Lyme disease is now an epidemic in several US states.4 Estimates are now at 3 million cases of lyme disease in the US in 3 decades. Most of these cases are from states that border Canada yet Canada reports it has only had a few hundred cases…? See an epidemiological map of what is immediately across our border. Canada has no such info – yet where we look we find lyme.
Lyme borreliosis is now acknowledged as the most highly prevalent arthropod-borne human disease in northern temperate regions of the world5. Canadian medicine and science, due to the lack of recognition of the clinical diagnoses, combined with lack of surveillance and research, places us at the bottom of the scale in dealing with this serious disease. We are years behind.
Many Lyme patients were firstly diagnosed with other illnesses such as Juvenile Arthritis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Reactive Arthritis, Psoriatic Arthritis, Infectious Arthritis, Osteoarthritis, Fibromyalgia, Raynaud’s Syndrome, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Interstitial Cystis, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease, Fifth’s Fisease, Multiple Sclerosis, scleroderma, lupus, early ALS, early Alzheimers Disease, crohn’s disease, ménières syndrome, reynaud’s syndrome, sjogren’s syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, prostatitis, psychiatric disorders (bipolar, depression, etc.), encephalitis, sleep disorders, thyroid disease and various other illnesses.
If you have received one of these diagnoses please go to our symptoms page and see if you recognize a broader range of symptoms.
If you are a doctor please re-examine these diagnoses, incorporating Lyme in the differential diagnoses.
If you feel you may have Lyme Disease you are encouraged to contact us. If you have a rash please photograph it (a close-up) and send it to us with as much detail about date/time, place, any tick bite noticed. Please include your name and phone number for our records in trying to track this disease. All information is confidential and shall never be released to anyone without your written consent.
Read this from 1993… where are we now – no better?
Ronald S. Ferris, Calgary, Alberta, deceased (1945-2000), made many a profound statement about Lyme Disease in Canada prior to his death. Read more about Ron and the impact he had on others and take the time to read that interesting and informative web site.
Lyme Disease….A vector borne disease (ticks are one known vector) which has caused controversy in the past decades because of its difficult diagnosis and treatment. The organism is highly fastidious, growing extremely slowly in tissue culture (not bacteriological) media. The vast majority of body fluid or tissue samples from patients with Lyme disease do not yield spirochetes on culture. Lyme disease is thus usually clinically diagnosed. Possible detection of serum antibodies to burgdorferi may only augment the clinical diagnosis. However, acutely antibodies may not occur in detectable titer, making early diagnosis difficult. Many later stage seronegative patients are very symptomatic and treatment intervention has been shown to be very effective. The tick O.hermsii has been implicated as a possible vector and some Canadian cases are reviewed. Lyme mimics many other diseases but clearly an educated doctor will recognize lyme symptoms and include lyme in the possible diagnoses.
The first documented case of Lyme disease to have originated in Canada (Journal details here) was a 51-year old French female nurse visited Quebec, Canada from 20 July to 5 August, 1984 and contracted Lyme disease. She reported an insect bite on 3 August 1984 on the back of her knee with erythema chronicum migrans appearing at the site of the bite on 5 August 1984. The patient presented with meningeal lymphocytic reaction near the end of September, 1984. Total Ig serum titers in indirect immunofluorescence tests on 1 October 1984, 10 October 1984, and 10 January 1985 were 1/512, 1/2048 and 1/16,384, respectively.
Lyme Disease is not the only tick borne disease in Canada but can be complicated by multiple tick-borne co-infections such as Ehrlichiosis, Babesiosis, and Bartonella. Other tick borne diseases include Tularemia, Tick Paralysis and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.
Lyme Disease is determined by clinicians, not labs
…no lab has a gold standard test to date, some labs are just better than others.
The only treatment available to date is antibiotic. If caught early and treatment given in sufficient dosage over sufficient time all is well in most cases. There remains a significant number of treatment failures usually as a result of insufficient dose/time of treatment and/or late diagnoses.
These treatment failures have proven to benefit significantly from longer term antibiotic treatment and patients sometimes have to be very demanding to receive such treatment.
One has to be realistic…not being able to find something by available methods in science means nothing to the sick patient who recovers after many weeks/months of appropriate treatment.
Therein lies the difficulty and undermining of appropriate treatment. The cost of treating lyme disease with antibiotics can be expensive in the relative short term so without a doubt business/politics become involved. Without a definitive test the door is left open for money to rule over health. However, the cost of not treating lyme, or treating it inadequately, is infinitely more expensive.
The majority of research is funded/lobbied by 1. Insurers (motivated to keep treatment costs/duration to a minimum). 2. Governments (heavily lobbied by private/public insurers as well as tourism dollars). 3. Drug manufacturers (motivated to peddle drugs).
The results of this heavily influenced research are what we educate our medical students with, who then become our doctors with a bias.
Therefore it takes the wise front line physician to wade through the swamp and treat the patient using good sound judgment. The better doctors learned early on that some of what they were taught just didn’t add up when they encountered their real world patients. Common sense still applies…even in science.
Symptoms may show up fast, with a bang, or very slowly and innocuously. They may creep into ones life over weeks, months or even years.
While antibiotic treatment carries risk, it pales in comparison to the serious danger and cost (in productivity, income and family) of developing late stage illness that may develop within weeks even before the first lyme tests have returned.
Lyme disease in dogs often causes several symptoms, including depression, fever, decreased appetite, weight loss and joint stiffness. Look for chronic stiffness as an indication of a dog that has Lyme disease with help from a veterinarian in this free video on dog health.
This is a short film I made about my very ill cousin, she has been sick with Lyme disease for over 3 years. Please show your support by sharing this video with everyone you can, and raise their awareness about the seriousness of this disease.
Public health officials say the number of areas where ticks are found is expanding, raising the risk of lyme disease.
Update 2
Dr. Raphael Stricker talks about the controversy over chronic Lyme, the pros and cons of the existing Lyme tests, and the IDSA’s argument against long-term use of antibiotics, on April 23, 2008 as part of the Lyme Disease Expert Interview Audio Series.