The eyes of the Lyme community are riveted on this week’s tragic shooting death of an Illinois minister. The alleged shooter, 27-year-old Terry Sedlacek, has reportedly suffered from neurological Lyme disease for years, and some people believe his illness may have contributed to his violent behavior.

The eyes of the Lyme community are riveted on this week’s tragic shooting death of an Illinois minister. The alleged shooter, 27-year-old Terry Sedlacek, has reportedly suffered from neurological Lyme disease for years, and some people believe his illness may have contributed to his violent behavior.

It will take time for authorities to sort out details surrounding this unfortunate event. But hard to ignore will be a news article written last summer about Sedlacek’s Lyme-related troubles. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sedlacek started having psychiatric problems in high school, which conventional treatments did not help. Years later, he was diagnosed with Lyme disease and given antibiotic therapy.

According to that article:

For Sedlacek, who was put in a medically induced coma and given intravenous antibiotics to combat the Lyme disease and ehrlichiosis, the diagnosis came late. For a few months he did very well.

“We had our son back,” Abernathy said.

But Sedlacek’s rebound didn’t last for long. After he got out of the hospital, oral antibiotics didn’t seem to work as well. His family sought out experts and tried alternative treatments, with mixed success.

These days, Sedlacek, now 26 and living in Troy, Ill., with Abernathy, has difficulty speaking. He’s got lesions on his brain. He’s taking several drugs, including anti-seizure medication.

“He takes enough medicine at night to knock a cow out, but he only sleeps two or three hours a night,” Abernathy said.

Obviously, there’s much that outside observers can’t know about this sad, sad case. Yet, the Infectious Diseases Society of America was quick to issue a statement saying that it’s “not likely” that Lyme contributed to the gunman’s behavior.

The statement reads in part: “Lyme disease is not known to cause violent behavior. In some rare cases, people may have neurologic problems such as facial paralysis. The vast majority of people with Lyme disease—about 95 percent—can be cured with a short course of antibiotics.”

It is this kind of response from the IDSA that is so maddening and disheartening to families dealing with the realities of Lyme disease. Most Lyme patients I know have experienced some degree of neurological impairment, and sometimes psychiatric symptoms are part of the mix. There have been plenty of studies in top medical journals around the world exploring the connection between Lyme and neurological symptoms. So, why must the IDSA trivialize our pain by saying neurological symptoms are “rare” and make it sound like the only likely manifestation would be facial paralysis?

For a detailed explanation of neurological and psychiatric manifestations of Lyme disease, I direct you to Pamela Weintraub’s excellent blog on the Psychology Today website. She provides a fascinating look at the important work of Dr. Virginia Sherr, a pioneer in the field of treating psychiatric Lyme.

In the meantime, I’m offering prayers for the family and friends of the slain pastor, for Terry Sedlacek and his family, and for every family dealing with the immense difficulties of neurological Lyme. Despite what the IDSA says, the condition is not rare, and if Lyme patients could all be cured by a short course of antibiotics, by golly, wouldn’t we have done that by now?