Chronic Lyme Disease, or late disseminated Lyme disease, is the third stage of this multi-system, multi-stage illness. Various factors may contribute to chronic Lyme disease. Not all people infected with the Lyme bacteria develop the same symptoms, and a correct diagnosis is difficult. Chronic Lyme disease can occur when people have not been properly diagnosed or treated, or if they have received inadequate treatment. If all of the bacteria that cause Lyme disease are not killed off, the illness can move into a chronic stage, resulting in arthritis, chronic fatigue, poor concentration skills, and more.

Patients who are diagnosed immediately after getting infected seem to have the best chance of quick and complete recovery when they begin antibiotic treatment immediately. Yet Lyme Disease, which has been nicknamed the Great Imitator, can mimic the symptoms of at least a hundred other medical conditions. Unsuspecting patients and their physicians simply may not know which tests to administer in the face of so many possibilities. Lyme disease is so often misdiagnosed that if and when the patient does eventually receive a correct diagnosis, their condition may have already become chronic.

According to some medical experts, if the Lyme Disease patient does not receive antibiotics for a long enough period of time, the symptoms may become chronic. Misdiagnosis can contribute to chronic Lyme Disease when doctors subscribe medications for diseases or conditions they believe their patients have, but in fact they do not. This can have disastrous results. For example, the use of cortico-steroids will replicate the spirochetes (bacteria) that cause Lyme Disease. Therefore, steroids are to be avoided where Lyme Disease is suspected, and they are contraindicated. Some Lyme-literate doctors believe that steroid use while Lyme bacteria are present will cause chronic Lyme disease. But, ignorant of the possibility of Lyme bacteria, Lyme-iliterate MDs have mistakenly prescribed steroids to control inflammation, with calamitous results for their patients.

Many people who have been labeled with another chronic disease such as Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, Fibromyalgia, Parkinson