Multiple Sclerosis Patients Should Be Tested for Lyme Disease

It’s become a far too common experience. People presenting with all the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis, getting the diagnosis (more often than not the official diagnosis they receive is “probable MS”), and undergoing treatment are not finding any improvement of their symptoms. Some notice that with the injections many MS patients take daily, their symptoms had, in fact, worsened considerably. The experience is frustrating and painful, both emotionally and physically. Why is this happening? And why so frequently?

If this is the case with you or someone you know, I strongly encourage the patient with MS or probable MS to call their primary care physician’s office and request a test for Lyme Disease. There are several types out there, and some can throw false negatives, so if you are tested and the results come back negative, you have nothing to lose by requesting another test using a different method. At this point, you’re most likely already in pain and are definitely spending more time with your doctor than you ever imagined possible, so what have you got to lose.

Because both Multiple Sclerosis and Lyme Disease are diseases of the central nervous system, they both manifest themselves in ways that are different person to person. Multiple Sclerosis is caused by lesions, sometimes called plaques, that appear on the brain and spinal cord. Lyme Disease is caused by introduction of the BB virus into the body by the bite of a deer tick. This virus attacks the same areas as the lesions of MS. The deer tick is smaller than the dog tick, and as the symptoms come on slowly and progress over a period years, so many patients either don’t know or don’t remember that they were ever bitten.