Vicious Lyme-Disease Spreads Rapidly in North-East

Lyme-disease is spread by ticks that are abundant in the North-East and Fire Island. It is imperative to carefully check oneself after out-door activity carefully, as well as dogs and cats that move between the home and outdoors. For your own benefit, read the sections: Prevention and Tick/Lyme Info carefully.

You may think you have always been careful. Think again!! Some HMO doctors may only test if they observe the typical rash. The standard test today is the Western Blot Test. With this sequence your doctor has an about 75% chance of misdiagnosis. Reason: About half the people infected develop a rash and the Western Blot is only about 50% accurate. In addition, selection of the laboratory performing the test is important, since CDC has, not long ago, reduced the required bands reported in order to reduce false positives. That of course also reduces accuracy and/or sensitivity.  Furthermore, your doctor has to watch out for coinfection with Ehrlichiosis and Babesiosis. Both may be carried by Lyme Bacteria. (I am not doctor nor scientifically trained. Please continue your education from other reliable sources. Please read, and understand the disclaimer below).

Symptoms may include: the bulls-eye rash, mood swings, joint aches, flu-like symptoms, general achines, head-aches, muscle-aches, and more. As you can see symptoms can easily be rationalized away. Guard your-self against it and be persistent with your doctor, and change doctors if you feel your symptoms are not properly investigated.

The earlier and infection is diagnosed the more successful the antibiotic treatment will be. Later stages infections are oftentimes treated aggressively with one or more antibiotics , orally or intravenous. The medical profession seems to have widely diverse opinions at this time . Add to that the reluctance of insurance companies to pay for aggressive treatments. The problem lies in the fact that it is virtually impossible to clearly prove an infection after treatment with antibiotics (changes are about to occur. See below). Later and late stages of infections seem to be curable only temporarily since a few few bacteria usually survive in not blood rich tissue.

One new development that has many Lyme positive people hopeful is a test/culture developed by Dr. Steven Phillips of Ridgefield, CT and 3 other doctors, published in Infection Journal in January 1999, that outlines procedures that can culture and prove Lyme bacteria from blood from late stage Lyme patients. It is still under peer-review, but promises once commercially available, a strong tool when dealing with insurance companies to pay for the often times expensive courses of treatment.

These two links are important to bookmark: Lyme Disease Foundation, Inc. and Lymenet.org. They also can help you find the names of the few Lyme specialists in the metropolitan New York area.