Lyme Disease Caused Immune Dysfunctions

One important aspect of pathology of LD is the infection caused patient to have immune dysfunctions which include immune deficiency, such as CD₅₇ low it means the cellular immunity is compromised, and low ability to produce antibodies, this made many patients being misdiagnosed because of testing methods are not sensitive enough to detect the low-level antibodies in the serum. It means the humeral immunity is also compromised. This caused many false negatives tests that result in many cases of misdiagnosed chronic LD.

Another immune dysfunction is autoimmunity, which caused many secondary autoimmune complications of LD, such as Hashimoto, rheumatoid like arthritis, fibromyalgia, vasculitis, Reynaud’s Syndrome, myocarditis, Sjogren Syndrome, and autoimmune encephalitis… etc. Autoimmune also caused over sensitivities, many patients become sensitive to things they used could enjoy, such as gluten intolerant is very common in chronic LD patients. Immune dysfunction not only diminishes patients’ ability to eradicate the infection but also created complications and symptoms that deteriorate their life quality and making them sick. So, for an effective LD protocol, regulating immunity is one of necessity treatments.

For patient with autoimmune complications, to distinguish whether the autoimmunity is primary or secondary to the LD is vitally important. I have seen many patients being diagnosed as primary rheumatoid arthritis and treated with steroids or even methotrexate (MTX) without knowing that it was LD caused autoimmune arthritis. The immune suppressive treatments not only ineffective but also made the underlying causative LD almost intractable. Even LD patient with primary autoimmune disorders before the Lyme infection, the immune suppressive treatment should also be avoided until the LD has been well treated then to treat the primary autoimmune disorders. This sequence is vitally important to remember. Without treating the underlying LD, the immune suppressive treatments for autoimmune related complications will not work and makes LD patient sicker.