Lyme disease found in Wake - Again

Lyme disease found in Wake

AP FILE PHOTO

The black-legged tick, or 'deer tick,' carries Lyme disease bacteria. Tick season starts in April.

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BY MARTHA QUILLIN AND ANNE BLYTHE - STAFF WRITERS

RALEIGH -- As the weather warms and walks through tick-laden woods beckon, state officials have confirmed that Wake County is among the North Carolina counties where Lyme disease is a known threat.

The state Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday that in 2009 two cases of the tick-borne disease were found in patients who had not left the county during the 30 days before they contracted the infection.

Four similar cases were confirmed in the state last year, health officials said: one each in Wilkes, Wilson, Pitt and Carteret counties.

martha.quillin@newsobserver.com or 919-829-8989For years, Lyme disease was thought to be primarily a scourge of Northeastern and north central states, where more than 90 percent of reported cases occur. Doctors in North Carolina were reluctant even to test patients for the disease.

Now, public health officials want doctors - and patients - to be aware of the early signs of the illness and appropriate treatments. Early intervention can prevent the development of serious complications, including cardiac and nervous-system abnormalities and a condition called Lyme arthritis.

Jenny Carrington, who lives on a small horse farm near Rolesville, was not surprised by the finding. After suffering the headaches, fever, fatigue, muscle aches and other ill effects of Lyme disease starting in July 2007, she went through three North Carolina doctors before finally getting a South Carolina physician to prescribe high doses of antibiotics.

"This is bad news, but good news," Carrington said Wednesday. "It's bad news it's here, but good news they're acknowledging it. As long as the medical world will recognize it, maybe they'll take it a little more seriously and react a little quicker. Maybe they'll do more, too, to educate people about the disease."

'A big, big deal'

The declaration that Lyme disease exists in Wake County is a "big, big deal," said Marcia Herman-Giddens, an adjunct professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Public Health and president of the Tick-borne Infections Council of North Carolina. Not only will doctors be required to report cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they are also likely to prescribe medications sooner.

"People who don't get treated as quickly generally don't do well," Herman-Giddens said.

Carried by 'deer tick'

Reluctance to acknowledge the presence of the infection in North Carolina stemmed from early observations of the black-legged tick, or "deer tick," which carries the Lyme bacteria. In Southern states, the tick appeared to feed on reptiles rather than mammals. As a result, it had a reputation for biting fewer people in the South and was considered unlikely to transmit the bacteria to humans here.

Carl Williams, state public health veterinarian, said that part of the educational process is helping people understand where they are at risk for the disease.

"They don't necessarily have to go to Umstead Park," Williams said. "If they're pruning azalea bushes in their backyard, that could be a place where they could pick up a tick."

In North Carolina, April is considered the start of tick season.

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/03/18/394678/lyme-disease-found-in-wake.html#ixzz0iXLQbnYC

No treatment for nut jobs. Chronic Lyme

After the birth of my first child I had miserable pain that showed no signs of abating. My OB kept giving me one antidepressant after another insisting I had post partum depression. For a depressed person I felt unusually happy and well connected. I was just in terrible pain. Finally he referred me to a psychiatrist who was disgusted and said, “You have a physical problem”. He sent me to a specialist in Chapel Hill, Dr Steege. He diagnosed me with plain only levator syndrome. I got well with his help. I swore I would never again be tricked into taking psych meds for a physical problem.

But just recently I started taking Lyrica for fibromyalgia. My fibromyalgia is a gift from my Lyme Disease. Lyrica was originally an antidepressant that didn’t work well. But in test trials at very low doses showed some smart physician that it stopped the pain of people with fibromyalgia. So once again I am taking psych meds for pain.

I was speaking to a friend of mine who has a thriving practice in clinical psychology just yesterday. I explained to her that I had started taking Lyrica for my fibromyalgia symptoms. She exclaimed, “thank God for Lyrica. I was surprise by the out burst but asked her why she felt that way.

Her face became visibly angry as she explained, “Well for 10 years every doctor in Raleigh has been sending us their fibromyalgia patients because they believed that the pain their patients suffered from was “all in their head”. As clinical psychologists we have been sending them back to their doctor after discovering that their pain was all in their body. The patients feel like a ping pong ball. Of course they are offended when their GP makes them feel like they are crazy. The whole thing has been terrible”.

Just to make the line a little more blurry...

Since I am going back through my second round of Lyme treatment I more than understood what she was saying. I remembered the Raleigh Infectious Disease Specialist who refused to even talk to me about Lyme. He said angrily that he wasn’t treating Lyme because people who claim to have Lyme where all suffering from hysteria and depression. My two positive tick borne disease titers lead me to believe that the only one with hysteria was the infectious disease specialist.

To finally receive treatment I had to prove I wasn’t nuts. A battery of neuropsychological exams would show I had neither anxiety, depression, hysteria nor insanity. But what if my neuropsychological test had shown that I was a real nut job? Is that a valid reason for denying treatment? A physician at a local emergency room would never deny antibiotics to a schizophrenic with an infection. It would be malpractice.

As Lyme disease patients we need to dismiss the argument that we are nuts as valid. When we believe this is what is being said we need to tell physician that our mental solvency is not a reason to deny treatment.

Flying away from the relapse: Chronic Lyme

When I have a Lyme relapse it happens like this. I feel like I am coming down with the flu. Not over the course of the day. No the entire full-on flu sets in within the course of 15 minutes. I go from having a really good day to 'oh my God it is happening again'. I go from coherent and alert to I may not be able to drive home on my own. The lymph nodes in my neck will literally, visibly swell to painful golf balls over the course of just an hour. I stand up and leave from my desk taking only the time to email my boss. (makes for a terrible boss/employee relationship). My hand shake and I can barely put the keys in the door. I do nothing but fall into bed. My husband will help me undress when he gets home. I just have to wait for help to come to me. For someone to discover that I am sick. Like and old women who has fallen and broken her hip. Then I lay in bed with a fever in pain for days on end.

It sets in like a bird or prey. Swift and unexpected. But my Lyme disease relapses also leave the same way. If you have been following this blog in the last few weeks you know I have had 4 relapses of the course of 6 weeks. It is most likely one big relapse that I had to hammer back 4 different time. Tuesday was particularly bad as my lungs where swelling and the rescue inhaler was only helping a little. But yesterday around 6 pm it all stopped. The pain left. Just as suddenly - I was well. The lymph nodes began to shirk rapidly. After a good night of sleep I woke up this morning and my lymph nodes where no longer huge hard golf balls in my neck. Suddenly I am up again and eating and exercising. Just like that I am fly away from a relapse just as fast as it set in.

Now I may still relapse again. But usually this is the sign that I will be well for a while.

Pray for me - pray that I stay well.

Magic: Chronic Lyme

I am getting well now and there is a feeling of magic pouring into my life. Yes by 2:00 in the afternoon I am still exhausted and quite frankly done for the day but each day is little better than the one before. There are miraculous things a foot.

Obama in trouble? Chronic Lyme

So I was reading and article in the Economist that says that Americans are up in arms over the growing influence of the US government under president Obama.

Umm - no - I think not. President Bush was a disaster for our family. We are just regular middle class Americans. Avoiding all the arguments about Bush stealing the vote or being a warlord. No I remember not being able to get the my unemployment check because Bush would sign a bill to fund the unemployment security commission. It was bad enough that his blank stare financial policies shut down the company that I worked for but taking the unemployment too. That is low. Then there was the lip service only policy he promoted for illegal immigrants from Mexico. Meanwhile methamphetamine walked across the border in unprecedented quantities and into my hometown claiming the lives of good kids. But we couldn't get any of the good hard working people from Mexico - that we wanted to come here and work because of the crappy immigration policies. Then there where those taxes that I owed. I am still feeling the impact from that. Then there was the do nothing attitude toward bio patents by universities and pharma. My own father couldn't do research with Canadian Universities because he couldn't get anything over the border in a timely way. This seriously effected his income. But the bio patent stuff personally impacted my Lyme treatment and has left me disabled for lack of treatment and adequate testing. Then it was like every kid in town had asthma or something. It was ridiculous to go to a soccer match. Otherwise healthy kids are suddenly standing on the sidelines with their inhalers. So much for the "Blue Sky" laws. My own children have autism and "no child left behind" did exactly the opposite - it left my kids in the dust. Then his administration cut all mental health funding to the states and any benefits they did have where gone.

Then enter Obama. My taxes will be significantly less this year. Should I need to activate my unemployment then wow - I can expect to receive that. I can actually afford my COBRA payment only because of the stimulus act. My new health insurance company that takes effect in February has taken a radical new approach and they are NOT counting my "pre-existing" conditions. WOW that's new! The schools have money now to help the kids with autism and mental health programs like CAP are being revived. Finally the EPA is talking about air quality. The EPA is finally talking about Lyme and this administration is putting significant pressure on the CDC to get accurate numbers about the outbreak. Additionally they are putting more money into Lyme research. Finally an administration that doesn't blame the poor for being poor or the sick for being sick.

I think I will keep Obama. You send me your tea bags and I will send you the tea cup that I can finally afford AND the water you won't have to be afraid to drink.