Dr Daniel Warren of Envita Medical Centers Speaks to Lakeland News on Lyme Disease Awareness
The tick-borne infection, called Lyme disease, often remains undiagnosed or misdiagnosed because it may manifest varied symptoms in different people. “It's variable in terms of how it presents, but it mostly affects the neurological system because that's where the majority of infection lives,” said Dr. Daniel Warren, N.M.D, Envita Medical Centers, speaking to Lakeland News on Lyme Disease Awareness month.
The Lyme causing bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, is transmitted to humans through tick bites, but there may be instances when an infected tick spreads other viral or parasitic co-infections along with Lyme disease. Depending on the area of the body impacted by the infection, infectious load of each individual patient, and their immune system's response to the infection, patients may manifest different symptoms. Chronic fatigue and joint pain are some of the most common symptoms, but patients may experience other symptoms such as brain fog, memory issues, neuropathies, migraines, abdominal pain, bloating, and nausea.
Due to this exhaustive list of symptoms, diagnosing the disease becomes challenging for doctors, especially those who do not have experience in treating this complex disease. “A lot of times it starts, for some people, it's like an instantaneous thing... for a lot of people, it's just ongoing fatigue,” said Sarah Schlichte, former Lyme disease patient, who struggled for years before she got treated at Envita.
Patients like her often get referred from one specialist to another, who find it difficult to diagnose the actual cause of their symptoms. The lack of timely diagnosis and intervention aggravates the disease. Explaining further challenges in diagnosing Lyme disease, Dr. Warren, said, “It is often misdiagnosed because the criteria for diagnosis for the conventional testing are very stringent.” If the patient's immune system is weak and it does not produce antibodies in response to the Lyme causing bacteria then the conventional tests will show false negative, leading to disease aggravation and other complications. “That's why it's so important to have not only the right tests, but also to have multiple tests,” said Dr. Warren, who has been treating Lyme disease patients with targeted proprietary treatments for over two decades at Envita.
To know more about the challenges of Lyme disease diagnosis and treatment, watch here.
