedded in the wound? They can tell for certain if you bring it in when you're examined. Of course, ticks can carry lot of other nasty stuff and you can get septicemia from a puncture wound too.

FYI: Here's the Wiki entry for Lyme Disease:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease

 

Thanks for the link. Reading this reminds me of what Sarno said about Post Polio Syndrome. People DO suffer paralysis, etc. from PPS, yet started suffering pain only after patients had been dealing with PPS for decades without pain. He was able to cure the pain, but not the paralysis.