You don't want to mess with Lyme. When you search on that, you find a huge laundry list of things it has been associated with. Among these is what is generally called "Lyme Carditis." Lyme can interfere with passing of electrical signals within the heart. This happens in only a few percent of the reported cases of Lyme. I suspect it was the case with me last summer. Around this time last year, I had some mildly debilitating bug, which I thought might be a mild flu. Later in August I noticed that my pulse was somewhat irregular, with what I felt at my wrist to be the occasional missed beat. My doctor told me he heard what I think now were PVCs, early contractions of the ventricles, which pumped next to nothing but required a repolarization interval before the next beat could occur. In early September I felt what I learned later were "pauses," where the heart literally flatlined, after the doc had me wear a 24-hr monitor. The longest pause was nearly four seconds. Boy, you do notice that! The doc thought I might be a candidate for a pacemaker. I wondered if my days were numbered.
I mentioned Lyme to him, after my son (in Maine) had looked it up after his daughter had been treated for Lyme. The doc admitted he hadn't thought of Lyme, so we drew more blood. He also referred me to a cardiologist. Two hours before the cardiologist appointment, the phone report on the blood test came back positive for Lyme, and I was put on doxycycline for two weeks. Meanwhile, I wasn't having any more heart pauses, but an atrial flutter had developed, where the atria were beating three times for every one of the ventricles. That went on until just after Halloween, when my heart reverted to normal sinus rhythm all by itself. I've been fine since. The cardiologist still doesn't think that Lyme was the cause of the heart arrhythmia, according to the numbers and the fact that five years before I had developed a 4:1 atrial flutter. That was ended by electric cardioversion. But the cardiologist admitted that we'll never know if Lyme was the culprit. Considering the fact that the Lyme happened at the same time and that the nature of the irregularity in the heart beat kept changing until the flutter developed, then vanished entirely on its own (which mostly happens in the cases of Lyme carditis after treatment), I have to suspect the connection.
I mentioned Lyme to him, after my son (in Maine) had looked it up after his daughter had been treated for Lyme. The doc admitted he hadn't thought of Lyme, so we drew more blood. He also referred me to a cardiologist. Two hours before the cardiologist appointment, the phone report on the blood test came back positive for Lyme, and I was put on doxycycline for two weeks. Meanwhile, I wasn't having any more heart pauses, but an atrial flutter had developed, where the atria were beating three times for every one of the ventricles. That went on until just after Halloween, when my heart reverted to normal sinus rhythm all by itself. I've been fine since. The cardiologist still doesn't think that Lyme was the cause of the heart arrhythmia, according to the numbers and the fact that five years before I had developed a 4:1 atrial flutter. That was ended by electric cardioversion. But the cardiologist admitted that we'll never know if Lyme was the culprit. Considering the fact that the Lyme happened at the same time and that the nature of the irregularity in the heart beat kept changing until the flutter developed, then vanished entirely on its own (which mostly happens in the cases of Lyme carditis after treatment), I have to suspect the connection.
