If you live in Texas, sounds like we need to complain a LOT more if they are only receiving 5 complaints a year!
"State Sen. Chris Harris blames Lyme disease, left undiagnosed for 21/2 years in the mid-1990s, for a heart attack and bone damage that left him with two titanium shoulders and a severely broken foot put back together with steel plates and screws.
"It rotted out my bones," Harris said of the tick-borne bacterial disease.
But Harris said his doctor, fearing punishment from the Texas Medical Board, initially refused to treat him. The doctor believed a long-term course of antibiotics was required, he said, but the disciplinary board seemed to back treatment that limited antibiotic use to one month or less.
Harris said he got a lucky break when his doctor lined up 17 physicians to take turns writing prescriptions. Many long-term Lyme disease patients are forced to travel out of state to receive similar treatment, and those who can't afford it are forced to suffer a debilitating disease with limited treatment options, he said.
Harris, R-Arlington, poured his experience into a bill that originally sought to force the Texas Medical Board and Texas Board of Nursing to recognize as valid the long-term use of antibiotics -- sometimes lasting years -- recommended in the treat-until-recovery approach of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society.
That bill, opposed by the medical establishment, was dead on arrival. But a compromise recently reached with the Texas Medical Association has revived the bill, which along with an identical measure by Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, received back-to-back committee hearings Tuesday and Wednesday.
Harris and Hunter presented committee members with bills, unopposed by interest groups, that focus on training doctors to recognize Lyme disease and help set up a limited defense for physicians accused of overusing antibiotics to treat the malady.
Now it's a race to passage with less than five weeks remaining in the session. House and Senate committees, however, have yet to vote on either bill.
Harris remains confident. "I think we've got a good shot," he said.
Behind the legislative push is a sharp disagreement over how best to treat Lyme disease, which is often difficult to diagnose and can produce severe headaches, muscle aches, joint pain and fatigue.
One school of thought, advanced by the Infectious Disease Society of America, says research shows that 10 to 28 days of oral antibiotics cures 95 percent of patients within a few weeks. The other 5 percent probably were misdiagnosed, bitten again by a disease-
carrying tick, or had a simultaneous infection but were treated only for Lyme disease, according to the organization of infectious-disease specialists.
Prolonged use of antibiotics has been linked to physical problems, including bowel trouble, and could promote the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the society says.
This week at the Capitol, however, a string of witnesses testified that one month of antibiotics failed to alleviate their symptoms.
Kylie Adamson of Corpus Christi said her symptoms began at age 13 and that by the time she was a University of Texas junior, she could barely get out of bed. "It took well over a year of a therapy to start feeling better, and well over two years to be functional again," she said.
Lucina Botond of Katy tearfully recalled watching her vibrant 10-year-old son deteriorate rapidly, screaming in pain and begging to die while it took more than a dozen doctors to finally diagnose Lyme disease. Botond said her family turned to a Missouri doctor who was willing to prescribe long-term antibiotics.
"It took four months to see any improvement," Botond said. "It's shocking how long it takes once the infection is deep-seated."
It is difficult, if not impossible, to find a Texas doctor or nurse willing to prescribe long-term antibiotics for fear of running afoul of disciplinary medical boards, many witnesses said.
But Megan Goode, special projects manager for the Texas Medical Board, on Wednesday told the House Public Health Committee that her agency has no rule restricting Lyme disease treatments or placing a 30-day limit on antibiotics.
The board receives "maybe less than five" complaints a year related to Lyme disease treatment and has sanctioned only one doctor in the past two years, Goode said.
But that doctor, obstetrician-gynecologist Ron Wilson of Denton, was sanctioned in part for failing "to conform to the accepted standard of care for the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease based on Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) guidelines," according to the board's August 2010 order.
To many medical professionals, the board's order looked an awful lot like an endorsement of the 30-day limit on antibiotics, said Dave Claunch, the mayor of West Lake Hills, who became a Lyme disease activist after his wife, Susan, was diagnosed three years ago.
Claunch helped reach the compromise that recently revived Senate Bill 1360 and House Bill 2975. Medical lobbyists feared the original bill created a loophole allowing practitioners to dispense long-term antibiotics under the guise of treating Lyme disease, Claunch told the Public Health Committee.
The new bills direct the medical and nursing boards to develop a list of continuing education courses that include both sides of the Lyme disease treatment debate.
The classes would help medical professionals recognize Lyme disease earlier, when treatment is far more effective, Claunch said.
The legislation also would allow doctors and nurses to defend themselves against charges of misusing antibiotics by noting that they had taken an approved continuing education course on the treatment method, Claunch said.
"There are not many doctors in Texas who will treat this disease," he said. "This bill combats that by giving those physicians some sort of protection from investigation and discipline."
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