by Dr. Bill Rawls
Posted 9/2/22

Lyme disease and connective tissue disorders is a more common combination than many people may realize. Listen as Dr. Rawls shares insights on how borrelia and other microbes could be key contributors to these conditions. Read more about borrelia here.

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Video Transcript

Question: Can Lyme cause connective tissue disorders?

Tim Yarborough: Can Lyme disease cause connective tissue disorders? If so, what are some examples? How does that look? It’s a big topic, I know.

Dr. Rawls: Whenever you look at chronic illness, any kind of chronic illness, you’re talking about cellular dysfunction. So everything that happens in the body is a result of cells; we have over 200 different types of cells in the body.

So there are certainly cells that maintain our cartilage in our joints and ligaments, and those cells can be affected by a variety of different microbes. So borrelia is one of many that can affect the joints. Mycoplasmas have been closely tied to both rheumatoid and osteoarthritis. Lupus, which is typically associated with arthritis, has been associated with P. acnes, mycoplasmas, other microbes.

So no matter what you’re talking about, if you look at the fundamental processes of what is going on, I don’t think you can explain these illnesses without considering the possibility of some intracellular microbe at play. And not necessarily one microbe. But it could be a variety of different microbes, different microbes. Different bacteria, different viruses prefer different types of cells in the body. So borrelia, mycoplasma-like cells that are producing collagen or collagen-rich areas in the body, so they’re going to be invading.

Like I said, that little corkscrew is designed to bore right into cartilage. So we have – so yes, there’s definitely an association. I don’t think you can explain any of these things without considering the possibility of an intracellular microbe presence.

Dr. Rawls is a physician who overcame Lyme disease through natural herbal therapy. You can learn more about Lyme disease in Dr. Rawls’ new best selling book, Unlocking Lyme.
You can also learn about Dr. Rawls’ personal journey in overcoming Lyme disease and fibromyalgia in his popular blog post, My Chronic Lyme Journey.