I would think that is like shooting yourself in the head...?
Posts: 124 | From Maryland, USA | Registered: Jan 2010
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momlyme
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 27775
posted
Have you seen those google ads for the leech lawyers asking patients to sue their lyme literate doctors? I have.
In the documentary Under Our Skin they show how one of the cases against a prominent lyme literate pediatrician was initiated by a dad who didn't want to pay for his half of the medical expenses that were getting his children well.
Goes to show, some people are just sick in the head. And for every sick-o there is a lawyer waiting to serve him.
-------------------- May health be with you!
Toxic mold was suppressing our immune systems, causing extreme pain, brain fog and magnifying symptoms. Four days after moving out, the healing began. Posts: 2007 | From NY/VT Border | Registered: Aug 2010
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posted
oops...no...my mistake, it's like taking hostages (us) shooting us first and then shooting herself...
Posts: 124 | From Maryland, USA | Registered: Jan 2010
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Oh wow. I have not seen those google ads. I'll go look for them.
I did see "Under Our Skin" and remember that segment. He certainly looked like a jerk. OR maybe he HAS chronic lyme disease and it manifested itself as psychiatric. Only a crazy guy would try to destroy something that was making his kids well....
I think anther Lyme patient is suing my LLMD, but he is a really good LLMD. He's lead my child into remission twice now. The first relapse was my bad, tried to back off meds too soon.
Is there any way to help protect my LLMD?
He is an experienced, competent LLMD and a very kind man, hard to find. He doesn't charge a small fortune to care for us, his rates are the same as primary care physicians. When we first saw him, his office didn't take our insurance. He changed his office and within a couple of months they accepted our insurance. I was stunned! I haven't seen any other doctors do this Lyme or otherwise
We can't afford to loose him.
Do you know if anything can anything be done to help him?
Thanks in advance!
Posts: 124 | From Maryland, USA | Registered: Jan 2010
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posted
Ticks bite all kinds of people. Some of them are worthless jerks who are trying to cash in. Unfortunately, it is hard for the docs and us to know in advance who these people are, so we try to help them.
Tickborne diseases in later stages are very hard to treat and may not be curable. This is not what patients are being told by the medical establishment. So, if they don't get well instantly or even longterm, they look at the doctor and think it is his/her fault. When it is actually the expectations and the culture that are wrong.
It is hard to understand why people would look at the death rate from cancer, the failure to find a cause or fix autism, ADHD, find a cure for diabetes, etc, etc, etc.....they can look at this record in the medical establishment and still expect miracles. It is irrational and not very intelligent. If you had the details of these people's lives, it would probably fit the pattern.
Posts: 8430 | From Not available | Registered: Oct 2000
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posted
People who do this are cashing in. They don't care who they hurt, and when you go after a lyme doc, you hurt all his or her patients too. That is the real damage.
Posts: 8430 | From Not available | Registered: Oct 2000
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Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
posted
So sorry to say, this was to be expected, but so unfortunate.
Last legislative session the Nat Cap group, a legislator or two and followers raised cain and demanded the Maryland Board of Physicians (medical board) re-examine the policy that was already in place to protect our LLMD's, after bills they were trying to push through failed.
The doc protection policy, that has worked all these years to keep our docs from being charged for over diagnosing and over treating Lyme disease, had been published by the DHMH and the Board several years ago as assurance for us after we worked on the Task Force.
Maryland was one of the few states that had an agreement in place and it was working.
The sad thing is, there was NO NEED to mess with doc protection bills, task force bills, legislators and the Board. I shouted from the mountain top, but no one listened.
And... because of the pressure that was put on the Board, the Board did address the situation (like giving the fox the keys to the hen house).. and not only did its efforts take us from being one of the best states in the country to the worst for our LLMD's...
It also set the standard of care for our state (a total disaster- and now we have no up to date ILADS guidelines, an even worse situation) ... and it also denied another doc from having a license to practice here at the same time.
In my opinion, our LLMD's don't stand a chance now if they get sued or brought up on charges.
I suggest if you want help with your docs situation that you or your doctor contact the DC group and ask them to address the mess they are responsible for creating. From what I understand, some at ILADS were supporting this bad move too. Perhaps they could help?
Maybe they could, at the very least, come up with some money for the lawyer fees our docs are faced with paying because of this horrible move.
The other groups here are quite busy trying to help those in trouble and also trying to find hundreds of sick patients new doctors for those that have been left without any help. The desperate folks contacting us- well, it is enough to break your heart.
Bless your doctor for all he/she did and I am sorry this is happening. I've done all I could for over 20 years, as have the other Maryland groups and national group, to protect them. It is a shame it was all destroyed in one stupid move because someone wanted to mess in the legislative arena and didn't think or do the prep it takes to do it right.
posted
I value the work that LLMDs do to help people get their lives back. Without the help I've received from my doctor, I do not think I would have made some of the progress I made.
That said, I want to play devil's advocate here: At what point do you think it is okay to sue any doctor, LLMD or otherwise?
The reader who looks at the recent Chicago Tribune article might wonder if Dr. R is really guilty, but when they read about the story of Dr. R, I'm sure many of them are emotionally moved to being disturbed if not angry. They feel upset that patients are being harmed and that it's absurd that it would cost one patient $15,000. for a month of treatment.
And I think most Lyme patients would think that price tag was absurd. Just recently someone on a mailing list said IV Rocpehin could be arranged for a month for $300-400, if the patient was willing to mix their own. Someone else on a site said their insurance was billed $9 k for 9 weeks of both IV Rocephin and (I think) Zithromax given in the hospital. I have a hard time not seeing that $15 k/mo isn't taking unfair advantage of patients.
Money aside, if what they wrote about Dr. R is true in regards to one of her patients, it is very scary indeed. Imagine if that patient were you, and you had a heart attack and were vomiting up blood in the ICU? I've gone to the ER for pain when it was horrible and been given the run-around by ignorant doctors - that's one thing. Annoying as that is, this patient's situation was critical and of greater severity.
I would like to see all doctors being held to the same standards regardless of what they treat - they should be held accountable. It shouldn't be okay for doctors to do anything they want just to see what happens and to walk away from a patient who is having a rough time.
I myself have a limit to what I'm going to accept in terms of what a doctor asks or tells me to do, and at times have taken treatment breaks because my body told me "enough" - even though my doctor would've liked to have me continue.
Surely there is a point for everyone on this list where they look at what their doctor asks them to try, and they say no? Is there any external standard which Lyme patients can agree to, to say certain practices are not acceptable to them as a whole?
One horrible downside to this article is that they only refer to and showcase doctors who have had disciplinary charges against them and one charlatan pushing his wares. They didn't mention the doctors who treat Lyme Disease who are making reasonable treatment decisions based on research available and who do thorough medical histories and check differential diagnoses. They didn't look at a few alternative treatments which have some research to back their use, either. Of course not. That wouldn't be making the authors' point for them.
And of course, they didn't mention that a number of LLMDs have disciplinary actions against them because the insurance companies are investigating their use of long-term IV antibiotics which they don't want to fund. Insurance companies investigate lots of doctors all the time so they can find a way to reject covering treatments, and for the sake of this article, authors singled out Lyme. But this always was a superficial ad hominem filled position piece to begin with and not true investigative journalism... it did what it was intended to, and that was stir up people and get eyeballs on it.
*** edited names of LLMD's .. see terms of use ***
Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
posted
Ho Ho Ho Camp Other...
You have a way with words. Many of them. Many many of them. My bet is you could out-word me in a contest and that IS saying something.
Your new blog site is pretty. I am amazed you managed to type out 53 pages of blog postings in under 4 days... and it is all focused on what is contained in one newspaper article. WOW! That's a lot of thinking going on.
The problem for me is it appears you already know the answers to the questions you ask, or you think you do.
And you ask so many questions! YIKES!
I'm sorry I can't keep up with all the back and forth going on to begin to respond.
Maybe the folks at LymeNet Europe can follow your train of thought better than LymeNet folks.. or at least better than I can?
posted
Hi Tincup... What an unusual name. May I ask why you chose Tincup?
I really outword you? Seriously? Doubt it since it says you have over 10 k posts right here on the site!
Thanks for your compliment. 53 pages? No way! I didn't write that much in 4 days. I wrote my entries offline ever since the Chicago Tribune article came out, and worked hard at it until I posted them one at a time. I'm not THAT fast!
You said, "The problem for me is it appears you already know the answers to the questions you ask, or you think you do."
What does that mean? I actually don't. It's one of the reasons I'm here. It's why I asked what people think.
You also said, "And you ask so many questions! YIKES!"
Well, I guess I do in my critique of the CT article, but the point there is that I'm trying to ask the questions the public should be asking as well as the media. The authors of that article didn't seem to dig too deep into the issue of Lyme, and I think they should have looked at a lot more. I also think the public should analyze what they read rather than swallow it wholesale because it has played to their emotions and preexisting sentiment about the medical system.
You also said, "Maybe the folks at LymeNet Europe can follow your train of thought better than LymeNet folks.. or at least better than I can?"
Why? What is difficult about following what I've posted here? Or are you referring back to my blog?
posted
Just a thought on suing LLMD's in general, from someone who's admittedly never been in a position to want to sue:
All doctors make mistakes, some worse than others. If an LLMD did screw up your care, but it's not like this kind of thing is happening with any regularity in their practice, and suing won't undo what has been done (which it pretty much always won't)... it's your obligation to leave that doc alone, given the suffering and death that results from the loss of an LLMD. However, in many cases this consideration is academic, as they when even when a doc's done a flawless job, they find things to go after them for--things that they don't normally go after docs for.
Re: a middle ground. There is proof that the NIH/CDC/IDSA bigwigs know full well that Lyme is chronic, neurological, possible to transmit without a tick, and able to reliably evade detection with the tests we have now (though a good one has been withhed by yale and several other methods, like Darkfield, have been forcibly suppressed); they authored all the original studies proving these things. A visit to lymecryme.com verifies this.
You can't reach a middle ground with people who don't play fair. What you do is expose them.
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Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
posted
Onbam said.. "You can't reach a middle ground with people who don't play fair."
BINGO!!!!!! You said it all!
Good response Onbam! I love it!
CampOther- that name reminds me of a concept that I've heard used before, by someone who was not really all that nice. But anyhow...
There are over 100 questions asked in your few blog posts, way too many for me to want to try to think about, or deal with, or address while reading. Especially when it is Ho Ho Ho time!
Maybe others enjoy that back and forth stuff, but, as I already eluded to, it's not me. Sorry.
Your short response to me here- about my short response to you- has about 8 more questions in it. And if you'll notice, you've sort of answered some of them yourself.
Your style reminded me of one or two x-members that use to post here before they were booted off. That is why I suggested you go back to LymeNet Europe.
If they weren't booted off there yet, maybe they would enjoy your back and forth style and want to tackle your questions.
posted
""You can't reach a middle ground with people who don't play fair."
So what is the alternative? I thought Pamela Weintraub was advocating that both sides have to work towards the middle ground - that's what she said at October's IOM workshop. And I believe her.
I'm not sure what the steps are to do so, but from what I've seen, the adversarial approach hasn't worked so well to change the minds of the people who say their guidelines are the rule - so how does anyone work for middle ground without giving up the truth? Is more research needed with larger groups of patients to show the evidence that cannot be denied that Chronic Lyme is real? Dr. L seems to think so. Maybe that would change things?
"CampOther- that name reminds me of a concept that I've heard used before, by someone who was not really all that nice. But anyhow..."
Sorry to hear that. I picked the name, and my friends seem to think I'm pretty nice. I'm sorry you were reminded of someone who was not really all that nice. =(
"There are over 100 questions asked in your few blog posts, way too many for me to want to try to think about, or deal with, or address while reading. Especially when it is Ho Ho Ho time!"
Well, then ignore my blog posts, and just reply to what I've written here, anyway. Anyone can read my blog if they like, or not. There's plenty here to talk about on Lymenet.
And if you want to enjoy Christmas, hey, why are you on here? =D Maybe it's time to try something else like play a game or watch a movie?
"Your short response to me here- about my short response to you- has about 8 more questions in it. And if you'll notice, you've sort of answered some of them yourself."
Um. 8? Like this one? Or this? These are rhetorical questions, darn it, and they don't count!
Funny. I didn't think I asked that many questions here. =/
"Your style reminded me of one or two x-members that use to post here before they were booted off. That is why I suggested you go back to LymeNet Europe."
Um, am I doing something wrong? If I'm breaking the rules somehow, please tell me, but I just came here to ask questions.
What did these former members do that got them booted off? Yikes. I don't want to get booted off. =(
quote:Originally posted by onbam: Just a thought on suing LLMD's in general, from someone who's admittedly never been in a position to want to sue:
All doctors make mistakes, some worse than others. If an LLMD did screw up your care, but it's not like this kind of thing is happening with any regularity in their practice, and suing won't undo what has been done (which it pretty much always won't)... it's your obligation to leave that doc alone, given the suffering and death that results from the loss of an LLMD. However, in many cases this consideration is academic, as they when even when a doc's done a flawless job, they find things to go after them for--things that they don't normally go after docs for.
I see what you're saying - the loss of an LLMD means that so many more patients might go untreated and get very sick and possibly die if they have one less doctor to go to. I guess it's pretty hard to get an appointment with the remaining LLMDs?
This is understandable, but if one were to repeatedly do something unconscionable, I don't think that should continue anyway - that's simply not a good doctor, no matter what the doctor is treating.
I can see being stuck between a rock and a hard place here, but so many of our LLMDs are really good doctors, I hate to see anyone suffer at the hands of one bad apple. And that one bad apple can sadly give the rest a bad reputation even when their records have been stellar.
If the science behind Chronic Lyme could be proven to more people including other doctors, and there was a groundswell of support that the IDSA could not stand up to - would concerns about this go away? If more doctors saw the value in training to treat people with tickborne illnesses, and picked up the cause themselves, and there were more LLMDs to pick from, I'm guessing this would be less of an issue.
The issue really comes down to insurance, though, doesn't it? They're mostly the ones doing the reporting to avoid having to pay the bills - or is someone else doing it?
quote: Re: a middle ground. There is proof that the NIH/CDC/IDSA bigwigs know full well that Lyme is chronic, neurological, possible to transmit without a tick, and able to reliably evade detection with the tests we have now (though a good one has been withhed by yale and several other methods, like Darkfield, have been forcibly suppressed); they authored all the original studies proving these things. A visit to lymecryme.com verifies this.
What I've read is that Steere and other IDSA members who were active in creating the guidelines wrote in their own research pubs in the 1980's and early 1990's that Borrelia persists. They aren't saying that now - except in one 2005 patent application - unless I missed something.
They're now claiming CLD is caused by an auto/immune dysfunction. But here's where I have a problem: I don't know exactly when that shift took place and why, by their accounts? The story in "Under Our Skin" and from other sources said vaccine development for Lymerix had a lot to do with it, as well as the Bayh-Dole Act. But in terms of their cover story, I can't find the key research that led to them making this claim. Does anyone have it?
Because right now, they only seem to be saying that their opinion goes, without explaining why except for those four trials they keep mentioning ad nauseum. And that's just unacceptable. I want to know what actual scientific proof they have - or say they have - and perhaps I missed it. Or perhaps they never shared it with the public for reasons beyond me.
quote: You can't reach a middle ground with people who don't play fair. What you do is expose them.
Fair enough, expose them. How, though? And how do you get people to believe you are a credible source of exposure?
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posted
Camp, Steere and co didn't switch their statements about Lyme due to any research - I think they switched because a vaccine was coming out. It's politics, not science.
There's lots of science pointing to chronic Lyme, and done by credible researchers. The spirochetes can be found in both people and animals after treatment.
Posts: 13116 | From San Francisco | Registered: May 2006
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Camp Other
Unregistered
posted
Robin123, seriously? They've never pointed at anything to indicate autoimmune or immune dysfunction, and just began saying this out of the blue?
That's crazy. And unprofessional.
I know there is science pointing to Chronic Lyme, including studies the IDSA itself did. I'm just surprised they can continue to get away with this if the science bears out. That's the confusing part.
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