Here is the story: a 36 y.o. healthy male with a young family is having muscle weakness in this hands, left wrist and muscle twitches. The neurologists seem to think it could be ALS. Of course, they cannot diagnosis him with ALS until more symptoms present. Bearing all this in mind, about 1 1/2 yrs ago he was bit by a tick, had lyme (with presentation of the bullseye rash), went to a physician who gave him a one day dose of antibiotic and did not put him on an extensive antibiotic therapy. When he recently had blood work done at the neurologists request, they tested him for lyme (anything over 1.0 is positive, anything between 1.0 -0.0 is "equivacol", and 0.0 is negative). His test results came back as 0.91 and the neurologists read this as a negative.
We have been following up with infectious disease Drs hoping this is a case of lyme disease. A "lyme literate medical doctor" said that he most likely has lyme and it is unclear if the lyme has progressed to ALS. This Dr. said that by going on meds to treat the lyme could speed up the progression of ALS, slow down the progression or even cure him all together. At this point we are going to follow-up with an infectious disease specialist.
My questions to this forum are: could it be possible that lyme has brought on ALS, could it be that he just has lyme, if he has both ALS and lyme how do we know what to do --does he take the lyme medicine, not take the lyme medicine .....HELP! This is all so new, has made for a terrible holiday season, and we are very scared. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
We have been following up with infectious disease Drs hoping this is a case of lyme disease. A "lyme literate medical doctor" said that he most likely has lyme and it is unclear if the lyme has progressed to ALS. This Dr. said that by going on meds to treat the lyme could speed up the progression of ALS, slow down the progression or even cure him all together. At this point we are going to follow-up with an infectious disease specialist.
My questions to this forum are: could it be possible that lyme has brought on ALS, could it be that he just has lyme, if he has both ALS and lyme how do we know what to do --does he take the lyme medicine, not take the lyme medicine .....HELP! This is all so new, has made for a terrible holiday season, and we are very scared. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.