Curious about Tick-borne Infections? 04/21/2012
Posted by thetickthatbitme in TBI Facts.Tags: Borrelia burgdorferi, Borrelia hermsii, diagnosis, facts, infection, Lyme, Lyme Disease, TBI, tick-borne, treatment, ugly stepsister
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Happy Saturday, loyal readers!
I thought I’d point out that I’ve added a new section to the blog: Infection Fact Sheets. One of my goals with this blog is to give you, my readers, access to as much factual information about tick-borne infectious diseases–or TBIDs, as I like to abbreviate them–as possible.
Since you’ve stumbled upon this blog, I’m sure you’ve heard of Lyme Disease, but do you know the name of the bacterium that causes it? Are you familiar with the common and not-so-common symptoms? What about the different drugs that are used to treat this infection? Check out the fact sheet here.
And let’s not forget Borrelia hermsii, which I consider to be like Lyme’s neglected ugly stepsister. Nope, no press for Ms. B. hermsii… Take pity on her (or if not her, me, a hermsii survivor) and pay a visit to her fact sheet.
Poor Borrelia hermsii… No one talks about her.
If I were truly going to put my teacher hat on and plan a lesson for you, I’d tell you to make a K-W-L chart and take notes!
Once you’re done with the Borrelia sisters, you’ll probably be hungering (or worrying?) for more TBID info. Here’s a list of what’s to come: Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis (WA-1), Ehrlichiosis, Rickettsia (Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever), and more!
THE TICK THAT BIT ME 
You have great information. I was diagnosed with Lymes by EAV, electro-accupuncture by Voll. Do you know whether that is reliable?
(On another note, maybe your TBI should be re thought? In the medical field, TBI commonly refers to Traumatic Brain Injury!)
Ann, thanks so much for stopping by! You post an interesting question. I don’t have any first-hand experience with electro-accupuncture; however, I did run a PubMed search to see if there is any research on electro-accupuncture and diagnosis, and no one seems to be studying its use for diagnosis of infections. What they are studying is its use for the treatment of various conditions, particularly pain conditions. I’m not sure how one would use electro-accupuncture to detect an infection, and if one could detect an infection using this method, I don’t know how you would differentiate one infection from another. For example, my doctor likes to check for postural tachycardia because this often indicates an infection (see this post for an explanation), but that doesn’t tell him which kind of infection a patient has. Because Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme) symptoms overlap with those of other infections, I’d say it might be a good idea to have some additional tests done, if you’re okay with having your blood drawn. If you’d like some additional reading on EAV and diagnosis, Wikipedia has an article here and Quackwatch has one here.
You raise a good point about the TBI acronym. In more recent posts, for the sake of clarity, I’ve gone back to just saying tick-borne infections. Perhaps I will transition to TBD–tick-borne disease.
Good luck with your diagnosis and treatment!