Can Lyme cause mental illness?

Can Lyme cause mental illness?

A broad range of psychiatric reactions have been associated with Lyme disease including paranoia, dementia, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, panic attacks, major depression, anorexia nervosa, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Does Lyme cause depression?

There is growing evidence that Lyme disease can lead to psychiatric symptoms, including anxiety disorders and depression. There have been cases where chronically ill Lyme disease patients were suicidal.

Does Lyme cause anxiety?

Lyme Disease, or Lyme Borreliosis, caused by Borrelia burgdorferi and spread by ticks, is mainly known to cause arthritis and neurological disorders but can also cause psychiatric symptoms such as depression and anxiety.

Does Lyme disease cause suicidal thoughts?

As Dr. Robert C. Bransfield writes, “Lyme and other tick-borne diseases contributes to causing a significant number of previously unexplained suicides and is associated with immune-mediated and metabolic changes resulting in psychiatric and other symptoms.”

Can Lyme disease make anxiety worse?

While some mental conditions can cause physical symptoms, we commonly see physical illnesses create mental symptoms, and Lyme disease is no different. If you have Lyme disease, anxiety and depression are extremely common, essentially making a horrible situation even worse, but finding relief is possible.

Can someone have Lyme disease for years and not know it?

It’s quite unusual,” said Farber, the infectious disease specialist. “For the overwhelming majority of people who have Lyme disease, it’s been diagnosed and treated, and even when it’s not diagnosed, they don’t go on to develop those symptoms,” he stressed.

What causes Lyme flare ups?

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that’s caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi. You can become infected if you’re bitten by a tick that carries the bacteria. Typically, black-legged ticks and deer ticks spread this disease. These ticks collect the bacteria when they bite diseased mice or birds.

Does Lyme disease affect the eyes?

Fortunately, involvement of the eye is uncommon in lyme disease. But when the eyes can be affected in many different ways by the disease. In the early stage of the disease, many persons have conjunctivitis. In this condition, commonly called pink eye, the eyes are red and uncomfortable, and there is a discharge of pus.

Does Lyme disease cause yellow eyes?

Gastrointestinal complications are often seen in Lyme disease. But hyperbilirubinemia, a condition that causes yellow discoloration of the eyes and skin, referred to as jaundice, is a rare manifestation of Lyme disease.