Munchausen's syndrome by proxy and Lyme disease: medical misogyny or diagnostic mystery?

Sadly, this is an on going situation around the world.  Mothers who are concerned for their child's health are vilified by the very people who should be helping to regain the child's health. 

Abstract: Dr VT Sherr.
Chronic, tertiary Lyme disease, a vector-borne infection most accurately designated neuroborreliosis, is often misdiagnosed.

Infectors of the human brain, Lyme borrelial spirochetes are neurotropic, similar to the spirochetes of syphilis. Symptoms of either disease may be stable and persistent, transient and inconsistent or severe yet fleeting. Characteristics may be incompatible with established knowledge of neurological dermatomes, appearing to conventional medical eyes as anatomically impossible, thus creating confusion for doctors, parents and child patients.

Physicians unfamiliar with Lyme patients' shifting, seemingly vague, emotional, and/or bizarre-sounding complaints, frequently know little about late-stage spirochetal disease.

Consequently, they may accuse mothers of fabricating their children's symptoms--the so-called Munchausen's by proxy (MBP) "diagnoses."

Women, following ancient losses of feminine authority in provinces of religion, ethics, and healing - disciplines comprising known fields of early medicine, have been scapegoated throughout history.

In the Middle Ages, women considered potentially weak-minded devil's apprentices became victims of witch-hunts throughout Europe and America.  Millions of women were burned alive at the stake.

Modern medicine's tendency to trivialize women's "offbeat" concerns and the fact that today's hurried physicians of both genders tend to seek easy panaceas, frequently result in the misogyny of mother-devaluation, especially by doctors who are spirochetally naïve.

These factors, when involving cases of cryptic neuroborreliosis, may lead to accusations of MBP.

Thousands of children, sick from complex diseases, have been forcibly removed from mothers who insist, contrary to customary evaluations, that their children are ill.

The charges against these mothers relate to the idea they believe their children sick to satisfy warped internal agendas of their own. "MBP mothers" are then vilified, frequently jailed and publicly shamed for the "sins" of advocating for their children.

In actuality, many such cases involve an unrecognized Lyme borreliosis causation that mothers may insist is valid despite negative tests. 

Doctors who have utilized MBP tactics against mothers are likely to be unaware that in advanced borreliosis, seronegativity is often the rule, a principle disagreed upon by its two extant, published, peer-reviewed, Standards of Care.
These are guidelines for Lyme disease management--the older system questioning the existence of persistent Lyme and the newer system relying on established clinical criteria.

Mothers must be free to obtain the family's preferred medical care by choosing between physicians practicing within either system without fear of reprisal.
Doctors and mothers together may then explore medical options with renewed mutual respect toward the best interest of children's health.

PMID: 15925450 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

The New 'Kid on the Block'... Dietrich Klinghardt ~ MD PhD

Lyme disease - a look beyond antibiotics.

"The new kid on the block is Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) and some of us have looked at it for a long time as possibly being the bug that opens the door for all the other infections to enter the system.

Lyme disease has become a buzzword in the alternative medical field. Since none of the recommended treatments are specific to either one of the microbes, we can never assume that we really know what we treated once a patient has recovered."

"In the last decade the majority of outcome-oriented physicians observed a major shift: we realized that it was neither the lack of vitamins or growth hormone that made our patients ill.

We discovered that toxicity and chronic infections were most often at the core of the client’s suffering.

We watched the discussion, which infection may be the primary one: mycoplasma, stealth viruses, HHV-6, trichomonas, Chlamydia pneumoniae, leptospirosis, mutated strep, or what else?"


http://www.klinghardtacademy.com/images/stories/Lyme_Disease/Lyme_protocol_Jan06.pdf