Under Our Skin: The Untold Story Of Lyme Disease

By Dr. Mercola

Photo Credit wikipedia

Unrelenting pain. Headaches, muscle aches, swollen joints, rashes. Loss of coordination and muscle spasms. Intermittent paralysis. Cycles of disabling symptoms that persist for years, causing ceaseless suffering and frustration for patients and their families.

This is the picture of chronic Lyme disease. And yet, many physicians tell their patients there is “no such thing,” referring them to psychiatrists, misdiagnosing them, or even accusing them of fabricating an illness or simply seeking attention.

An award-winning documentary called “Under Our Skin” exposes the hidden story of Lyme disease, one of the most serious and controversial epidemics of our time.

Each year, thousands go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, often told their symptoms are all in their heads. This film brings into focus a troubling picture of a health care system that is far too willing to put profits ahead of patients.

The History and Discovery of Lyme Disease

Lyme disease rates are escalating at breakneck speed, among humans as well as animals. Today, Lyme disease the most common vector borne disease in the U.S., far more common and dangerous to the average American than West Nile virus. In fact, there were almost 40,000 reported cases of Lyme in 2009,¹ which by all accounts is a gross underestimate.

The CDC estimates the real number of cases may be up to 12 times higher, suggesting as high as 480,000, making Lyme far more prevalent than AIDS. The number of Lyme cases reported annually has increased nearly 25-fold since national surveillance began in 1982.²

Lyme disease was named after the East Coast town of Lyme, Connecticut, where the disease was first identified in 1975.³ The disease was first referred to as “Lyme arthritis” due to the presentation of atypical arthritic symptoms. By 1977, the black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis, also known as the deer tick) was linked to transmission of the disease.

Then in 1982, Willy Burgdorfer, PhD, discovered the bacterium responsible for the infection: Borrelia burgdorferi. The bacteria are released into your blood from the infected tick, while the tick is drinking your blood.

We now know there are five subspecies of Borrelia burgdorferi, more than 100 strains in the U.S. and 300 worldwide, many of which have developed resistance to our various antibiotics. Although many still attribute transmission exclusively to ticks, according to Dr. Deitrich Klinghardt, one of the leading authorities on Lyme disease, the bacteria can also be spread by other insects, including mosquitoes, spiders, fleas, and mites. This may be the reason so few Lyme sufferers recall being bitten by a tick.

Borrelia burgdorferi is a spirochete,⁴ a cousin to the spirochete bacterium that causes syphilis. In fact, they look very similar under a microscope. B. burgdorferi’s corkscrew-shaped form allows it to burrow into and hide in a variety of your body’s tissues, which is why it causes such wide-ranging multisystem involvement.

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