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The Challenge of Diagnosing Lyme Disease - The New York Times
The biggest problem is that there is no way to test, unequivocally, for the presence of the bacteria that cause the disease.
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Lyme disease is on the rise. The 30,000 cases reported annually to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by state health departments represent only a fraction of the cases diagnosed and treated around the country. About half the cases occur in people under the age of 21, and boys from 5 to 9 years old are the most commonly affected group, possibly because they spend a good deal of time outdoors.
A recent article in The New York Times about a child who was treated for Lyme disease and did well, offering a reassuring message about relatively straightforward cases of the infection, drew more than 700 reader comments, many of them angrily denouncing the author and predicting medical complications to come for her son. Some responses reflect the frustrations of people who feel they have struggled for years with persistent and recalcitrant symptoms from the infection.
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The bacterium that causes Lyme Disease, Borrelia burgdorferi is a species of the spirochete class of the genus Borrelia. B. burgdorferi exists in North America and Europe and until 2016 was the only known cause of Lyme disease in North America (Borrelia mayonii, found in the midwestern US, is also known to cause the disease). These bugs & the ticks that serve as their vectors are spreading since the first case was diagnosed in 1982 in Lyme, CT. The problem facing ER doctors is that there is no blood test for Lyme Disease until the disease has progressed to the state where the body has formed antibodies that can be tested for. By that time you might have developed some nasty symptoms.
Another problem with diagnosing tick-borne diseases is that they are known to act as vectors for a wide range of bacterial & viral diseases across the U.S., including babesiosis & tularemia. See Tickborne Diseases of the United States | Ticks | CDC. This is one of the main reasons I stay out of wooded areas where deer carry ticks.
The biggest problem is that there is no way to test, unequivocally, for the presence of the bacteria that cause the disease.
=====================================================
Lyme disease is on the rise. The 30,000 cases reported annually to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by state health departments represent only a fraction of the cases diagnosed and treated around the country. About half the cases occur in people under the age of 21, and boys from 5 to 9 years old are the most commonly affected group, possibly because they spend a good deal of time outdoors.
A recent article in The New York Times about a child who was treated for Lyme disease and did well, offering a reassuring message about relatively straightforward cases of the infection, drew more than 700 reader comments, many of them angrily denouncing the author and predicting medical complications to come for her son. Some responses reflect the frustrations of people who feel they have struggled for years with persistent and recalcitrant symptoms from the infection.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The bacterium that causes Lyme Disease, Borrelia burgdorferi is a species of the spirochete class of the genus Borrelia. B. burgdorferi exists in North America and Europe and until 2016 was the only known cause of Lyme disease in North America (Borrelia mayonii, found in the midwestern US, is also known to cause the disease). These bugs & the ticks that serve as their vectors are spreading since the first case was diagnosed in 1982 in Lyme, CT. The problem facing ER doctors is that there is no blood test for Lyme Disease until the disease has progressed to the state where the body has formed antibodies that can be tested for. By that time you might have developed some nasty symptoms.
Another problem with diagnosing tick-borne diseases is that they are known to act as vectors for a wide range of bacterial & viral diseases across the U.S., including babesiosis & tularemia. See Tickborne Diseases of the United States | Ticks | CDC. This is one of the main reasons I stay out of wooded areas where deer carry ticks.
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