Living with Chronic Pain
As the weather is getting warmer and we are emerging from our winter hibernations through spring blossoms and soon into early summer, we will see a rise in tick borne infectious disease. Lyme disease is a bacterial infection we get from infected ticks. Symptoms of the initial infection may or may not include a bullseye rash but can also include fever, headache, chills, fatigue, muscle and joint aches, and swollen lymph nodes. If the infection isn’t treated promptly, symptoms can progress into neurological tissue and cause systemic and local inflammation that manifests as arthritis, severe joint and nerve pain, dizziness and cognitive issues, and memory problems.
Sometimes it can be caught early, other times it takes months to years to even be diagnosed. If the illness is left untreated, chronic joint pain and neurological problems like meningitis, Bell’s palsy, numbness or weakness in the limbs, and impaired muscle movement may also occur. In these cases, a comprehensive pain management treatment plan is often beneficial to mitigate symptoms. At the Stram Center, we take a multidisciplinary approach to all of our patients with our multitude of services such as acupuncture, integrative functional medicine, massage therapy, mental health services, and nutrition along with our nurse team delivering amazing IV therapy, saunas, and HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen therapy).
In other cases, Lyme disease and co-infections can be rather stubborn and progress even further into Lyme arthritis. A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explores why this may be happening. Bacteria have a matrix of protein and sugar, called peptidoglycan, that help protect and keep the contents inside their cell from spilling open. Bacteria tend to like to reduce, reuse, and recycle their peptidoglycan as they reproduce and divide, but the B. burgorferi bacterium is different. It has a structure that renders their peptidoglycan unable to be reused and so it dumps the structure into its surroundings.
This peptidoglycan collects in the joints where B. burgdorferi has inhabited and this is shown by the patients with Lyme arthritis having this peptidoglycan in their joint fluid. The body will produce specific antibodies to the peptidoglycan in the joint fluid which may have a correlation with the uptick in inflammation that contributes to the arthritis pathophysiology. Continuing treatment post infection may be necessary for these patients as the peptidoglycan can remain after the B. burdorferi DNA has been removed and killed off. There are many options available with the Stram Center and we are very excited to help bring this integrative model to our new Burlington office.
Jutras BL, Lochhead RB, Kloos ZA, Biboy J, Strle K, Booth CJ, Govers SK, Gray J, Schumann P, Vollmer W, Bockenstedt LK, Steere AC, Jacobs-Wagner C. Borrelia burgdorferi peptidoglycan is a persistent antigen in patients with Lyme arthritis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Jul 2;116(27):13498-13507. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1904170116. Epub 2019 Jun 17. PMID: 31209025; PMCID: PMC6613144
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