Doctors in the field estimate that there are about 2,500 cases a year in Ireland, with high incidences having been recorded in Donegal, Cork, Kerry and Wicklow.
Anna Collins, diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2012, moved to rural Co Dublin when she was six years old and within a few months developed serious kidney infections.
“Nobody knew anything about Lyme disease back then but I believe I may have been affected for the first time then,” she says.
Lyme disease is quite difficult to diagnose, especially if the person doesn’t develop the tell-tale bull’s eye rash after getting bitten by a tick
“I started getting these infections and was always a sickly child. I had them on and off for about 35 years.”
Lyme disease is a multi-systemic, tick-borne infectious disease caused by a spirochete, borrelia burgdorferi. Symptoms may vary from mild to severe but can include joint pain, muscle weakness and cognitive problems.
“Lyme disease is quite difficult to diagnose, especially if the person doesn’t develop the tell-tale bull’s eye rash after getting bitten by a tick,” Anna says. “Around 50% of people who are bitten by infected ticks get the rash so you’ve no clue.”
Anna, who is a nutritional therapist based in Dublin, became very ill in 2004 after a tick bite.
“I had been going through a period of great stress with a lot of serious illness in the family,” she says. “I was working in the antiques trade, too, where a lot of toxic chemicals were used so I think that my immune system was quite compromised.
“Then I got a flu-type virus. Doctors thought it was glandular fever but I never recovered from it. I was 38 and from being reasonably healthy, suddenly I was very sick. I remember actually getting a tick bite on my leg a few months before I got ill. I had spent a few days in the country and when I found the tick I brushed it off, but it would have been there for several days.”
Anna remembers the night sweats and the brain fog and the tiredness she experienced.
Impact on speech
“I actually became quite stupid,” she says. “There were even certain times of the day when I couldn’t even speak properly. I sounded a bit drunk. About three o’clock in the day the mental and physical fatigue was so bad that I had to go and lie on the floor upstairs in work. It took me eight years from then – until 2012 – to get a diagnosis.”
That period also saw her developing frequent throat and urinary tract infections, she says.
“They were cyclical. I’d have them every few weeks.”
By chance in 2012 Anna heard about a Tick Talk conference through a hill-walking magazine advertisement.
Lyme is quite hard to diagnose because the bacterial infection is very good at suppressing our immune systems
“When I read about Lyme disease, it rang bells for me so I went to the conference and sat there in the front row thinking, ‘Oh my God, this sounds like me.’”
It was the first ever Lyme disease conference organised by Jenny O’Dea, the woman who set up the support organisation Tick Talk Ireland.
Anna decided to have a test done for Lyme disease subsequently.
“Lyme is quite hard to diagnose because the bacterial infection is very good at suppressing our immune systems,” she says, “so you may need several tests to get a diagnosis.”
Anna tested positive after samples were sent to the Armin lab in Germany.
No straight path
Finding a treatment path wasn’t straightforward however.
“At first I didn’t really know what to do, but I sought out a specialist who had spoken at the Lyme conference. I later went on an antibiotic intramuscular injection programme for three months.”
While Anna doesn’t believe that this treatment eliminated all the infection in her body, the antibiotic treatment did help with her brain function.
“That armed me to be ready to take myself on as a patient,” she says. “It put me in a position where when I got the right protocols for Lyme, I was able to make really fast progress.”
Anna found a book by American herbalist, Stephen Buhner, very helpful at this time.
I also replaced some of the nutrients in my diet that Lyme bacteria like to eat
“He has produced meticulous research on Lyme, which shows that there are many underlying conditions with the disease also.”
The therapies Anna used, as a person trained in nutritional therapy and following these Buhner protocols, included sweating (sauna), detoxification and herbal therapy.
“I also replaced some of the nutrients in my diet that Lyme bacteria like to eat,” she says.
“Magnesium, for example, is a critical macro-mineral for our liver and brain function and our mood and in order to make antibodies for the immune system. Lyme is one of the only bacteria that uses up magnesium so I upped my intake of that.”
Anna found that she felt much better after about six weeks.
“Good diet is so important though. People can take all the herbs they like, but they are not going to get better if they don’t eat well. They need to be supporting gut bacteria and looking at digestive function too as many people with illnesses like this, their digestive system won’t be working properly.”
Currently she believes that she probably has a low level of Lyme infection still, but she is feeling much better. “It is really well controlled so I have a normal life. I will continue to do very low level natural therapies probably forever but I’m a well person, not an ill person, certainly compared to what I used to be.”
So what is Anna’s advice for anyone who has Lyme disease?
“My advice would be that it’s not just about Lyme disease. The body’s resistance has to be lowered in order for you to succumb to infection like this so those issues must be addressed in order for you to get well. This means that your mind set has to change for you to recover and breathing and mindfulness techniques as part of the detoxification process will help with this. You need a multi-pronged approach.”
Knowledge is power
She also advises watching the documentary Under Your Skin and researching Lyme disease.
“Knowledge is power,” she says. “I would recommend Stephen Buhner’s book, for example, Healing Lyme Disease, and one by Bryan Rosner called The Top 10 treatments for Lyme Disease, which I feel is very balanced.”
Lyme disease, or lime borreliosis, is a bacterial infection passed to humans through a tick bite. The bacteria is shaped like a corkscrew (called a spirochete) which enables it to burrow through body tissue, which most other bacteria wouldn’t be able to penetrate.
Symptoms usually develop a few days or weeks after a tick bite.
The first signs are an erythema migrans (EM), or “bull’s eye” rash that looks like a circle around the bite, but 50% of patients may not get this rash. Chronic flu-like symptoms and fatigue are usually experienced soon after an infection.
Occasionally, the patient may carry Lyme disease but have no outwardly obvious symptoms. Ill health may crop up years later following an illness or period of stress. This late Lyme disease can result in symptoms like joint pain, weakness, muscle aches, pelvic pain, visual problems, tremors, headaches and heart problems, even paralysis and loss of sight.
Treatment is by a course of antibiotics and if caught and treated within a few weeks, it is normally successful.
However, infections lasting more than a few weeks become increasingly difficult to treat, needing long courses of antibiotics and in some cases intravenous antibiotics may have to be used.
Symptoms become more varied and debilitating the longer an infection is left untreated. Chronic Lyme disease occurs in patients who remain untreated for a long time. Testing techniques for Lyme disease have limitations and can prove to be falsely positive or negative. Therefore it is important to take into account the clinical history of a tick bite or exposure to ticks.
Dr Jack Lambert is a consultant in infectious diseases based in the Mater Hospital’s Lyme Resource Centre. He has listed the challenges around Lyme disease as being:
He points out also that testing too soon can mean a negative test.
He says that a three-pronged approach is needed to treat the disease and its co-infections – antibiotics, anti-inflammatory medication and immune system support therapy if it has reached a chronic stage. While he does not support many complimentary treatments for Lyme disease, in relation to some herbal therapies that he has come across he is a “reluctant believer”, he told Irish Country Living in a past interview, after seeing them help some patients “turn a corner” in conjunction with their prescribed medications.
About 10-20 of the serious types of Lyme disease are reported to the Health Protection and Surveillance Centre (HPSC) each year, but while the HSE estimates that there are about 200 cases of Lyme disease in Ireland each year, doctors working in this field believe it could be nearer 2,500, with many people not knowing they have it.
Source: Tick Talk Ireland
Lyme disease: tips to avoid tick bites and severe illness this summer