Case report on rheumatological presentation of bartonella (Mozayeni et al, 2018)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5944489/#__ffn_sectitle

 

Veterinarians are on the front line when it comes to bartonella. I think I read somewhere it is the number one cause of animal acquired illness amongst them. Bartonella mimics a lot of diseases and conditions. The diagnostics are pretty poor, which only compounds the matter (one of the reason is there are like a couple hundred strains but only a handful of targeted ones diagnostically).

My barts manifested a few ways, but sore feet was a big one. It was very painful to walk. I went to a podiatrist and he'd never heard of Barts when I suggested that might be at play. He gave me sole implants. They did not help.

Eventually a different doctor put me on mino, rifmapin and something else, and I grew a wee concerned when my pee turned red-orange because my infectious disease specialist failed to warn me this was a side effect of rifampin.

Bartonella is one of those chameleon diseases that may belong in a lot of differential diagnoses that it usually isn't.

ETA: Hey, that co-author Ed Breitschwerdt is a very big deal in the Barts world, and he's a vet.