SLEUTHING PAYS OFF FOR WOMAN WITH LYME ILLNESS

It's taken four years, but Karen Jacobsen finally knows Lyme disease is to blame for the debilitating pain she has suffered since being bitten in 1985 by what she thought was a spider in her Holladay yard.

After countless visits to doctors that usually ended in her being told her problem was psychological rather than physical, Jacobsen stumbled upon an article about Lyme disease in the July issue of a health magazine.Her hastily scribbled notes on the article, reading "Awful rash, headaches, fatigue," attest to her surprise at seeing in print the symptoms that sapped her strength and slowed her life to a near standstill.

"All that time, I just didn't feel right. But it wasn't anything specific I could put my finger on. I just didn't feel right and I was tired. I didn't have the stamina I'd always had," Jacobsen said.

She compared the fatigue and aches to the feeling of coming down with the flu. Only Jacobsen never got the flu or any other recognizable illness, just a mismatched assortment of complaints.

Most troubling was the severe back pain that prevented her from performing even the simplest of tasks such as cooking.

Then came memory loss. Duties such as reconciling the checking account of the software company where she worked as an office manager became so confusing that Jacobsen had to relearn the process every month.

The turning point in her illness came soon after a trip to a hospital emergency room, where doctors said they could do nothing to help the throbbing back pain that had gotten so bad she couldn't sleep.

That's when Jacobsen decided to take responsibility for finding out what was wrong with her and began combing medical journals and other publications for clues.

She also consulted yet another doctor, choosing a family practitioner instead of a specialist. It was that physician, Dr. R.J. Stearman, who tested her for Lyme disease.

Jacobsen insisted on taking the test after recognizing her symptoms in the article on Lyme disease that appeared in the July issue of Prevention magazine and then remembering the bite and the following rash.

Stearman, who has practiced medicine in Utah since 1965, said Jacobsen deserves the credit for making the diagnosis.

He gave her the test despite the knowledge that only one case of Lyme disease has ever been documented by state health officials in Utah. (See accompanying story.)

Since getting back the positive test results in early July and taking the antibiotic treatment, Jacobsen has been steadily regaining her strength and reclaiming her life.

She has also been reflecting on her experience. "What I learned was that I want to be involved in my health care . . . . ."