As Dave Martz lay dying, an idea serpentined around his mind and would not loosen its grip: Despite the absolute diagnosis and the insistence of the doctors, including a world expert, that he was dying of ALS, despite his own vow to face things head-on and reject the lure of denial, Martz couldn’t shake the notion that possibly, just maybe, he actually had Lyme disease. (from Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic by Pamela Weintraub.)

One of the earliest Lyme conferences I ever attended featured Dr. Dave Martz and the story of his remarkable recovery from what had been diagnosed as ALS–a fatal condition.

I would later write this about him in my blog:

Kind of a rock star

Dr. David Martz is kind of a rock star in the Lyme world. You may have read about him in Pam Weintraub’s Cure Unknown and seen footage of him in the documentary Under Our Skin.

His story is riveting. He had a lifetime of good health and a successful career as a physician practicing internal medicine-hematology-oncology for 30 years. Then, in 2003, Martz suddenly started experiencing strange symptoms. First deep fatigue, then profound muscle aches and body-wide pain. Soon he was too weak to get out of bed. As his condition rapidly deteriorated, his physicians gave him a devastating diagnosis: ALS (aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease). They said nothing could stem his physical decline and he would likely be dead within two years.

But events went in a different direction. As his health spiraled downward, Martz connected with a Lyme disease specialist who prescribed hard-hitting, long-term antibiotics. The gamble paid off. By the end of 2004, Martz was a new man. In fact, the doctor who had diagnosed him so definitively with ALS, now pronounced that condition completely gone.

Martz devoted the next two and a half years to a project that gave extended antibiotics to about 90 ALS patients and demonstrated objective improvements in 15% of them. He has also treated more than 800 chronic Lyme patients, with good response and minimal side effects.

A message of hope

In 2010, I helped organize a Lyme patient education conference in the San Francisco Bay Area and we had Dr. Martz as our keynote speaker. He was a kind, thoughtful man who offered a message of hope to an audience which sorely needed it.

This week, I learned that Dr. Martz passed away last month at the age of 83. Rest in peace, Dr. Martz, rest in peace.

TOUCHED BY LYME is written by Dorothy Kupcha Leland, President of LymeDisease.org. She is co-author of Finding Resilience: A Teen’s Journey Through Lyme Disease and of When Your Child Has Lyme Disease: A Parent’s Survival Guide. Contact her at dleland@lymedisease.org.