Comments about ‘Chronic Lyme disease hobbles Spanish Fork woman’

You wrote our story. Only for us it has been 4 yrs and add in another child. We wish you all the best, and hope you know there are others whom know what this experience is like.

Thank you for sharing your story!
Hoping you will see improvements during 2010.
Thank goodness for Under Our Skin and Cure Unknown (Pamela Weintraub), who are telling our Lyme stories.
Wishing you a happier and healthier year ahead.

I have a friend in Rhode Island who has Lyme Disease, and it took her a long time, and a lot of prodding of her physicians before a diagnoses was made. On top of it, or maybe part of it, she has fibromyalgia and other problems. I'm going to forward this news article to her. Best wishes to you for a better year this coming year.

If Lyme disease is a listed and acknowledge disease then why are doctors and insurance saying it doesn't exist?

Today's medical profession is very disappointing when they refuse to acknowledge that there are people out there with real illnesses. The medical profession and the IHC corporate medicine are a dangerous system. Rather than take the effort to learn more to treat some diseases they would rather deny existence.

Over the years I have acknowledged that the current medical profession does not have doctors who care, they just treat the masses for fast money and give very bad health care, advice, and diagnosis.

My impression after recent need of their services and treatment was they think patients are money pits. Two doctors at 2 IHC's said they couldn't help me, even before they did anything. I had to ask them if they were doctors and a licensed practitioner before they offered to check my heart or blood pressure and blood test just to satisfy my question. After 10 minuets they sent me on my way with 2 prescriptions without any diagnosed illness. This is deadly corporate health care and I won't be back.

My wife has it. She was born with it, and didn't flair up until the last few years. She is 40 now. Her daughter has it as well. She to has gone from 1 DR to the next. Insurance, and even Tricare won't cover it. Most hospitals can't diagnose it, because their labs aren't sensitive enough to see it. In fact more people have it then AIDS. It is just that everything else gets all the headlines, and funding. It masks, and can be the cause for many of the higher profile health issues, from diabeties, to fibromylagia, and more. The CDC doesn't recognize it. And the Doctors that do specailize in treating it, take cash. We need to lobby together to see that people get the treatment. And Doctors need to keep thier eggos out of the way. There are support groups out there. You can Google them, for more help and encouragement.

This is real - my wife and I have 4 children and she has been diagnosed with Lyme also. We have been to several Dr.'s over the years and know the frustration. We wish you continued improvement.

Hope and Change is on its way! I'm sure you will be able to get all the care you need when Obamacare gets rolling. Those evil insurance companies will be brought to their knees. At least that's what Obama says. No?

Lyme disease is acknowledged by medical professionals as a real disease. "Chronic" lyme disease is not. If it is not caught and treated early, there can be lasting effects, permanent damage to organs, etc., just like if one is cut deeply it will leave a scar. But the cause of the disease itself, bacteria belonging to the genus borrelia, is very treatable with antibiotics. I am not suggesting that this lady isn't suffering. As noted, she may have permanent effects, but it is also possible -- even probable -- that most of her symptoms are somatic.

What really irks me is the lack of scholarship by the author of this article. Even a small amount of internet research would have helped the biased perspective presented here. Had the author gone to the medical stacks, however, this article may never have been published.

How sad that metamoracoug has never fully researched the issue nor known someone with chronic lyme disease. If he had, he would not dismiss the seriousness of the health problems related to chronic lyme disease and he would show more compassion for those who have it.

Metamoracoug has not studied all the medical research that shows Borrelia burgdorferii can persist despite repeated or prolonged antibiotics. The bacterial spirochetes are pleomorphic - that is they change forms. They can drop their cell walls, which essentially makes antibiotics worthless, yet allows the organism to continue making the person sick. They have also been shown to roll up into little cyst-like formations, which allows them to survive adverse conditions, such as when antibiotics are present.

Dr. Barthold, veternarian, has recently published 2 research articles showing that not only is Borrelia not eliminated after 30 days of Ceftriaxone, but the infected mice were able to transmit the organism to ticks, which were then able to infect other mice. Borrelia infection is more easily treated if it is diagnosed early in the infectious process, but many doctors refuse to consider that diagnosis even when there is an Erythema migrans (the diagnositic rash) present. When it is not diagnosed early, the treatment can be long and difficult, as well as very expensive, due to factors listed previously. Unfortunately, I have personal experience with this.

You've got it absolutely right.

Arent we so very lucky to have the best health care system in the world that takes such good care of us. NOT!!

No offense Chris and McFighter but I've contracted lyme disease three times in the past three years from three separate tick bites. I have very thoroughly researched lyme disease and discussed the matter with my family physician.

The antibiotic kills the bacteria. Period. Thus, "chronic" lyme disease is an impossiblity. As stated in my post, there can be permanent damage caused by the bacteria if it is not caught early. That damage can cause chronic problems, most especially cardiac difficulties, rarely neurologic as reported for the lady in this article.

I like my health care. Of course, I'm not a whiny liberal who thinks that somebody else should pay for it.

We have the best health care system in the world...... if you ignore the 36 other nations have have a better system.

I agree that our health care system is lacking in some important areas, but you can't simply fault the system on this one. "Chronic lyme disease" is a controversial diagnosis to say the least. The mechanisms behind the disease are not well understood, and there is no standard or proven treatment. It's understandable that an insurance company wouldn't want to spend large sums of money on procedures and medicines when there's little or no evidence to suggest that they will be effective. Hopefully Mrs. Ballard's doctor is on the right track and her experience can help the medical profession adopt a standard protocol for this terrible condition.

I got rid of my Lyme disease by going all natural. There are no cures to be claimed, but good nutrition and herbs healed me naturally. Everyone is different. Start with good nutrition. God gave us all natural things to heal that come from this good earth.

im very sorry that some people in the world never can explain why those that have been cursed with chronic lyme disease seek treatment and after years of pain and "permanent damage" feel better after 6 months of treatment. i dont know but that seems logical to me that treatment works on something. But what do i know i only live with someone that has been dealing with it and is going through treatment and is getting better. but i guess it cant exists.

When it's your time to go on Medicare, you'll turn it down. Correct?

The Connecticut Attorney General uncovered massive corruption in the antitrust investigation of the authors behind the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) Lyme disease guidelines. Some of this has not been made public.

The CDC is also involved in the corruption behind Lyme disease with their scientists having financial conflicts of interest.

Certain HMO's, such as Kaiser, will not diagnose Lyme disease. They take the extra step of shipping their Lyme blood samples cross country so the sample will degrade with the extra time involved and test negative. They follow the IDSA guidelines to avoid appropriate diagnosis and treatment.

There are now some Lyme disease specialists in the West Coast states with the exception of Oregon. The atmosphere for Lyme specialists is toxic in Oregon where the very first case of Lyme physician harassment took place in 1993. Much of this has to do with the market domination by Kaiser and the unwarranted influence of David Gilbert, a past president of IDSA associated with Providence HMO and Oregon Health Sciences University, Oregon's only medical school.