Positive Borrelia miyamotoi detected - what is relapsing fever?

[newbie_85]

Phage Borrelia qPCR test showed Positive; B. miyamotoi detected. From what I read online this is a new test that is high specificity test nearly 100% accuracy (some sources says more than 92%).

What confused me is it says that Borellia miyamotoi is bacteria that causes relapsing fever. I don't totally understand what relapsing fever is. Sure I had some fevers in past 10 years probably from flue. How does relapsing fever differ from flue fever?

 

[Pyrrhus]

According to the Merck Manual:
https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/infectious-diseases/spirochetes/relapsing-fever

Relapsing fever is a recurring febrile disease caused by several species of the spirochete Borrelia and transmitted by lice or ticks. Symptoms are recurrent febrile episodes with headache, myalgia, and vomiting lasting 3 to 5 days, separated by intervals of apparent recovery.

So "relapsing fever" just means that you get a flu-like fever for a couple days and then you seem to be fine for a while, until it happens again. It probably occurs more regularly than the actual flu, though.

Hope this helps.

 

[newbie_85]

It seems that relapsing fever is not so often with borrelia miyamotoi if I understand this article correctly: https://danielcameronmd.com/dont-count-on-a-relapsing-fever-to-diagnose-borrelia-miyamotoi/