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

[Saz94]

This case report describes infections with Bartonella koehlerae and Bartonella henselae in a female veterinarian whose symptoms were predominantly rheumatologic in nature. Infection was confirmed by serology, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), enrichment blood culture, and DNA sequencing of amplified B koehlerae and B henselae DNA. Long-term medical management with antibiotics was required to achieve elimination of these infections and was accompanied by resolution of the patient's symptoms. Interestingly, the patient experienced substantial improvement in the acquired joint hypermobility mimicking Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome (EDS) type III.

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

 

[duncan]

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.