Lymes vs StarI(Masters disease)

[UnsureMS]

While I have been researching Lymes and the bullseye rash, this STARI(Masters Disease). Southern Tick-Associated Rash Illness has been popping up. I just wanted to know has anyone else heard of this? I believe this is crazy cause it sounds all like Lymes. There are only a few differences. The main one I found was just one comes from a deer tick the other from a Lone Star Tick.

I really want to know more, and understand if this is something I should be looking into as well. One of the things I have read was that it was not certain whether STARI causes long term issues. It presents like lymes and have all the the same sxs. This is at least what I remember. If someone knows more or gets the differences better please let me know. Thanks and if I figure out anything first I will post the information.

Thanks agian to all. May God bless ya,

Kimberly

[STARI_victim]

Prior to 2001 the CDC website listed "symptoms", sweeping STARI under the rug, they have since removed them from their STARI website.  
Those symptoms that I can recall and also exhibit are:
blood spots (random on the skin)
slight swelling around the joints (puffiness)
scrunched knuckles
redness in the top/tips of the ears
mental confusion / fogginess
sometimes a crawling or rushing feeling under the skin
sometimes random movements in the hair, as if the hair is alive
~ now suffering cognitive and memory issues 12 years later - which is a Lyme issue.
It would be nice, if they would own up to this issue and develop better testing.  I've been bitten three times by the lone star tick.  I hope this helps some.

[Ricobord]

Yes, they found Borrelia DNA in the Iceman.  They also found it in a couple museum mice from the late 1800's (in either CT or MA...can't remember).  It has been around a long time. It just wasn't as common as it is now.  Somehow our rapid population growth and suburban development after WWII put us humans on a collision course with the ticks.

I saw a recent article from the Georgia Lyme Disease Assoc that said it makes more sense scientifically to say that Borrelia travelled to New England from the South, given the much wider genetic diversity seen in the South as compared to the Northeast.

The woman who founded CALDA got Lyme Disease in Northern California in the 1960's.  There is wide genetic diversity here in the West, too.  

So, no, this is not a new disease that originated in Connecticut.

The unfortunate and unexpected dark side of the presidential campaign when Romney said he'd support Lyme patients is that many liberal bloggers and journalists immediately took the opposite position, concluding that the "chronic Lyme" crowd really must be crazy if Romney takes their side.

The many snide and mocking articles were awful. It proved to me that most journalists and bloggers don't actually do any research...they just espouse their own biased opinions.  Now, whenever I see one of these ignorant editorials claiming to be news articles I email the writer encouraging them to do their own investigative work.  We need a Woodward & Bernstein team of investigative reporters (and a supportive editor) to drag this story into the light.

[gibsongal]

i think STARI is the same as Lyme.
and it is bad in the south i hear.

Romney supported more Lyme research in VA? just to get votes?
Conspiricy theories are fun and some i get sucked into..

When I told my doc that i grew up in Northern NJ and got bit by countless  ticks all the time, he said that Lyme didn't exist then.

Well these bacteria have been around a long time. It just wasn't  given a name until it got bad with people in CT.

(which BTW is across the sound from Plum Island)

Didn't they prove the iceman had Lyme.

[JackieCalifornia]

Ditto what Rico says above.

[Ricobord]

I am not a big conspiracy theorist or paranoid about the government, but I have heard and read enough to conclude that yes, there is a big cover up about Lyme Disease.

Burrascano said this in a recent issue of The Lyme Times.  The NIH shut down a study he was a part of that was evaluating long term treatment. The doctors involved were not old why and were told not to discuss the fact that the treatments were working as part of their confidentiality requirements.  

And when Wille Burgdorferi, the scientist who discovered Borrelia Burgdorferi, was interviewed for the film "Under Our Skin," someone from the NIH showed up to make sure he didn't violate any confidentiality. (Makes you wonder what they are hiding?) The CDC stalled the producers of the movie for three years, refusing to disclose their information about Lyme Disease, even though a judge ordered them to under the Freeedom of Information Act.

The CDC has had incontrovertible proof that Lyme can survive over a year of IV Rocephin since the 1990's, but won't publicly acknowledge it.  They asked permission from the particular patient's family to use her blood as a known Lyme patient for future testing. Follow up inquiries were answered with "We're still studying it."

If chronic Lyme was a scam, and we were all making ourselves sick with stress, it would have blown over and died off a long time ago.  A doctor selling snake oil doesn't last more than a couple years before everyone figures out he is a fraud. But LLMDs continue to get more and more patients.  The long time treating physicians have seen over 11,000 patients with tick borne diseases, and have 2-5 month waiting lists.  You can't fake that!

[UnsureMS]

I just feel like it was there way of saying lymes isn't in Texas, that instead its another disease called StarI. The part that is crazy is that they don't know away to dxs it exactly. Supposedly what helps them get to a lymes dxs isn't part of the Stari disease. Yet they found it in samples of the bullseye rash associated with StarI.

My sister in law told me lymes is a big cover up. That if you do enough research you will start to see it. StarI seems to be part of that theory. They also said treatment is the same, but in many cases it didn't cure it fully. I will continue to research in hopes that at least some of the people here in the south will get help. May God Bless Ya,
Kimberly

[Ricobord]

(Part 2)


What drives me nuts about the whole "Stari" disease is that while it is occasionally mentioned as a Lyme like illness, there doesn't seem to be any effort to inform the public or doctors in the South about it, and there is virtually no information on how to diagnose or treat it.  It seems to me that the CDC and IDSA just ignore it and the patients who have it.

If you read Pamela Weintraub's book, "Cure Unknown," you'll read the story of how it came to be called "Master's Disease."  A Missouri doctor named Master started noticing patients coming in with EM rashes after tick bites.  It sounded just like the new disease he'd heard about called Lyme.  He started treating these patients as if they had Lyme and they got better.  

He finally got the CDC to come out and investigate, and they twisted the facts to say it wasn't Lyme at all.  After all, "There is no Lyme in Missouri."  So they had to come up with an explanation.  They slapped the "STARI" and "Master's" labels on it and that was that.

It reminds me of when I look at my 6 year old's toys on the floor and ask why she didn't pick them up like I asked.  "But I did pick them up," she replies in all seriousness, pretending she can't see the toys right in front of her.

However.....if you can convince a doctor to give you Lyme-like treatment for a Lyme-like illness called STARI, take it!

[Ricobord]

I recall a quote from a doctor in the South who said that he felt the CDC should stop calling this mystery Lyme-like disease "Stari" and call it what it really is: Lyme Disease (or Borreliosis).  I have also read that most "Stari" patients test false negative in standard blood tests, and that the rash looks a bit different. While the presentation my be different than New England Lyme Disease, the symptoms are still known and on the Burrascano checklist.

It seems to me that whenever a different species of tick is involved, the disease presentation of Lyme looks different. This is true in other countries with different species of both ticks and Borrelia bacteria. It shouldn't be a big surprise that there could be a variation of Borrelia from a Lone Star tick.

In fact, the genetic diversity of Borrelia is much greater in both the South and the West than it is in New England.  And the CDC surveillance criteria has never been tested against patients in these geographic areas.

[UnsureMS]

Ok so I have done some more research. StarI patients are more likely to remember a bullseye rash, or tick bite then lymes patients. The rash is suppose to be slightly smaller in diameter then that of lymes.

It says StarI comes from the Lone Star Tick which is very aggressive when it comes to human attacks. The standard lymes disease test won't typically pick up StarI. Studies still are going on to. Figure out what long term problems StarI may cause. ILADS believes that StarI patients may also have a chance of developing recurring and significant sxs, similar to lymes patients.

Treatment for StarI is also similar to lymes disease, but still being looked into.
Treatment is still being looked into, due to the fact StarI maybe from something different then Lyme disease.

So, basically to sum it all up. The only significant differences is that StarI has a slightly smaller rash, is harder to detect, and still alot is unknown about it. I guess I may have to look into this disease to.

Will update again if I find anything else on StarI and Lymes.

[JackieCalifornia]

Good question!  STARI hasn't been discussed on this board for quite a while, as I recall.

Here is a useful link with a short but focussed discussion of it and how it relates to Lyme:

www [dot] columbia-lyme [dot] org / patients / tbd _ stari [dot] html

(take out all the extra spaces and replace [dot] with a period, of course)

I found the link by searching

           stari vs lyme

and it was the first hit in the results list.

Columbia Univ. in New York City has an excellent tickborne disease group, and this is on their website.  It sounds to me like there is a relationship between Lyme and STARI, perhaps they are 'first cousins' -- related, but with a little space between them.