posted
Please thank the reporters for their telling the patient side of the story. We all know the NEJM article is just more IDSA posturing and denial, but the reporters made the effort to get patient input and interview ILADS MD. Let's encourage them to keep going.
FIRST ARTICLE Scientists say chronic Lyme disease doesn't exist BY DELTHIA RICKS | [email protected] October 9, 2007
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Scientists say chronic Lyme disease doesn't exist -
In what is becoming one of the most heated debates in medicine, doctors, scientists and patients are lining up on two sides of a discourse about Lyme disease, an infectious condition whose incidence has risen ...
Full story: Newsday - 22 hrs ago
COMMENTS Showing posts 1 - 14 of 14
Joey Buttafuco AOL Reply � |Flag |#1 18 hrs ago
Those who complain of "chronic Lyme disease" are just a bunch of whining, lazy, bored out of their skulls suburban housewives. It is nice to see science refute their excuses for taking the easy way out in life.
Uniondale Uniondale, NY Reply � |Flag |#2 18 hrs ago
Only an ignorant sexist dork would make a comment like that. Crawl back in your cave and try to educate yourself. Your name says it all. Joey Buttafuco wrote: Those who complain of "chronic Lyme disease" are just a bunch of whining, lazy, bored out of their skulls suburban housewives. It is nice to see science refute their excuses for taking the easy way out in life.
Sandy Berenbaum_LCSW Langhorne, PA Reply � |Flag |#3 17 hrs ago
It is outrageous that a major journal like the New England Journal of Medicine would accept an article like the one written by Shapiro, denying chronic Lyme.
Shapiro, Wurmser, and their colleagues have summarily dismissed the mounds of research, including NIH research, that confirms the presence of Lyme beyond the couple of weeks of antibiotic treatment.
As a patient, I suffered with severe symptoms, including debilitating daily headaches, for 6 years prior to diagnosis. No medications alleviated the pain.
Among the 5 neurologists that failed to diagnose me were 2 "prestigious" ones. I required 4 years of antibiotics, including 25 weeks of intravenous. The result - my health and functioning were fully restored.
As a Lyme-knowledgeable psychotherapist, seeing Lyme patients for 16 years, I've heard stories similar to mine, success of long term antibiotic treatment, in patients who were misdiagnosed for years or undertreated.
The most compelling stories are those of the children, who spend their childhood in doctors' offices, instead of school.
I have no time for the "prestigious" doctors and medical centers that deny Lyme, and leave the bodies in their wake. Sandy Berenbaum, LCSW, BCD Brewster, New York
neighbor Ronkonkoma, NY Reply � |Flag |#4 16 hrs ago
I'd bet the house that the insurance companies that will now have an excuse to deny paying claims for people seeking treatment beyond one visit for lyme disease will be expressing their gratitude to this group of prestigious doctors. Maybe somebody should research THAT.
Jacques White Plains, NY Reply � |Flag |#5 15 hrs ago
For such an important and controversial topic, this article should supply the publication reference (Journal, volume, pages, date) so that readers can follow up on it if they wish.
Robert East Northport, NY Reply � |Flag |#6 13 hrs ago
I find this article very interesting considering I recently was diagnosed with Ehrlichiosis which is another tick bourne disease that few if any people know about. It requires special testing to diagnose and there is very little literature about it.
I hope the medical community doesn't treat this the same way they ignored Lyme and then find out that the disease progresses to a crippling stage.
Rick Rehoboth, MA Reply � |Flag |#7 11 hrs ago
This article is an opinion piece, not a piece of real "science" if you want to use that word.
The NEJM authors want to deny the existence of a term which describes a group of sick people, and I guess they can come up with whatever term they want to replace it. Nothing has changed.
This article could have been written five years ago and there are still more and more people are getting sick.
These authors have been making the same tired points with no data to support them, only their opinion. If they get to splash their opinion on the pages of major medical journals and then ramp it up through a PR machine that pumps it out to other media outlets, does that make it any more than just opinion?
The truth is painful: No one has all the answers. Let's see if we can work to help sick people get well, instead of making bold statements from unstable soapboxes.
Barb Mainely Ticks South Portland, ME Reply � |Flag |#8 8 hrs ago
Let's work toward increased funding, research, more accurate testing protocols, and awareness about Lyme and associated diseases. Educate yourself about the two standards of care and become an informed consumer.
Carol AOL Reply � |Flag |#9 7 hrs ago
Chronic Lyme Disease does exist, but it is only the tip of the iceberg here.
I suffer from both chronic Lyme and Electromagnetic Sensitivities - something that the medical world also denies exists.
In fact, some studies have shown that manmade electromagnetic fields are messing with the magnetic sense of these bacteria, causing them to remain inside the patient where they slowly and painfully attack the nervous system and virtually every organ system.
Chronic Lyme Disease cases coincide perfectly with the proliferation of cell phones, cordless phones, and wireless technology in general.
If you have chronic Lyme, you also have electromagnetic sensitivities, and these websites would be a good place to start...
Infection is just the tip of the iceberg. Chronic Lyme sufferers are all suffering from radiation poisoning, and medical science never bothered to test the safety of this technology before it was introduced to society - or rather, they did test the safety, but covered the facts up regarding EMFs, much like they did with chronic Lyme.
Carol AOL Reply � |Flag |#10 7 hrs ago
I was prescribed minocycline for 'acne' for years. But when my brain is infected, bummer.
They must be waiting for the PATENTS to expire on the latest and greatest antidepressants - just like they waited for the patent on Zantac to expire before they suddenly 'discovered' that hpylori caused stomach ulcers. They knew this way before, but Zantac had a few more billion to make them.
Snoozer Center Moriches, NY Reply � |Flag |#11 7 hrs ago
Joey Buttafuco wrote: Those who complain of "chronic Lyme disease" are just a bunch of whining, lazy, bored out of their skulls suburban housewives. It is nice to see science refute their excuses for taking the easy way out in life.
shut up and pay your taxes so I get my disability checks you freakoid!!! and get to work tomorow nice and early and rot there the rest of your life!!!
Marcus Welby Vienna, VA Reply � |Flag |#12 2 hrs ago
Sandy Berenbaum_LCSW wrote: Sandy Berenbaum, LCSW, BCD Hey, what's all the alphabet soup mean? Just wonderin' is all.
Marcus Welby Vienna, VA Reply � |Flag |#13 2 hrs ago
Carol wrote: Chronic Lyme Disease does exist, but it is only the tip of the iceberg here. I suffer from both chronic Lyme and Electromagnetic Sensitivities - something that the medical world also denies exists. In fact, some studies have shown that manmade electromagnetic fields are messing with the magnetic sense of these bacteria, causing them to remain inside the patient where they slowly and painfully attack the nervous system and virtually every organ system. Chronic Lyme Disease cases coincide perfectly with the proliferation of cell phones, cordless phones, and wireless technology in general. If you have chronic Lyme, you also have electromagnetic sensitivities, and these websites would be a good place to start... www.mastsanity.org www.bioinitiative.org Infection is just the tip of the iceberg. Chronic Lyme sufferers are all suffering from radiation poisoning, and medical science never bothered to test the safety of this technology before it was introduced to society - or rather, they did test the safety, but covered the facts up regarding EMFs, much like they did with chronic Lyme.
Seek psychiatric help.
Ann in Ca Windsor, CA Reply � |Flag |#14 29 min ago
Perhaps the authors of this study should put their collective wisdom to the test and all allow themselves to be infected with lyme disease. Then they can actually have real evidence if all of them are cured with a few weeks of antibiotics. Come on docs--there's nothing to be afraid of...or is there?
Of course, to be truly comparable to real life chronic lyme patients, they would need to delay treatment for 3 months to 3 years, or maybe six years or, even longer. Most people bitten by ticks either do not know that they have been bitten, or spend years searching for a doctor educated enough to recognize and willing to treat tick borne disease.
This article is EXCELLENT and right on target. It doesn't matter what one calls the disease. This disease has destroyed lives, families, and marriages. The doctors should be interested in solving the mystery of the disease not fighting over whether it exists or not. It affects too many people in our country. Unfortunately, my family has been dealing with it since the 1980's.
Nick Brooklyn, NY Reply � |Flag |#2 5 hrs ago
I believe the disease that "destroys" lives, families and marriages is called HYPOCHONDRIAC, not lyme. ..................................
Ann in Ca Windsor, CA Reply � |Flag |#3 1 hr ago
Being one of the "lucky" ones, I had the positive Western Blot, the bull's eye rash at the site of the bite, the classic symptoms--and it still took six years to get any treatment.
It was not just the many changing symptoms which the those ignorant of the complexities of tick borne illnesses might call hypochondria, it was ignorance in the medical community of the basic, clear cut scientific proof of lyme disease.
Complicated by the other diseases such as babesiosis, erlichia, and bartonella often passed along from the very same tick bite, it is imperative that the medical community and the public be educated to recognize the signs of infection, in order to prevent chronic lyme disease.
Thanks for helping to add some background to this controversy. Ignorance is largely to blame.
Showing posts 1 - 3 of 3
you can RATE EACH OF 2 ARTICLES ALSO////////1 please do this especially the one above had 5 starts for 8 votes!!
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