Online Seminar: Robert Bransfield Psychiatric Manifestations Of Tick
This online seminar took place on Friday 12 March 2021 and was facilitated by Julia Knight, our Press & Community Outreach Manager. Dr Bransfield discussed Lyme disease and tick borne infections from a psychiatric perspective and how these illnesses affect brain chemistry.
Dr Bransfields primary activity is an office based private practice of psychiatry. He is the Associate Director of Psychiatry and Chairman of Psychiatric Quality Assurance at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, NJ, Past Immediate President of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, and Immediate President of the New Jersey Psychiatric Association.
Psychiatric Fallout From Lyme Neuroborreliosis May Be Less Grave Than Thought
A recent study presents new findings on the connection between psychiatric disorders and Lyme.
NEWS BRIEF
A population-based matched cohort study of 2897 patients in Denmark found Lyme neuroborreliosis is not linked to an increased risk of psychiatric disorders or hospitalizations.1 The study, published in JAMA Psychiatry, also showed psychiatric medications were dispensed within the first year after patients received a diagnosis of Lyme neuroborreliosis, but these prescribing patterns subsided a year after diagnosis. Malte M. Tetens, BMsc, of the Department of Infectious Diseases, Copenhagen University Hospital, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, and colleagues assessed the risk of psychiatric disorders and hospitalizations , as well as prescription medications redeemed by patients for up to 15 years after the diagnosis of the disease.
According to Tetens, The most important message from our study is that we did not demonstrate any increased risk of psychiatric disease.
The study included all Danish patients in whom the presence of Lyme neuroborreliosis was detected between 1995 and 2015 with an intrathecal antibody index test for Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato complex. They were matched by age and sex against a comparison cohort of Danish individuals without the disease.
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Touched By Lyme: Treating Psychiatric Lyme Symptoms With Disulfiram
Kristina Bauer, a Lyme advocate, patient and mother of four children with congenital Lyme disease, is the founder of the Texas Lyme Alliance.
After she became interested in the use of disulfiram for treating Lyme disease, she started a Facebook support group called Disulfiram Experience for Lyme and a website called Disulfiram for Lyme.
The website features several video interviews with doctors and researchers about treating Lyme with disulfiram. In her latest one, she interviews psychiatrist Robert Bransfield MD, a leading expert on how Lyme disease affects the brainand how he has found that disulfiram can help.
Dr. Bransfield is an expert on Lyme-related suicide. While no formal statistics are kept on what contributes to the 45,000 suicides per year in the United States, he estimates that some 1200 are likely attributable to depression and other brain manifestations that can result from chronic Lyme disease.
For over 30 years, he has treated Lyme patients who have psychiatric symptoms. Since 2018, he has put more than 60 of them on disulfiram, with good results.
Watch the interview here:
Dr Bransfield Tells Ny Senators The Realities Of Psychiatric Lyme Disease
Psychiatrist Robert Bransfield, MD, a former president of ILADS, addressed last weeks New York State Senate hearing on Lyme disease via remote video link. He discussed the many psychiatric impairments that can arise from tick-borne illnesses.
If youve tried watching the YouTube video of the five-hour hearing, you will have noticed that there were audio problems with Dr. Bransfields presentation. Here is the text of his prepared remarks.
Who are the authorities in Lyme disease?
There is no authority in science. Instead it is the nature of science to question everything. If there is an authority in science it is evidence and judgment. If there is an authority in medicine it is the evidence based medicine which is a synthesis of the best evidence available, physician judgment and patient preferences. Lyme disease opinions of CDC and NIH employees should never be viewed as authority.
Who are the experts?
Bench scientists who never treat patients? Bureaucrats? Patients? Patient advocacy groups? Doctors who practice within a narrow specialty in medicine? Physicians who have the long-term responsibility to treat Lyme patients? Many of us are experts in limited areas, but none of us are complete experts. The disease is far too complicated. We can only make progress with a collaborative effort.
How do we define Lyme disease?
What are the most significant symptoms?
How do we diagnose it?
How do we treat it?
How can we reconcile the Lyme disease controversy?
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Special Interview With Lyme Expert Dr Robert C Bransfield
Featured Guest: Dr Robert C Bransfield
Robert C. Bransfield, MD, DLFAPA, Clinical Associate Professor Robert Wood Johnson UMDNJ Medical School and President International Lyme and Associated Diseases Educational Foundation is a graduate of Rutgers College and the George Washington University School of Medicine. He completed his psychiatric residency training at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital. He is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in Psychiatry, is certified in Clinical Psychopharmacology by the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology and is Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.
Dr. Bransfields primary activity is an office based private practice of psychiatry. In addition, Dr. Bransfield is the Associate Director of Psychiatry and Chairman of Psychiatric Quality Assurance at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, NJ, Past Immediate President of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, Immediate President of the New Jersey Psychiatric Association. He has held a number of administrative positions for various organizations involved with a number of health, mental health and community related activities
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Touched By Lyme: Ignoring Psychiatric Lyme Disease At Our Peril
Psychiatrist Robert Bransfield predicts the proposed IDSA guidelines could contribute to a national and global epidemic of psychiatric illnesses, suicide, violence, substance abuse and developmental disabilities in children and adults.
Dr. Bransfield is an internationally recognized expert on how Lyme disease affects the brain. He has just published a scathing critique of the proposed IDSA Lyme guidelines as they relate to psychiatric conditions.
In an open-access article entitled Proposed Lyme Disease Guidelines and Psychiatric Illnesses, in the medical journal Healthcare, he calls the guidelines evidence-biased instead of evidence-based.
He points out that no psychiatrists sat on the guidelines panel. Yet, the IDSA recommends against testing for Lyme disease in adult patients with psychiatric illness. Furthermore, the guidelines recommend against Lyme testing for children with developmental, behavioral, or psychiatric disorders.
In both cases, the IDSA claims there is no data to associate Lyme disease with any of these conditions.
Even though there are more than 1000 articles on PubMed on these topics.
Dr. Bransfield states:
The proposed guidelines fail to recognize the clear causal association between Lyme disease and psychiatric illnesses in children and adults that may include suicide, violence, substance abuse and developmental disabilities. Suicide is a major cause of mortality in patients with Lyme disease.
More reading:
Lyme Meningitis Leading To Hyponatremia
In their article A Tick-borne Cause of Hyponatremia: SIADH Due to Lyme Meningitis, Windpessl and colleagues describe a patient who was initially treated for sudden onset of shoulder pain associated with hyponatremia but later diagnosed with Lyme meningitis.
There are many causes of hyponatremia. Any disorder of the central nervous system, including infections, can trigger it. However, only a few case reports of Lyme meningitis or Lyme neuroborreliosis have been published with a focus on hyponatremia, according to the authors.
Hyponatremia is a condition that occurs when the level of sodium in the blood is too low. With this condition, the body holds onto too much water. This dilutes the amount of sodium in the blood and causes levels to be low.²
One month prior to being admitted to the hospital, the 83-year-old woman had presented to the emergency department because of stabbing back pain, localized to the left shoulder.
The shoulder pain gradually subsided but lower back pain ensued, worsening at night, wrote the authors. In parallel, she noticed difficulties in concentrating, unsteadiness, and poor appetite.
The woman was admitted for an evaluation of unspecific gastrointestinal symptoms and weight loss.
Her sodium was low consistent with Syndrome of Inappropriate Antidiuretic Hormone secretion.
The antihypertensive held. As sodium levels were slightly higher when controlled 5 days later, amlodipine was prescribed instead.
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Bransfield Article On Neuropsychiatric Lyme Published
Robert C. Bransfield, MDRobert C. Bransfield, MD, Department of Psychiatry, Rutgers-RWJ Medical School, published an article on 8-25-18, which demonstrates an association between Lyme borreliosis and neuropsychiatric impairments considered a major advance in psychiatry. Entitled Neuropsychiatric Lyme Borreliosis: An Overview with a Focus on a Specialty Psychiatrists Clinical Practice, the article was published in a special issue of Healthcare Lyme Disease: The Role of Big Data, Companion Diagnostics and Precision Medicine, with guest editor, Raphael B. Stricker, MD.
According to Dr. Bransfield, Lyme borreliosis, possibly with other interactive infections in the body can evade and suppress the immune system and cause immune effects and biochemical changes in the brain causing neuropsychiatric symptoms. The results can include developmental disorders, autism spectrum disorders, schizoaffective disorders, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety disorders , eating disorders, sleep disorders, decreased libido, addiction, opioid addiction, cognitive impairments, dementia, seizure disorders, suicide, violence, anhedonia, depersonalization, dissociative episodes, derealization and other impairments.
Dr. Bransfield is a member of the Lyme Disease Associations Scientific & Professional Advisory Board.
Abstract:
LDA May Lyme Awareness Blogs Begin May 1
Topics of Guest Blogs:Guest Blog Page of the website.
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Bransfield: Idsa Guidelines Ignore Psychiatric Consequences Of Lyme Disease
Dr. Robert Bransfield delivered the following public comment at the recent meeting of the federal Tick-Borne Disease Working Group.
Im a psychiatrist from New Jersey, who has treated thousands of Lyme disease patients over the past thirty years. I have also performed research. Three issues I would like to raise:
*A recent study unequivocally proves Lyme disease causes mental illnesses.
*This Working Group needs to be more attentive to the psychiatric symptom from TBD.
*The IDSA guidelines fail to recognize this causal association.
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Mental Health Working Group
DR ROBERT BRANSFIELD M.D.Patron Neuro-psychiatric Diseases/ Mental Health
Dr. Robert C. Bransfield, M.D., F.A.P.A. is a graduate of Rutgers College and the George Washington University School of Medicine. He completed his psychiatric residency training at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital. He is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in Psychiatry.
Dr. Bransfields primary activity is an office based private practice of psychiatry with an emphasis upon treatment resistant cases. In addition, Dr Bransfield is the Associate Director of Psychiatry and the Chairman of Quality Assurance at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, New Jersey.
He has held teaching appointments at Hahnemann Medical College and Eastern Virginia Medical School. He has taught in many settings to physicians, mental health professionals and the public. He has performed research, and has a particular interest in psychopharmacology, a unified theory of mental health and illness, the link between microbes and mental illness, Lyme and other tick-borne disease, violence, and the link between microbes and violence.
Dr Bransfield has authored and co-authored a number of publications in peer-reviewed literature, other medical publications and books. He has held a number of administrative positions for various organizations involved with a number of health, mental health and community related activities.
Autism And Lyme Disease
There is increasing evidence and recognition that Lyme borreliosis causes mental symptoms. This article draws from databases, search engines and clinical experience to review current information on LB. LB causes immune and metabolic effects that result in a gradually developing spectrum of neuropsychiatric symptoms, usually presenting with significant comorbidity which may include developmental disorders, autism spectrum disorders, schizoaffective disorders, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety disorders , eating disorders, decreased libido, sleep disorders, addiction, opioid addiction, cognitive impairments, dementia, seizure disorders, suicide, violence, anhedonia, depersonalization, dissociative episodes, derealization and other impairments. Screening assessment followed by a thorough history, comprehensive psychiatric clinical exam, review of systems, m…
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I Recommend The Following
The Working Group needs to gather and share information on psychiatric symptoms caused by Lyme/TBD.
Since the IDSA guidelines fail to recognize this causal association, they are outdated and the committee needs to recommend that all federal references and links to their guidelines must be removed.
To expand:
A recent article using the 7 million patients in the Danish nationwide database was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, the number one psychiatric journal in the world. It proved the causal association between Lyme and any mental disorder, affective disorders, suicide attempts and death by suicide.
There are 400 other peer-reviewed journal articles proving the causal association between tick-borne diseases and psychiatric symptoms and 73 with dementia. Mental illness is the major cause of disability and death from tick-borne disease.
Psychiatric findings from TBD can include developmental disorders, autism spectrum disorders, affective disorder, depression, anxiety disorders, addiction, opioid addiction, cognitive impairments, dementia, suicidality, violence, and other impairments.
This has caused chronic disability and deaths from suicides, drug overdoses, auto accidents and homicides.
This working group needs input from psychiatrists who understand tick-borne diseases and psychoimmunology. Addressing the causal association between tick-borne diseases and psychiatric symptoms and sharing this information with legislators and the public is critical.
Experience And Background Checks
Check Dr. Bransfield’s experience treating your condition or procedure
Dr. Bransfield’s Top Procedures and Conditions
Dr. Bransfield performs Psychological Evaluations Prior to Bariatric Surgery more than 80% of his peers
Dr. Bransfield performs this procedure more than 80% of his peers
Dr. Bransfield performs Psychiatric Evaluation more than 80% of his peers
Dr. Bransfield performs this procedure more than 80% of his peers
Dr. Bransfield performs Dementia or Depression Screening more than 80% of his peers
Dr. Bransfield performs this procedure more than 80% of his peers
Dr. Bransfield’s conditions and procedures:
- Adjustment Disorder
- Alcohol Misuse Screening and Counseling
- Alcohol or Substance Misuse Screening and Counseling
- Psychological Evaluations Prior to Bariatric Surgery
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