Can a tick bite drive you crazy?

Doctors warn that Lyme disease may cause personality changes

By Valerie Andrews
January 2004

A walk in the woods nearly cost Mike M. his sanity. After receiving multiple tick bites, Mike broke out in an angry rash and his joints began to ache. In the next few months, his behavior grew increasingly bizarre. he was no longer able to read or concentrate, and became so anxious he couldn’t leave the house. Eventually, Mike was treated for chronic Lyme disease, an illness that can play havoc with the mind.

As Lyme disease progresses, it can attack the nervous system, producing learning disabilities, mood swings, anxiety and depression, panic attacks, obsessive behavior, sudden rages and other psychiatric diagnoses. says Raxlen, “when this happens, we’re looking at a completely different syndrome and one that is harder to cure.”

Family members are baffled by these transformations; counselors and physicians are consulted, often to no avail. While these individuals may also have migrating muscles pain, headaches and problems with their joints—common signs of Lyme—these symptoms are rarely picked up in a mental health evaluation. and when traditional psychiatric medication fails to produce a cure, the patient grows more desperate.

The Search for a Diagnosis

How can a physician tell the difference between true mental illness and symptoms linked to Lyme disease? with Lyme disease, a patient’s psychiatric symptoms don’t quite fit the textbook definition. there is usually no previous history of psychiatric illness. Symptoms often come in cycles. Patients usually do not respond well to psychiatric medication. And they often describe their problems in very physical terms.

Lyme patients often say, “There’s a wall in my brain and I can’t seem to move my thoughts from the back to the front.” “this arises from encephalopathy, an inflammation in the brain that affects cognitive function,” Solomon explains.

Symptoms often worsen as the Lyme bacteria grow active and begin to reproduce. At the same time, a patient may experience physical symptoms, such as fatigue, muscle pain or headaches. Flare-ups are often triggered by stress.

Family problems, economic changes, job loss, surgery, an auto accident, or a bad case of the flu, can send Lyme patients into a sudden tailspin. Along with antibiotics, these people need to rest—and do anything they can to lessen their emotional load.

Effects of Lyme Disease on Marriages

“my patients come in to talk about their marital problems and are surprised to learn that they are linked to an organic illness,” says Virginia Sherr, MD, a psychiatrist who practices in eastern Pennsylvania, another region known for its high rate of tick-borne infections. ninety percent of Sherr’s patients test positive for Lyme disease. she then has the job of describing to them just how this condition can affect the mind and the emotions.

Lyme disease can cause increasing irritability and dramatic flares of anger, says Sherr.

“Suddenly you hear bone-cutting verbal assaults from people who are usually more measured and benign. They may have been harboring some small grievance for years, then that hot spot comes to life and they spew out all this venom. Such outbursts cause lasting wounds.”

“Physicians who don’t know that Lyme causes personality changes may be dismissive or sharply critical of the patient. Our goal should be to educate couples and help them cope.”

Lyme Disease and Domestic Violence

“Lyme disease often strikes an entire families and the result is a higher incidence of divorce, family dysfunction, and domestic violence,” says Robert Bransfield, MD, a psychiatrist in Red Bank, new Jersey. “Tempers flare and you see increasing conflict.”

“Lyme disease is like an injury of the brain,” says Bransfield. “Patient are less able to think things through, and tend to act impulsively. A mother may suddenly lash out at her child and a husband may lose control and abuse his wife. “we underestimate the role of infectious disease in domestic violence,” he adds.