Post by skeeter on Jan 8, 2007 10:44:26 GMT -5
"Which is more of a strain upon insurance providers and the health care system, extended antibiotic treatment protocols or chronically ill and disabled Lyme patients?"
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www.eastbayri.com/story/287830350732419.php
East Bay Newspapers
Bristol RI
December 27, 2006
Lyme treatments need more attention
To the editor:
As a co-author of a book on Lyme disease released in 2006, I interviewed scores of patients prior to selecting 14 from across the U.S. and Canada for profiling in "Confronting Lyme Disease, What Patient Stories Teach Us."
Among these is the story of a 12-year-old girl named Lauren, who contracted Lyme disease in southeastern Wisconsin and presented with two bull's-eye rashes on her leg. The ER physician and consulting pediatrician prescribed 21 days on an antibiotic, which according to IDSA guidelines should have cured her. When she followed up with her pediatrician in Oregon, the treatment was extended another five weeks as a precautionary measure. Surely, a total of eight weeks on antibiotics would cure her, according to IDSA guidelines. However, it did not.
Some symptoms persisted after treatment was finished, and four months later, she exhibited neurological involvement. ELISA and Western blot blood tests were performed simultaneously at this time and both came back positive for Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme). After following the IDSA guidelines for treatment, why would her blood tests show a positive result for Lyme disease? The obvious conclusion is that short term antibiotic treatment is not always curative for the disease. What eventually did cure Lauren was a reasonably prescribed and monitored treatment protocol using antibiotics until she was symptom free. She reached that state after nine months of treatment, and she has been symptom free ever since. Treating Lyme disease could be that simple.
Why should a reasonable course of extended antibiotic treatment be a topic for such heated debate when patient experiences like Lauren's demonstrate that open-ended antibiotic treatments work? Which is more of a strain upon insurance providers and the health care system, extended antibiotic treatment protocols or chronically ill and disabled Lyme patients? Clearly, there is something else at the center of this controversy than medical science.
Karen P. Yerges
Imbler, Ore.
=====
www.eastbayri.com/story/287830350732419.php
East Bay Newspapers
Bristol RI
December 27, 2006
Lyme treatments need more attention
To the editor:
As a co-author of a book on Lyme disease released in 2006, I interviewed scores of patients prior to selecting 14 from across the U.S. and Canada for profiling in "Confronting Lyme Disease, What Patient Stories Teach Us."
Among these is the story of a 12-year-old girl named Lauren, who contracted Lyme disease in southeastern Wisconsin and presented with two bull's-eye rashes on her leg. The ER physician and consulting pediatrician prescribed 21 days on an antibiotic, which according to IDSA guidelines should have cured her. When she followed up with her pediatrician in Oregon, the treatment was extended another five weeks as a precautionary measure. Surely, a total of eight weeks on antibiotics would cure her, according to IDSA guidelines. However, it did not.
Some symptoms persisted after treatment was finished, and four months later, she exhibited neurological involvement. ELISA and Western blot blood tests were performed simultaneously at this time and both came back positive for Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme). After following the IDSA guidelines for treatment, why would her blood tests show a positive result for Lyme disease? The obvious conclusion is that short term antibiotic treatment is not always curative for the disease. What eventually did cure Lauren was a reasonably prescribed and monitored treatment protocol using antibiotics until she was symptom free. She reached that state after nine months of treatment, and she has been symptom free ever since. Treating Lyme disease could be that simple.
Why should a reasonable course of extended antibiotic treatment be a topic for such heated debate when patient experiences like Lauren's demonstrate that open-ended antibiotic treatments work? Which is more of a strain upon insurance providers and the health care system, extended antibiotic treatment protocols or chronically ill and disabled Lyme patients? Clearly, there is something else at the center of this controversy than medical science.
Karen P. Yerges
Imbler, Ore.