Lyme kills

Three deaths reported from heart inflammation caused by Lyme disease

bo.st

Three young adults in the Northeast who abruptly died in the past 13 months had an undetected heart inflammation caused by Lyme disease, according to a federal study published Thursday that suggests death from the tick-borne bacteria is more common than previously thought.

via Boston.com

 

Really this is nothing new.  Patients die every year, in many hospitals from heart block due to Lyme disease. It is only when the lucky ones recover we learn that Lyme is the culprit. Lyme can affect the heart in several ways: damage the electrical conducting system causing the heart to become irregular and then stop(heart block), cause inflammation around the lining of the heart causing the pericardial sac to fill up with fluid constricting the motion of the heart and by directly attacking and damaging the heart muscle itself.

 

I currently have 2 patients with life-saving and permanent pacemakers and another patient who suffered with acute pericarditis and whose life was saved with an emergency surgery cutting a window in the pericardial sac to allow the constricting fluid to drain.

 

Despite this, the same, tired IDSA talking heads keep telling the public that Lyme is a mild illness cured with a couple of weeks of antibiotics and that no-one has ever died from Lyme disease.  "There have never been any documented cases of death resulting from Lyme disease."