posted
I thought you would be interested in the story of KGTV/ABC Anchor - BROOKE LANDAU. She will be appearing on "Good Morning America" with Diane Sawyer on Tuesday, August 28th. (Most likely between 8-8:30AM but time subject to change).
Brooke says they did over 5 hrs of taping with her in San Diego this week and she thinks it's going to be a FANTASTIC story! She spent a great deal of time talking about the most difficult obstacles we're all facing and the current political/medical controversy, and urged them to include this since it is the MOST important part of the story. On Tuesday she will go live on the set in NYC to discuss the topic further.
Brooke's 12 year battle is almost unbelievable. She literally went to bed fine one night and woke up unable to move from the waist down and neck up -- she wouldn't walk again for over a year and a half. Brooke then lost hearing on one ear, began to go blind, lost her short-term memory, 1/4 her body weight, developed heart problems, spinal menegitis, gall stones, colitis, and a myriad of other problems that finally just resolved this year...after receiving an experimental treatment that was not FDA approved but saved her life. Unfortunately doctors, including Brooke's, are being prosecuted for the treatment of Lyme -- several have lost their licenses!
The story is incredibly important for the millions of others suffering. And now that this horrific disease has affected the President, it seems to be a hot topic of the moment.
Prior to KGTV, Brooke was a producer for the "E! True Hollywood Story", a reporter for ESPN, Evening Anchor for CBS in Arizona and an EMMY winner for a piece she co-produced on her incredible ordeal. She was also a successful high fashion runway model.
Tune in on Tuesday!
Posts: 119 | From Southwest Florida | Registered: Sep 2005
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trueblue
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^up^
Thanks Nancy!
-------------------- more light, more love more truth and more innovation Posts: 3783 | From somewhere other than here | Registered: May 2005
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CaliforniaLyme
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Thank goodness- thank goodness!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GREAT news!!!!!!
She presents beautifully-
-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
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lymemomtooo
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What I saw was great..Thanks Brooke!!!!!!!!!!! I am sure they have a lot of extra footage. Hope they do more of the interview.
Tim Johnson was pretty positive that it takes more than 24 hours for the disease to pass to the victim from the feeding tick. I think I have seen where it has been found in the central nervous system within hours in some patients. lmt
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CaliforniaLyme
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It hasn't come here on the West Coast YET but we all need to respond- on their web page they quote THE BAD GUYS!!!
We need to ask them to include THE GOOD GUYS!!!
It's already aired on the East Coast and there's a summary/response article on their web site which quotes the BAD guys-
so PLESAE WRITE LETTERS EVERYBODY- PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!
If you are a doctor or a nurse please respond by the special link
Contribute | If you would like to tell us more facts about this story, please click here to send the editors of ABC News a separate email with the information you have.
--
-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Does anyone have a direct link to the video of the interview on GMA? I cant get the player to work that is on the ABC news site. Thanx
-------------------- LITTLE LYMIE Posts: 29 | From Tamaqua, Pa, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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kam
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Sent in a comment. Brooke was good. Suggested doc go to ILADS conference.
Thank you Brook and ABC.
Doc...get beyond the clothes and catching it early and treating with a few weeks of abx.
Posts: 15927 | From Became too sick to work or do household chores in 2001. | Registered: Dec 2002
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CaliforniaLyme
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-------------------- There is no wealth but life. -John Ruskin
All truth goes through 3 stages: first it is ridiculed: then it is violently opposed: finally it is accepted as self evident. - Schopenhauer Posts: 5639 | From Aptos CA USA | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Brooke Landau (San Diego local TV personality) gave a good interview regarding her 7 years of pain with undiagnosed Lyme. She reported she was bitten by tick. Unfortunately, the reporter and the regular GMA MD Tim Johnson continued to only support old/incorrect ideas of how this is contracted and treated. But, it's more media coverage and that is a good thing.
-------------------- Ca Ga Peach, aka Cheryl Posts: 3 | From Laguna Niguel, CA | Registered: Feb 2007
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Ann-OH
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Whoa! here is the article on the same page as the interview video. I don't know who wrote this one, but it looks like the usual suspects got to someone at ABC and here we go again!
Rather ironic that after all the crap in this article, they give you the LDA and the LDF as sources of further information. Two organizations that believe the exact opposite of Halperin, Edlow, and Wormser!
For an estimated 20,000 Americans each year, the symptoms above culminate in a diagnosis of Lyme disease -- an inflammatory bacterial illness transmitted by the bite of a deer tick.
Fortunately for the vast majority of Lyme disease sufferers, two to four weeks worth of antibiotic therapy is enough to spur a total recovery from the illness.
But a very small number of patients report a much more serious struggle with the illness.
Brooke Landau, a traffic reporter for the ABC News affiliate KGTV in San Diego, was one of these patients.
"I literally went to bed fine one night and woke up unable to move from the waist down and the neck up and had no idea why," she told ABC's "Good Morning America."
By the time Landau was diagnosed, she said the disease had taken a toll on her hearing, her eyesight -- and it had infected nearly every organ in her body.
When conventional treatments didn't work, her condition led her to an experimental therapy, one not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
The treatment involved pumping high doses of antibiotics directly into her heart, 24 hours a day for two months. She also underwent 30 days of treatment in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.
For Landau, the treatment may have worked; she recently received her first negative test results for the bacteria in a decade.
But the very existence of such unapproved treatments for the disease has opened an ideological gulf when it comes to treating patients who, unlike Landau, went through conventional therapy for Lyme disease, only to report that they still suffer its effects years afterward.
On one side are physicians and other practitioners who support approaches including extended courses of antibiotics.
And on the other are the majority of Lyme disease experts, who tend to discredit the long-term continuation of the disease after a normal course of therapy. Dr. John Halperin, chair of the Department of Neurosciences at Overlook Hospital in Summit, N.J., is one such expert.
"Some have referred to patients who have persistent but nonspecific symptoms following appropriate treatment for Lyme disease, as having 'chronic Lyme disease,'" Halperin said. "There is no scientific evidence that these patients are still infected, or that prolonged antibiotic therapy or other treatments are helpful in these individuals.
"There are now multiple studies showing that long-term antibiotics offer no benefit to these patients but carry significant risk."
Dr. Jonathan A. Edlow, vice chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and author of "Bull's Eye -- Unraveling the Medical Mystery of Lyme," agrees.
"The evidence base in the peer-reviewed medical literature... for long-term antitibiotics is meager," Edlow said. "However some believe -- in the absence of high quality evidence, that long-term antibiotics are useful."
Acute Lyme vs. Chronic Lyme By the time most people learned that President Bush had been treated for an acute case of Lyme disease, the diagnosis was little more than a footnote in his medical records.
Like Bush, most of those who are exposed to Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterial culprit of the disease, are never at any grave health risk.
And the disease is likely underreported; according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, up to 100,000 Americans may be infected with Lyme disease annually.
However, only about 30 percent of those infected get the obvious signs of Lyme: a bulls-eye rash and flu-like symptoms.
Absent these symptoms, the infection can remain in the body. And if it remains undetected, it may lead to chronic, or tertiary, Lyme disease. Symptoms may include skin, neurological, and musculoskeletal problems, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Within this breadth of symptoms lies part of the problem. Dr. Gary Wormser, lead author of the Lyme disease treatment guidelines offered by the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) in Washington, D.C., said many people with these symptoms assume they have Lyme disease, even when they may not.
"The fact is that there are many patients who are suffering from unexplained or poorly understood conditions associated with fatigue or musculoskeletal pains," Wormser said. "Many feel abandoned by conventional medicine and are desperately seeking help from somewhere. They are especially vulnerable to those who profess to have the answer even if they do not."
The Persistence of Lyme There are a few reasons why Lyme disease, caught early, may still not completely resolve after treatment.
Some patients who receive FDA-accepted antibiotic regimens for Lyme disease will still experience symptoms -- a condition often referred to as post Lyme syndrome, or PLS.
"After treatment and resolution of well-recognized objective manifestations of Lyme disease, such as the Lyme rash, those patients who were initially highly symptomatic with pains or fatigue often take weeks to months to recover fully," Wormser said, adding that up to 25 percent of those suffering from Lyme disease still experience mild symptoms in the three months following a 14-day course of antibiotics.
Edlow adds that there are a number of other reasons that the symptoms of the disease may not resolve completely. He said that in theory, remnants of the bacterial population could still be living somewhere in the body. Patients may be infected with another tick-borne disease in addition to Lyme. And it is even possible that the infection caused permanent tissue damage, or that Lyme disease set off another illness.
Regardless, current guidelines by IDSA, the American Academy of Neurology and other leading professional organizations state that there is no compelling evidence to support more than four weeks of standard antibiotic therapy.
Protecting Yourself from Lyme Disease Fortunately, adhering to some relatively simple tips can dramatically lower the chances that you will ever have to deal with Lyme disease.
Wearing the proper clothing -- long pants, long socks and a long-sleeved shirt -- when walking through brush or tall grass can thwart the ticks that carry the disease. Performing body checks after such excursions also lessens the chances of infection.
Tests for Lyme disease are reasonably accurate in patients who have had infection for more than a few weeks -- the time required for the body to produce a sufficient immune response for doctors to detect the disease.
It's a small price to pay to avoid a potentially serious situation -- such as the one Landau experienced firsthand.
"There's not a second in my day where I am not in pain," she said. "I just push through it, but I hope to God it's not another 50, 60 years with this kind of pain."
You can find more information at the following Web sites:
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/
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