True Crime As True Lyme: Tick Bite Leads To Murder-Suicide

Tortured by Lyme disease, a young man killed his friend and himself. He is not alone.

by Mary Beth Pfeiffer, Trial Site News

For decades, Lyme disease physicians have seen a small share of late-stage patients with symptoms far beyond the physical ravages of a tick bite.

These patients, estimated to be 1 percent of chronic Lyme psychiatric cases, manifest brain disorders so intractable that they become violent, even homicidal.

Now, a new article in the science journal Heliyon validates these observations and reveals possible mechanisms driving them. It tells the horrific story of a 32-year-old man whose tickborne infection at age 14—one of several—went unrecognized until it was unresponsive to treatment.

Failed by short-course antibiotics that mainstream medical guidance swears by, he descended into substance abuse, as many chronic Lyme patients do, to ease his anxiety, depression, and physical pain. READ MORE  

A patient with psychiatric manifestations of Lyme depicted his pain in this painting. He would later commit suicide. (Photo by permission of Dr. Robert Bransfield.)

Mary Beth Pfeiffer is an investigative journalist and author of Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change. 

(Note: The important work discussed in this article came about because the family trusted the Lyme Disease Biobank with this young man’s body. Furthermore, Bay Area Lyme Foundation funded this research. Click here to learn more about the biobank.)

I have never heard of the psychiatric manifestations of Lyme but can certainly understand it. When your body is invaded and attacked every minute causing severe pain in many areas of the body, understand the feeling of losing your mind. The Lyme Spirokeetes set up house in my brain, eating away at my memory, and balance and causing havoc on my entire body. No amount of pain medication can give relief, it’s non-stop. Thank goodness it’s a very small percentage of Lyme patients that are affected by Psychiatric Manifestations.

Melinda