Just Julie
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 1119
posted
My neighbor just told me that a huge article about abx/long term abx & Lyme is in today's Oct. 17th San Francisco Chronicle newspaper.
Wanted to get this posted, I haven't ran out to buy the paper yet, so haven't read the article, nor have I looked online at the Chronicle to see if the same article is online. . .
Just a heads up for those folks in this area that haven't got today's paper, and may want to run out and get one!
-------------------- Julie Posts: 1027 | From Northern CA | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged |
Just Julie
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 1119
posted
Just went and had a quick look, and of course I don't know how to post a link here, but if you go to SFGate.com, then Bay Area, the article is there, with today's date (Oct. 17) on it. The title of the article is: "SF Meetings to discuss Lyme Disease", author is Elizabeth Fernandez.
I believe it is also to bring attention to the conference that is also happening on lyme, this weekend.
It was a good article, except for the info on the IDSA ...
-------------------- Julie Posts: 1027 | From Northern CA | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged |
Tom Eddington was a hard-flying executive when, in the mid-1990s, he suddenly became ill. After a battery of tests, he learned that he had Lyme disease.
Images View Larger Image
His health stabilized for eight years, then began deteriorating. He was forced to quit his job when he was 44.
"Lyme disease is like an alien - the bacteria tries to take over your body," said the Mill Valley man who is on permanent disability.
Starting today through Sunday, two back-to-back medical conferences on Lyme disease will be held in San Francisco at the Cathedral Hill Hotel.
The conferences are geared toward medical professionals and advocates.
"Our hope is that the cutting edge researchers who will be speaking will be able to educate other doctors and researchers about the problems associated with Lyme and other tick-borne illnesses," said Pat Smith, president of the Lyme Disease Association which is holding the Friday conference.
Transmitted by infected ticks, Lyme disease is the most commonly reported vector-borne illness in the United States. Y
et today - three decades after an investigation into a cluster of arthritis among children living near Lyme, Conn. - it can still be difficult to diagnose, and medical experts don't always agree on treatment.
Conflict over treatment
The Infectious Diseases Society of America calls for short-term antibiotic treatment: 10 to 28 days of oral antibiotics is highly effective, particularly when the disease is diagnosed and quickly treated.
The organization says that longer antibiotic therapy is ineffective and potentially dangerous.
But a number of doctors believe that short-term treatment is inadequate, particularly for patients with chronic symptoms. They say that patients should be treated long-term with antibiotics.
The IDSA, which set the national guidelines for treatment, is reviewing its recommendations under an agreement reached several months ago with the attorney general of Connecticut.
For his patients, San Francisco physician Raphael Stricker prescribes open-ended antibiotic treatment. Stricker, who treats 1,600 patients with chronic Lyme disease, says it simply works.
"It can take literally years, but most patients do recover pretty much completely," he said. "They can go back to work, they have their lives back."
Early treatment is urged - experts say that over time the untreated microbe responsible for Lyme can attack a panoply of organs.
The difficulty with catching the disease early, though, is that it may masquerade as other illnesses, such as fibromyalgia or multiple sclerosis.
Pinpointing the disease can take years for some patients, said Stricker.
"Lyme is a hidden epidemic," he said. "The bacteria can be very difficult to eradicate, it can get into muscles and joints, the nervous system, the peripheral nerves, the heart, the brain. Patients go from doctor to doctor, they don't know what's making them sick."
Four years after symptoms began for Lee Lull, 65, a Corte Madera nurse, she was diagnosed with the disease in 1997. Her first symptoms were a stiff neck and crushing fatigue.
"Lyme is not a cut-and-dried disease," said Lull, who has served on a statewide Lyme advisory committee. "Because the test is not definitive, many people are undiagnosed and untreated."
Some 20,000 to 25,000 cases of Lyme are reported in the United States annually, but the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the actual number might exceed 200,000.
From 1992 to 1996, a quarter million cases were tallied by the CDC, doubling during that time span.
While the disease is most prevalent in the Northeast and north-central states, ticks that carry the disease have been found in most of California's 58 counties.
The number of reported cases in California annually since 1993 has ranged from 48 to 154, but many believe there are far more unreported cases.
Initial symptoms
Fever, swollen glands, fatigue are common initial symptoms of Lyme disease. Some patients also experience a "bull's-eye" rash.
Diana Rocha, a businesswoman and avid athlete - she surfed, hiked, went to the gym daily - got the telltale rash on both legs after hiking in Santa Cruz in the early 1990s. Her doctor told her it was just an allergic reaction to bug bites.
Rocha, 44, became totally disabled in 2001.
Doctors diagnosed her with a litany of illnesses, "but nobody could tell me why I was so sick with so many things," said the San Francisco resident. "For the first time in my life I was stopped dead in my tracks."
It took two years, 22 doctors and much sleuthing on Rocha's part before the Lyme diagnosis was made.
"I don't have the health or stamina of a normal person," she said. "I have good days and bad days, but I keep making progress."
Lyme occurs in a broad range of hosts, from birds to small rodents to dogs and horses, said veterinarian Stephen W. Barthold, director of the Center for Comparative Medicine at UC Davis. It's spread among the animals, as well as to humans, through the bites of some species of ticks.
"It's a non-denominational pathogen," he said.
Barthold will discuss in San Francisco this weekend his studies focusing on the persistence of the bacteria. He gave antibiotics to Lyme-infected mice for a month, but found a low-level amount of bacteria still remaining.
"When the infection sets in, it disseminates randomly throughout the body," he said. "It's a very difficult agent to approach medically and scientifically. ... I've been working on this disease for 22 years and I haven't figured it out yet."
Online resources For more information about Lyme disease:
The Lyme Disease Association: links.sfgate.com/ZFCR
The International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society: links.sfgate.com/ZFCT
For Information on a San Francisco Lyme disease support group: Diana Roca at 415-786-9010 or e-mail her at [email protected]
For information on support groups elsewhere in the Bay Area: The California Lyme Disease Association at www.lymedisease.org/
The conferences The Lyme Disease Association conference
When: Today from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Where: Cathedral Hill Hotel, 1101 Van Ness Ave.
Cost: $165 for non-medical attendees
The International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society conference
This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
****************** COMMENTS
rokeachpasquene10/17/2008 12:38:32 PM
When walking in the woods, check for ticks on you. Otherwise the Spirochete (similar to the one for Syhpilis) will drill holes in any organ of the body it wants to. Recommend: (1)(0)[Report Abuse]
kam710/17/2008 7:17:46 PM
Thank you for doing an article on the conference. I went to over 35 specialist including UCSF Medical Center to learn why I was able to work one week and not the next. It also took 18 months to get a dx. I hope many of the CA doctor's take the time to attend this conference. Recommend: (1)(0)[Report Abuse]
**************
well done KAM!! great post! good article above!
IP: Logged |
Vermont_Lymie
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9780
posted
Thanks for posting, I am glad to see this article! Wish I could have been at the SF conference.
Posts: 2557 | From home | Registered: Aug 2006
| IP: Logged |
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic