View Story | 66 comments
Comments: Expand Shrink Hide (Always) | Indented Flat (Always)
inlcuding several family members who have suffered from chronic Lyme Disease. There conditions included severe joint, as well as neurological problems. Their pain was further exacerbated by then Gov Pataki's Health Commissioner's attack on the licenses of any MD's who used an aggressive antibiotic regimen to treat the LD. Of course, I'm sure that was backed by the health insurance industry.
by Prison4Bushco on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:17:24 PM PDT
...seems very prevalent in NY and New England. I lived in LA for 20 years and never met anyone w/Lyme.
I have to admit, having my own immunological deficiency, I am pretty paranoid about catching lyme. Our house backs up against a thick woods and I am always cognizant in summer what might be lurking out there.
"There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS." - Gandhi
by hopesprings on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:24:41 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
Deer populations are up in the suburbs and deer ticks are too. They harbor lyme disease.
"It's the planet, stupid."
by FishOutofWater on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:31:02 PM PDT
Deer can carry the ticks long distances, but mice and birds harbor the spirochete (and several other pathogens) and transmit it to the tick larva.
Ticks suck!
by 42 on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:36:08 PM PDT
...the animal kingdom will kill us off, and not the other way around...
by hopesprings on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 08:38:30 PM PDT
started out as a very localized phenomenon and was actually named after a town in CT. When it first become prominent, it was primarly in the CT, Mass and Ny areas, but as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, has spread elsewhere. BTW, yes, I am in the lower Hudson Valley area.
by Prison4Bushco on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:54:04 PM PDT
in Nyack
by hopesprings on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 08:37:32 PM PDT
hello neighbor :) I'm right across the TZB
by Prison4Bushco on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 09:12:23 PM PDT
from our house! If we got a telescope we could make some extra dough doing traffic reports!
Speaking of TZB, haven't people been talking about the alleged un-safety of that bridge for a long time?
by hopesprings on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 10:30:57 PM PDT
...The reason we dont have Lyme in the west is due to the natural immunity of the Western Fence Lizard...Tick bites lizard, tick gets "cured" of Lyme Dz...
New Yorker visits California...gets bitten by tick...tick gets Lyme Dz...
Funny but that is how it works...at least that is the story I got from a Bio prof. @ U.C.
by guerrilladem on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 09:10:48 PM PDT
similar to AIDS in the early '80's, with regard to understanding the complexities and extent of this infection.
My doc, who is an infectious disease specialist, was the first doc in NC to treat AIDS. He now is overwhelmed with lyme cases from all over the south.
Our NC medical board and NC BCBS have, in effect, driven him out of the state by harassing him -- an infectious disease specialist!!
Sen. Shumer got lyme this year. Unfortunately, we will need some high profile people to be ill with this before we start getting the help we need.
Btw, my infectious disease doc calls syphilis, the dumb cousin of lyme. That's saying something if you know anything about syphilis!
by roonie on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:25:01 PM PDT
my husband and I have a friend who is a doctor in Charleston SC and he was complaining about the fact that insurance doesn't cover lyme disease testing...
by hopesprings on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:28:23 PM PDT
They are a major headache for us with the disease. They don't want to pay for long term antibiotic treatments, much less for IV antibiotic treatment -- which is what neurolyme needs most times.
The best labs to detect lyme are a western blot from Igenex Labs or MDL labs. Most docs don't know about these labs, nor do they have accounts with them.
Even if an infected person tests at the right lab, the tests are often unreliable (as in negative when the person really has it)
by roonie on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:33:17 PM PDT
by ragged claws scuttling on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 06:58:55 PM PDT
Why are they best? Please provide real data here. What makes their Western any better than another lab's?
Feel free to link to a real reference -- something peer-reviewed.
by ragged claws scuttling on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 07:00:34 PM PDT
they include the most likely bands, and report qualitatively too. Also, many labs don't test the bands that were in the lymerix vaccine, thereby missing key markers.
Most docs test Elisa, which is useless.
by roonie on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 07:04:59 PM PDT
a link to PubMed perhaps?
by ragged claws scuttling on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 07:16:15 PM PDT
There are hundreds of strains of Bb that cause Lyme disease. The above labs use multiple strains of the spirochete to devise their tests. Igenex also reports the very Lyme specific bands that were removed from the standard Western Blot test which allows for more accurate testing.
Scotland recently adopted this revised test scoring.
by 42 on Thu Aug 09, 2007 at 08:01:01 PM PDT
wide narrow
View Story | 66 comments