Dear Joanna,
Dr. Mercola has several articles discussing Lyme Disease, and it may be that these children have been misdiagnosed:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic ... t-two.aspx
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic ... ease2.aspx
"So Lyme testing -- other than by a skin biopsy from an active rash within 14 days following the bite -- may yield inconclusive results. Symptoms of Lyme include fever, night sweats, fatigue or a flu-like illness that does not improve within three to five days." Other symptoms reported by physicians include stiff neck, prolonged joint and muscle pain, heart palpitations, brain fog or severe headaches.
In an advertisement to purchase a video on Lyme disease at Dr. Mercola's site, there is information that Lyme disease can be initially diagnosed as Juvenile Arthritis:
In the early 1970's, a mysterious illness was discovered among children living around the town of Lyme, CT. What was first diagnosed as isolated cases of juvenile arthritis, eventually became known as Lyme disease, one of the most misunderstood and controversial illnesses of our time. Today, many of those untreated will suffer chronic debilitating illness. Some unknowingly will pass the disease on to their unborn children. Many will lose their livelihoods, and still others, their lives.
Difficult to test accurately, tens of thousands of people go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. The Centers for Disease Control admits that more than 400,000 people may acquire Lyme disease each year, a number ten times greater than AIDS and West Nile Virus combined. And yet, the medical establishment--with profound influence from the insurance industry--has stated that the disease is easily detectable and treatable, and that "chronic Lyme" is some other unrecognized syndrome or a completely psychosomatic disorder.
Not only are patients misdiagnosed with psychiatric labels, but also they have been mistakenly told that they have Rheumatoid Arthritis or Juvenile Arthritis.
See the excerpt below from this article:.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic ... sease.aspx
Just as a suggestion to you, it might be a good idea to retest some of your "strange" RA patients using the newer blood/fluids tests that are available. I attended a Lyme conference recently and found that many Lyme patients had been misdiagnosed with RA, which turned out to be Lyme disease. Because the bulls eye rash shows up in about 50% of the cases and since the spirochete is not endemic to many areas, doctors don't even suspect the disease in patients.
The new PCR-DNA and LUAT (Lyme Urine Antigen Test) should be run on the blood, urine, synovial fluid, or cerebal spinal fluid. According to the "Lyme literate" doctors from the east coast, if a patient turns out to be positive especially on the PCR-DNA test, they are 95% certain that the patient has Lyme Disease. However, one has to be careful to use the correct Labs for these tests.