Lyme Disease

Science Daily reports that a study by Columbia University Medical Center shows that using IV antibiotics helped chronic Lyme disease patients with cognitive impairment improve. Unfortunately, ending the antibiotics ended the improvement, but it is progress. The most important thing to me is that a major university with a very good reputation is studying Lyme disease and thinks that chronic Lyme disease exists.

There is an uproar in the Lyme disease patient community over a new report by a group of scientists and doctors that says chronic Lyme disease does not exist:

A prestigious group of physicians and scientists says there is no evidence that chronic Lyme disease exists, and that patients may be doing themselves more harm than good by undergoing prolonged antibiotic therapy.

They prefer to call the problems of people with long term symptoms post Lyme disease syndrome and compare it to fibromylagia. Frankly, I don’t care what they call it. I want them to come up with a way to fix it!

I’ve been having trouble finding an unbiased overview of Lyme disease in news articles. This article by Donna Nichols of Record.net is the kind of good reporting I was looking for. She actually presents both sides of the story. (The photography is ummm…not so good, as one of the readers pointed out rather crudely.)

How sad is this?

CENTRALIA, Mo. | A 15-year-old girl has died from a rare but treatable tick-borne disease, officials said Thursday.

When are we going to have a quick and accurate way to diagnose tick borne illnesses? Ehrlichiosis should not be fatal.

Here I was feeling special and it turns out ticks are giving Lyme to everyone, including heads of state! According to news reports:

The recent revelation that President Bush was treated for Lyme disease put him among a growing number of Americans who have gotten the disease.

From Newsday.com:

A coalition of several Fairfield County towns and cities is proposing a reduction in the deer population as the only sure way to reduce the number of cases of Lyme disease.

With the news about mice being the big carriers, they may be planning to hunt the wrong four legged critter.  However, I’m sure that overcrowded deer populations do account for at least part of the Lyme disease problem. If they don’t have enough food in the wild, they are more likely to go into people’s gardens to forage and can very easily leave behind infected ticks.

Today, the Baltimore Sun had a big article on Lyme Disease. It is nice to see that local papers are paying attention to this, especially since there are quite a few cases of Lyme Disease in Maryland. In fact, in 2006 alone, there were 1248 cases reported. The most interesting thing is something I’ve been saying all along to anyone who will listen to me:

It’s not the deer that are the problem – it is the little tick covered field mice that romp around the houses that are spreading deer ticks far and wide.

Douglas Hotton, leader of DNR’s deer management program, said deer numbers may have little to do with the spread of Lyme disease. In fact, he suggested that the very name “deer tick” is misleading. “It ought to really be called the “mouse tick,” he said, since the white-footed mouse is the main host for the Lyme-causing bacteria.

Another thing the article discussed was that not everyone agrees on treatment. The CDC says not to take drugs longer than four weeks, although a second dose of four weeks is sometimes necessary. Patients’ groups are saying they may need to take antibiotics for a lot longer than that if they have a chronic Lyme infection. Who’s right? I don’t know. Hopefully, this second dose is all I’ll need.