There is a huge amount on the web claiming:
- Lyme Disease can be misdiagnosed as Parkinson's
- Lyme Disease can cause Parkinson's

Much of this is anecdotal, e.g. MJF had Lyme before being diagnosed with PD.

But I can't find any academic papers to definitively support this.

(My own quick look at the geographical epidemiology of Lyme and Parkinson's showed, in effect, no correlation between the two, see:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...highlight=lyme
This thread gives a link to an excellent article by Pamela Weintruab.)

See also the thread from 2007/2008.
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...highlight=lyme
This gives some very interesting personal accounts of Lyme/Parkinson's.

See the excellent BADA-UK site:
http://www.bada-uk.org/homesection/a...outbada-uk.php

Regarding being well before diagnosis with PD, as I understand it, Lyme can be asymptomatic.

I think it is worth discussing with your GP.

Talking generally now, my view, for what it's worth, is that on being diagnosed with PD, more efforts should be made to find the underlying cause, rather than immediately being put in the "you've got this for life, but we can help with the symptoms" category. I suspect that a few new PWP could have their Parkinson's reversed and many more could have their rate of progression reduced if, where appropriate, antibiotics or antifungals were given immediately. See the current thread started by Conductor71.

John