NEWS: Lyme cases in Alberta, Canada, may be vastly under-reported
"If I had a dog with Lyme disease, I would be more likely to get treatment for it in Alberta than for my child."
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Lyme disease tricky to diagnose
Number of cases may be under-reported because blood-testing not always foolproof
EDMONTON – The number of Albertans with Lyme disease may be under-reported because the illness is often misdiagnosed, says an Edmonton board member of the Canadian Lyme disease Foundation.
Part of the problem is infectious disease specialists won’t treat for suspected Lyme disease unless they have a positive blood test from an approved laboratory, said Janet Sperling, who is also a University of Alberta entomologist, and co-author of a submission to The Canadian Entomologist on the presence of Lyme disease ticks in Alberta.
Sperling said many local cases go undiagnosed partly because she believes local labs give out too many false negatives.
In 2005, her oldest son, Ed, then 15, contracted Lyme disease, likely on a family vacation in California. He was tested for a number of diseases ranging from Parkinson’s to epilepsy by local doctors. Three tests done in Alberta for Lyme disease came back negative.
When Sperling and her husband sent Ed’s blood to a California lab, it came back positive for Lyme disease. But local doctors remained skeptical even though Ed’s condition continued to deteriorate, she said.
It was not until late 2005 that a doctor reluctantly put Ed on three months of intravenous antibiotics, followed by six months of oral medication. Ed has since made a full recovery.
It's very discouraging to know that someone with Lyme disease has a good chance of being misdiagnosed. Not only is it discouraging, it's scary. Is there something that we are doing or can start doing to begin to improve the accuracy of these lab results? It's great to hear that Ed has made a full recovery from his incident.
-Mrs. Bennett
I agree, this is very discouraging. It is also very frustrating. I probably don't know the full story, but it really shocks me that although Ed's test results came back positive for Lyme, that doctors still were skeptical. I'm also glad that Ed has recovered. That is a very scary path for a family.
Jerry McMaster
Indianapolis, IN
Unfortunately a positive Alberta Elisa test for “three different types” of Lyme, followed by an equivocal Alberta Elisa and Western blot,
followed by an IGENEX positive test for Burgdorferi,
followed by very severe and advanced arthritis
and increasingly severe deformity and disability
will never be considered reliable enough to achieve a diagnosis,
even if the victim owned several pets who brought home ticks
and also slept on the bed. (Didn’t know the dangers then).
Almost no doctor would even be able to name 3 types of Lyme, or state what the symptoms are let alone identify any sort of Lyme arthritis, name 5 serious Lyme symptoms, or even know the difference between Burgdorferui, Bartonella, or Babesia. Almost none believe in Lyme in the first place, and pamphlets sent to doctors by government suggest it’s not such a serious disease after all.
Worse yet, a POSITIVE “IGENEX” diagnosis of Burgdorferi WILL NOT BE ACCEPTABLE in Alberta either. Doctors are taught that this company is fake and unreliable. Only Alberta tests which rarely detect lyme are considered reliable and acceptable.
I have received a week’s worth of Doxycyline 100 but my med records will never admit Lyme — only that they are “unsure”: (end of story). Unsure means no follow up with regard to symptoms specific to this disease will ever be necessary.
Doctors aren’t permitted to waste time on diseases that don;t exist. They are indeed chewed out if their testing costs are higher than most. Woe to any doctor who admits Lyme not just in Alberta, but in many places of the world. No one wants people to know that this now rapidly spreading deadly disease has often been tested as biowarfare. Woe especially to any infected adult. Why interfere when the dignity pill is being planned anyway?
Like most Lyme patients, my med records are filled with not just hundreds of errors, but also denial of diseases previously diagnosed by specialists. They are filled with untrue and extreme mockery and disgusting suggestions, as well as suggestions of insanity, etc. The fact that so much damage is shown on X-rays and MRI’s makes no difference. Lyme patients are simply crazy and that’s that.
Most of you will likely also never see a rheumatologist, a specialist regarding MLS, ALS, or any other such person for Lyme discussion either, even if you are getting cortisone shots. Insurance companies control everything. For most Canadians, (and probably most places in the world now) treatment of serious diseases are usually stalled until too chronic to be reversible, and often is withheld even to death.
To make things worse than already as bad as can be, anyone who pays for his or her own treatment can’t even deduct the exorbitant expenses from income tax. Federal law won;t permit it. Meanwhile world leaders are stashing their outlandish wealth under anonymous names in safe havens to avoid paying taxes at all.
Don’t blame your doctors as I and many others once did (or still do). It’s not their fault. They are simply being stripped of not just their powers but also their medical knowledge. Most doctors (as well as specialists) are 30 years behind the times with regard to the latest world studies about medicine. With the Internet and access to professional medical articles written by the best of the best specialists in medicine, it doesn’t take long for patients to notice. Next will be the elimination of all public doctors entirely, as well as any sort of medical coverage at all.
Something is killing us but it it’s not Lyme, the secret is being withheld. The fact that almost no one in the medical field seems interested in finding out what it is does suggest that they do know it’s either Lyme or a disease by another name they are aware of that’s equally as painful, crippling, and deadly. There definitely needs to be much more “serious” discussion about Lyme, as it DOES seem to be the new “AIDS” although spreadable in many more ways and also not checked for in the Canadian and other blood donation systems.