New Book on Lyme Disease Takes Controversial Stance
Reader Comments
lymes
If anyone that believes chronic Lymes does not exist, they need to take the blinders off. Visit Brainerd Medical Center, MN. They see tick illnesses day in and day out. Also visit the Vets in Brainered, MN. Tick illnesses are explosive in this area. Half my family (including dogs)has had Lymes or ehrlichiosis. Quick treatment is important. Many have had to go 2-3 times before it showed up on the test.
i hate lymes
I was told i had lymes in 2001. NOW it is 2009. I had the antibiotics thought i was good but i was not. It has attact my body as whole, I have had several sugerys for reason (well it just quit working or your bone and joints are getting weak) I can no longer work,I'm sick all the time and now if any thing else goes wrong i'll need to have people to donate body parts i'm running out my own.
lyme information
I was bitten in 2001. It took almost 2 years and traveling out of state to get real help. I am a productive person again only because a lyme literate doctor treated it and the co-infections very aggressively. I will remain on some kind of treatment for the rest of my life to try and stay well. I do have some symptons that continue to plaque me. There are chronic infections out there that are accepted such as chronic bronchidis and other COPD infections. Lyme can and does become chronic and if we are to help our health care system rein in costs, then ignoring and minimizing treatment for lyme and the related co-infections is NOT the way to do it. Education is always key and it appears in this situation it is the doctors that most need to be educated. It is a very serious infection and needs to be treated aggressively. Most of all we need doctors to beleive us and not tell us we need a councilor, or give us prednisone and send us home to suffer.
Chronic Lyme
I was first treated for my Lyme in 1990. After many different antibiotics and finally IV treatment, we thought I was "cured". I too was a robust, fun loving young woman, and slowly became angry at those in the medical field who cannot believe that not only did I HAVE Lyme,but continue to have residual effects on my body. Every local doctor, lecture me on the inconsistencies of testing and therefore deny my ever being dianosed. At the time I was 18 yrs old, and my mother listened to docs who said my problems were stress, hypochondria, and psychologically induced. She persisted and after all the treatments I received began to notice a decrease in the joint pain, headaches, and fatigue. why is it that they diagnose all sorts of diseases doctors DO believe in every day, but they continue to pooh whoo the existence of Lyme Disease chronic or not?
Twilight Zone times 10!
What an awful journey chronic lyme patients go through. I was bit in 2001 and was mis diagnosed with a brown recluse spider bite. After years of stomach problems, full blown flu, unending fatique and pain in the 15 plus range, and countless hospital stays and ER pain relief visits, I was finally diagnosed with Lyme by western blot in 2004. Between the unbelieving doctors, and unatainable pain relief, not to mention co-workers who wouldn't believe I was sick, because no doctor could diagnose any problem at all, I ended up in the psych ward. No one would believe me, that after years of antibiotic treatment that I still had severe symptoms, according to them, I was just a junkie, which I knew was not true. So to prove it I got off all narcotics, and now take tramadol, but, I still have the same problems, aches, pains, burning feet, nausea stomach problems and migrains, not to mention, a total mental weakening (I guess that's what you'd call it) It's not been 7+ long years, I've lost my job, my health and my will to live most days. No one should be treated the way I have, I now refuse to go to the hospital, unless I am in total body shutdown, aka dehydrated like a prune. Which comes from days of vomiting, diareah, and sweating like the boston celtics. I must say it's the strangest life, 7 years ago I was a healthy robust woman, working as management for a fortune 500 company. No i'm 100% diabled, depressed, and bitter with the medical community that has treated me so badly. When it could have all been avoided with 25.00 worth of anti-biotics, if the doctor had only believed in lyme disease. My life is ruined but his is wonderful, because the law protects him, and could care less for my lost life. CHRONIC LYME DOES EXIST I am living proof, well maybe not living proof, but existing proof. But then again, do you believe me or my 15 doctors? Yea, that's what I though :( p/s according to the state of vermont, lyme disease is not here yet.
Can Lyme Disease lead to Seizures over time?
My son tested positive in 2001 for Lyme. He was camping the week of 7/4. We visited the doctors office with knee and elbow pain and were told he had "growing pains"?? Then the rash EM appeared on 7/30 about 30 days later, doctor said it was possible he was allergic to Tylenol (which he had taken since an infant?? On 9/29 we rushed him to the ER (he couldn't move at all). Pedi started him on Doxicycline the next day. On 10/11 the test came back positive. We had a follow up appointment and all seemed to be going well. On 10/14/07 he had a gran mal seizure. He went home with no meds because it was a first seizure. On 4/4/08 he had a second seizure. Was then put on meds. He is doing well just started college but could Lyme be triggering seizures? With all the new books being written on Lyme, I am worried about chronic lyme. Please write if you have any info on Lyme and seizures. Thanks. Concerned Mom
ticks bite.
I do feel for people with much worse symptoms. I got lyme in 2004. Occassionally I'll get joint pains and the same type of migrane I had when the disease was diagnosed. The chronic fatigue is probably the worst, though. I was bit while in costal Oregon - ironic since Lyme disease was named after the town in my state on the other side of the country.
What!?! What word am i in?
If you are unfortunate enough to get bit by a tick and contract lyme you have landed in an episode of the twilight zone. Youll find that doctors tell you that you cant have Lyme because it isnt in your state. As if ticks know when to hop of the deer's back when they get to the state line. Youll find that the tests are inaccurate. If you have any of the several co-infections you can get from a tick, youll have a hard time treating it. Its almost like you have several diseases rolled into one. These diseases inclued the "doctors", the insurance companies, the lyme disease, the co-infections, public perception. Lyme disease will devistate your mental and physical health. I used to wonder what these people who have "chronic lyme" do to survive. Now i wonder if they just end of succoming to two more diseases. Depression and Suicide.
Lyme disease
It's almost two years since I started having symptoms including severe headaches, neck pain, swallowing problems, chest pain, and extreme fatigue. After months of just hoping it would go away, I went to a doctor and he told me I was "depressed." So I tried an anti-depressant for six months, then went to another doctor to tell him about my symptoms. He sent me to a neurologist, and an MRI revealed extensive brain atrophy, but no known cause (ie. no MS, like they suspected). Finally the neurologist did a lot of tests, including Lyme, which came back positive for the acute phase, but "iffy" for the "chronic" phase. So the local infectious diseases doc said it's no definitive... I needed to have five positive antibodies in that phase, not just two. But I was treated with 2 weeks of IV antibiotic anyway. And despite the next test still coming back positive for acute Lyme, I was told.... that's it. And so my joints continue to hurt more, for awhile I couldn't even pick up a coffee pot, and I get headaches and eye pain and well.... To make a long story short, I am a tough person... I have never missed a day of work, I continue to exercise and stay as healthy as I can. But I wonder "How long will my life be affected by this??" (Note: the summer before my symptoms started I had been in western Washington, New York, and three times in Wisconsin.)
Cure Unknown is a much better book
Read both and for my money Cure Unknown is an amazing book about Lyme. It is full of facts and the untold story of Lyme Disease.
