Topic: I'm SO mad! Dr. just told friend "No Lyme documented in TN"
IckyTicky
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 21466
posted
I think steam could possibly be coming out of my ears! My friend has a RASH, got bitten a week ago and all around the bite is purple, like blood blisters underneath. She just got out of the ER diagnosed with cystitis and is in so much pain. All they will give her is Macrodantin for a week. 200mg a day.
She told them she thinks she has Lyme and the doctor told her that there are NO documented cases of Lyme in Tennessee!
She didn't know what to say so she said nothing. But I am enraged!
My friend has had Lyme symptoms for a long time, and I think this is a new infection. What she has isn't a classic bulls eye, but neither was mine! Mine looked exactly like she describes! She says "It's purple all around the bite, and it's been like this for a week now"
She is only 31, has very very bad "arthritis" in her knees since she was a teenager. She has one son with ADHD and another son who is autistic.
Can someone tell me how to find proof of documented cases so she can take the info to her moron of a doctor?
-------------------- IGM: 18+, 23+, 30+, 31+++, 34+, 39IND, 41++, 58+++, 66+, 83-93IND IGG: 31+, 39IND, 41+ Also positive for Mycoplasma Pneumoniae and RMSF. Whole family of 5 dx with Lyme. Posts: 1014 | From Texas | Registered: Jul 2009
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Maybe I'm extreme, but I would report this Dr to the TN medical board for his ignorance. How can he properly treat patients if he can't diagnose due to obliviousness?
What else does he screw up because he's ill-informed, or in denial?
Add him to the hit list for the class action law suit.
James
Posts: 872 | From New York City | Registered: Jun 2008
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posted
Forget the moron! Help your friend get a Lyme literate doctor!
When you have the time & energy, send a polite, professional letter to the right people...
-------------------- My biofilm film: www.whyamistillsick.com 2004 Mycoplasma Pneumonia 2006 Positive after 2 years of hell 2006-08 Marshall Protocol. Killed many bug species 2009 - Beating candida, doing better Lahey Clinic in Mass: what a racquet! Posts: 830 | From Mass. | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
I WAS bitten by mosquitos in Cleveland, TN. This is where BOTH myself and my husband contracted Lyme Disease. We both have different combination of infections.
I've lived in three states since, but only TN where the deer were in our backyard ever day.
I did have a tick fall out of a tree where it was already engorged. What got both of us was infected mosquitos.
We have heard from others that thre are not any LLMD's in TN. I do not know if this is true. Atlanta is a drive, but they should have LLMD's.
Makes me wish we could hunt them to near extinction.
Posts: 212 | From Arizona | Registered: Jul 2008
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posted
My PCP told me that and I told him that's because everyone has to go out of the state to get diagnosed.
Posts: 383 | From Ar | Registered: May 2007
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bettyg
Unregistered
posted
1980 - Jan. 2008 ...all 50 states broken down by years!
Betty note: I tried printing out the chart, but it goes SIDEWAYS, and tried printing in pages 1, 2, 3; it kept printing page 1 only! So just a warning if others try to do this; use your PRINT REVIEW FIRST which I did, and indicated DIFFERENT pages, but still got page 1 only! I gave up after 8 tries! uffda
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Pinelady
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 18524
posted
Apparently he don't read the newspaper either.
By Lisa Simpson Strange, Glasgow Daily Times, Glasgow, Kentucky
GLASGOW - One local mother hopes she can help keep other parents and their children from going through what she and her son faced recently.
Valerie Lewis found a tick on her son, Parker, 2, on Father's Day. She removed it and didn't really think anything else about it.
Three days later, Parker had developed a high fever and was lethargic.
Valerie took her son to her local family physician, Dr. David German, who checked Parker's tonsils and ears, but couldn't find an immediate source of infection. He told her to wait a day and see if there were any changes.
Parker's high fever and lethargy continued the next day and he had a febrile seizure, which consists of convulsions brought on by a fever in infants and small children.
Valerie took Parker to the emergency room at T.J. Samson Community Hospital and he was admitted.
Parker was given Doxycycline, an antibiotic, but his white blood cell count kept dropping and Dr. German realized there was "something different about this one."
Parker was diagnosed with Ehrlichiosis, an illness carried by the Lone Star tick that is found in the southeastern United States.
...
"The doctors at Vanderbilt told me that Ehrlichiosis is especially bad this year in Tennessee and Kentucky, up 100-fold from last year," Valerie said. The disease is potentially deadly (two children died from it while Parker was at Vanderbilt). It's important that parents think about tick bites if their child has an unexplained high fever in the summer with low white blood cell counts.
-------------------- Suspected Lyme 07 Test neg One band migrating in IgG region unable to identify.Igenex Jan.09IFA titer 1:40 IND IgM neg pos 31 +++ 34 IND 39 IND 41 IND 83-93 + DX:Neuroborreliosis Posts: 5850 | From Kentucky | Registered: Dec 2008
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posted
I am also CDC positive and guess what? I reside in TN!! My PCP has recently had 4 more people turn up CDC positive for lyme. I however was unable to find a LLMD in TN when I started treatment last year so I see a LLMD in NC. It is only about two hours from the East TN area.
Posts: 90 | From Knoxville, TN | Registered: Jun 2008
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Pinelady
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 18524
posted
How are you doing now T.o.Jan?
-------------------- Suspected Lyme 07 Test neg One band migrating in IgG region unable to identify.Igenex Jan.09IFA titer 1:40 IND IgM neg pos 31 +++ 34 IND 39 IND 41 IND 83-93 + DX:Neuroborreliosis Posts: 5850 | From Kentucky | Registered: Dec 2008
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Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
posted
Hey Icky...
hehehe.. I like that name.
Can you contact the hospital administrator and better yet, send a short letter explaining what happened, NO emotion and be nice...
And print out a copy of the CDC case numbers to send with it.
Tell them you expect their ER docs to be educated about Lyme and it IS in Tennessee and it is very nasty when it goes to the late stages.
By doing this, the next time someone is misdiagnosed, they can't claim "stupid" when the lawyer knocks on their door.
This ought to shake their tail feathers a bit.
Please do it to protect the next person who can be hurt at that hospital.
Heaven forbid it be a child.
Thanks!
PS. Be sure to keep a copy and even send it to your Congressional reps... with a cc on the bottom showing you did.
Bugg
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 8095
posted
I, too, am from Tennessee and was misdiagnosed as well. There, unfortunately, are a growing number of us who are continually misdiagnosed. The TN Dept of Health wont' recognized lyme disease exists in TN until Vanderbilt does. Vanderbilt still won't recognize it's here.
We just had a girl in our lyme disease group (Middle TN Lyme Disease) test positive per the CDC criteria. I had the erythema migrans rash and tested positive but they still wouldn't recognize it at any of the local Nashville hospitals. I'm on this board (like so many of you) five years later because of this ignorance.
The ridiculous twist to this is that often in the outerlying rural areas they are quite familiar with lyme disease from tickbites. Still, I know of no TN physician who is well-versed in the treatment of lyme. We all travel out-of-state for treatment. I see a physician in Manhattan.
Recently, a professor and epidemiologist at the University of TN Knoxville conducted a statewide tick-drag. He found numerous ticks statewide which were ixodes scapularis, the kind of tick which often carries borellia burgdorferi. For a long time, they've been saying these types of ticks don't exist in the South. They are in the process of testing these ticks for their pathogens. He hasn't officially released the results of his study yet.
At a bare minimum, the doctor should have tested your friend for ehrlichia which IS recognized as a known tick-borne pathogen in TN and the South.
Yes, the ignorance is astonishing....However, I echo the sentiments of those expressed above that if any of these ignorant doctors/hospitals are contacted, you must approach them on an unemotional level...Otherwise you will immediately be pegged as a nut and written off....like soooooooooooooo many of us have been....
Posts: 1155 | From Southeast | Registered: Oct 2005
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hshbmom
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9478
posted
Didn't the governor of Tennessee contract Lyme recently?
Posts: 1672 | From AL/WV/OH | Registered: Jun 2006
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TerryK
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 8552
posted
1: J Med Entomol. 2009 Jan;46(1):131-8.Links Detection of Borrelia burgdorferi and Borrelia lonestari in birds in Tennessee.
Jordan BE, Onks KR, Hamilton SW, Hayslette SE, Wright SM.
University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN 38163, USA.
Lyme disease in the United States is caused by the bacterial spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi s.s. (Johnson, Schmid, Hyde, Steigerwalt, and Brenner), which is transmitted by tick vectors Ixodes scapularis (Say) and I. pacificus (Cooley and Kohls).
Borrelia lonestari, transmitted by the tick Amblyomma americanum L., may be associated with a related syndrome, southern tick-associated rash illness (STARI). Borrelia lonestari sequences, reported primarily in the southeastern states, have also been detected in ticks in northern states.
It has been suggested that migratory birds may have a role in the spread of Lyme disease spirochetes. This study evaluated both migratory waterfowl and nonmigratory wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris, Eastern wild turkey) for B. burgdorferi and B. lonestari DNA sequences.
A total of 389 avian blood samples (163 migratory birds representing six species, 125 wild turkeys harvested in habitats shared with migratory birds, 101 wild turkeys residing more distant from migratory flyways) were extracted, amplified, and probed to determine Borrelia presence and species identity.
Ninety-one samples were positive for Borrelia spp. Among migratory birds and turkeys collected near migration routes, B. burgdorferi predominated. Among turkeys residing further away from flyways, detection of B. lonestari was more common.
All A. americanum ticks collected from these areas were negative for Borrelia DNA; no I. scapularis were found. To our knowledge, this represents the first documentation of B. lonestari among any birds.
PMID: 19198527 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Posts: 6286 | From Oregon | Registered: Jan 2006
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TerryK
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 8552
posted
1: J Med Entomol. 2003 Jan;40(1):100-2.
Detection of Borrelia lonestari in Amblyomma americanum (Acari: Ixodidae) from Tennessee.
Stegall-Faulk T, Clark DC, Wright SM.
Department of Biology, PO Box 60, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN 37132, USA.
Genetic sequences characteristic of Borrelia lonestari (Barbour et al. 1996) were detected in two pools of adult Amblyomma americanum (L.) from Tennessee, corresponding to an estimated minimum field infection rate of 8.4 infected ticks/1000 adults.
DNA amplification was conducted using primers derived from the B. lonestari flagellin gene that would also amplify Borrelia burgdorferi (Johnson, Schmid, Hyde, Steigerwalt, and Brenner).
Species-specific, internal probes were then used to differentiate between genetic sequences of the spirochetes. Subsequent nucleotide sequencing confirmed the presence of B. lonestari in A. americanum; B. burgdorferi was not detected.
This represents the first report of B. lonestari from Tennessee, and suggests that Lyme-like illness may occur in Tennessee.
PMID: 12597661 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Posts: 6286 | From Oregon | Registered: Jan 2006
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