A: The most common co-infections are Babesia, Bartonella, Mycoplasma, and Anaplasmosis. Here is something everyone should know. it could be possible you don't have Lyme, but you have one of these other tickborne infections such as Bartonella. We see this many times in our office. Also, may doctor's offices will check for Lyme and if that comes back negative, not test for any of the co-infections. We think this is the wrong approach. A better approach is to test for Lyme with two to three of the most common Minnesota co-infections depending on your clinical symptoms. In our experience this takes the guesswork work out and we are able to get you better faster.

A: Anaplasmosis is a bacteria just like Lyme disease bacteria (Borrelia), but it infects a person’s white blood cells. We talk to most doctors about this and it’s very mysterious to them because it causes low white blood cell counts and a slight elevation in liver enzymes. Showing a low white blood cell count can quickly confuse doctors if they aren’t already thinking about Anaplasmosis because 98% of all infections cause HIGH white blood cells. 

A: It is possible to have tick-borne illness that is NOT Lyme disease.  We often run a co-infection panel, or at a minimum, run a Bartonella, Babesia and Anaplasma tests in patients with chronic illness in Minnesota. Sometimes we will also test for Ehrilichia and Powassan Virus.

A: The top symptoms of chronic Lyme are fatigue, joint/muscle pain, and neurological complications (such as brain fog, vertigo, neuropathy, or depression). However only 75% of Lyme patients have fatigue, and only 50% have pain, and about 60% have neurological involvement. These relatively low percentages can mean Lyme patients can look very different from one another. Also, which co-infections you are dealing with can change the clinical symptoms as well. For example, Babesia with Lyme may clinically show up differently than Anaplasmosis with Lyme.

A: The topic of co-infections can complicate things. Doctors have said that “the tick is nature’s dirty needle.” These ticks live and eat mice blood and deer blood, so when you are bitten by a tick, often times it’s not like you get just one present...you may have gotten a whole cocktail of bugs and there are many different tick borne illnesses to consider. The other complication with handling Lyme and Chronic Lyme is the differing in opinions for published criteria between the CDC and IDSA (Infectious Diseases Society of America) on how to test for it. The best advice I can give you is to work with a Lyme Literate doctor, to always get a second opinion and to know that if you are not feeling better in 3-6 months you need to do something different or work with a different MD.