NEWS: Canadians say they can't get treated for Lyme; officials say they don't need it.
The Vancouver Sun says: "It's a controversy with a bite."
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From the Vancouver Sun:
People with Lyme disease say they can’t get treatment
Health officials say they don’t need it. It’s a controversy with a bite.
What if you picked up a crippling bacterial disease, but your doctor says it’s virtually impossible you have it? Or the doctor agrees you’re sick, but won’t treat you for fear of being drummed out of the profession?
Lyme disease patients in British Columbia say that’s what’s happening to them, and they’re being forced to look outside the mainstream medicalsystem for help.
While health officials say a few hundred Canadians contract Lyme disease each year, patient advocates claim that’s a drastic underestimate.
They say they’re given inadequate tests, denied medical treatment or told something else is causing the muscle and joint pain that leaves them unable to walk. And the few doctors willing to treat them with long-term antibiotics — sometimes administered for months intravenously — fear repercussions from their licensing bodies.
On the other side, public health officials say the risk of picking up Lyme disease here is minuscule, testing methods are accurate and there is no evidence that long courses of antibiotics are helpful. They blame questionable blood tests from private U.S. laboratories for convincing people they have Lyme disease when they’re really suffering from another mysterious condition.
OMG I can't believe this! I have never wished lyme disease on anyone, but I think those officials in Canada need to contract Lyme disease as they do not know from what they speak about, Try walking in someone elses shoes first then you can talk about how they feel on your feet!
Lyme is everywhere now and they are ignoring the facts like in the USA. no other Disease gets this kind of attention, you can give people anti depressants for years and years but abx is too dangerous? it's like they pick and choose what makes them feel good..
Our Lyme Literates have good science too! it's being ignored because of politics. The fact that they got the numbers all wrong (people sick) shows how corrupt and incompetent they really are..
I am a Texan who was living in British Columbia during my retirement, from 1986 until 1998. I was a member of the Dogwood Pavilion in Coquitlam. My husband Gordon and I hiked with the Cliffhuggers every Monday. In winter we snowshoed on Mt Seymore, or went cross country skiing, enjoying the cold and the snow. We were so active that we taught carpet bowling on Wednesdays, and competed on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Other days I swam on the Zone 3 Lower Mainland Senior Swim Team, healthy enough to swim the 100 meter Individual Medley, relays, etc during the Senior Games in September. Sometime around 1990 while hiking the mountain trails around Vancouver, I got a very tiny tick embedded just above above my right knee. Yes, it made a red ring around it. Yes, within a few months I began experiencing excrutiating pain in my joints, muscle spasms that knotted my muscles, unending pain in left sacroiliac which was reddened and swollen. Walking became so difficult I no longer left our apartment except for doctor appointments. From GP, to endocrinologist, to rheumatologist, to acupuncturist, to UBC Sleep Lab…my life was no longer filled with healthy sports. My digestive system went awry, my heart rhythm was irregular, it felt like a hypodermic needle was being injected into my body at various points every few seconds. My skin erupted in open lesions on my fingers. My mind played tricks on me. I was forgetful. And my hand muscles so weak that one day I could not lift my fork to eat, and my husband had to feed me. No longer could I even knit! No carpet bowling, no hiking, no swimming. Could not even get downstairs! None of the medicines prescribed (antidepressants!) helped at all. I wore an ice pack fastened around my waist to make the unending pain more tolerable. My husband and I returned to Texas, as I could no longer tolerate the cold dampness of BC winter. It took until 2005 for me to be diagnosed with Lyme disease, and five other co-infections! I took the prescribed oral antibiotics for three years until I had my first remission, and could go several months without antibiotics. I overdid activity in the hot summer, went back onto antibiotics and again improved. I am now in my third remission and doing well. I can do yard work, though I am now 81 years old. Should someone have to wait from 1990 to 2005 to be correctly diagnosed? Yes, I got my tick bite right there at Vancouver. But not one doctor ever inquired if I had had a tick bite! Wake up, BC docs! It's all around you! Get your head out of the sand! CONSIDER Lyme disease in your differential diagnosis!!!
I was bitten by a tick while hiking in the North Shore Vancouver Mountains around 1990. The embedded tick above my right knee got a red ring around it. From being a healthy active senior I went to an invalid within a few short years. Countless specialists around Vancouver never even suggested Lyme! Finally I could not walk and my husband I returned home to the warmer climate of Texas. In 2005 I was diagnosed with Lyme and five co-infections! Wake up BC docs! It's there, in your forests. And in your waiting rooms. Three years of oral antibiotics helped me walk again, and now I can do yard work. Still have the pain of chronic Lyme, but I am better. Consider Lyme in your differential diagnosis!!
Exactly the same is happenning in the UK