How many people have been told “Your labs are normal.”
“It’s just fibromyalgia.”
“You need to learn to live with it.
Meanwhile their body is screaming with burning nerve pain, crushing fatigue, brain fog, migrating muscle aches, air hunger, night sweats, swollen nodes, and sleep that never restores them.Sound familiar?!?!
Here’s the part that needs to be said louder:
Fibromyalgia is not one single disease.It is a pain processing syndrome.And sometimes… that pain processing system is being driven by chronic tick-borne infections.
These infections can inflame the nervous system, disrupt oxygen delivery, irritate fascia and nerves, and keep the immune system in a constant state of activation.
Let’s also talk about testing
The Current CDC two-tier Lyme disease testing is missing over 50% of actual positive casesMost routine panels test for only one strain of Borrelia, while multiple species and coinfections can cause illnessCoinfections are often never evaluated.Bartonella testing has low sensitivity - ( there are multiple species of Bartonella yet most species are not tested for) bacteria can hide inside cells and blood vessels, making it difficult to detect on routine labs.. Babesia testing can miss infections because parasite levels in the blood can fluctuate and may be below detection at the time of testingTiming matters -- testing too early or too late in the disease process can lead to false negativesMany doctors rely on rigid criteria instead of clinical diagnosis + full symptom picture, causing infections to be missed
Most physicians are simply not trained to recognize complex tick-borne illness presentations.So patients get handed a diagnosis that explains symptoms…but the root cause is never addressed.
In order to be properly evaluated for tickborne infections you must seek out the help of a medical provider that has undergone ILADS training.
