Controversy Of Treating Lyme Disease Arises In TX
Excerpted from CBS11tv.com ( Posted: 09/07/2010 )
“I was feeling severely fatigued,” she said. “It was hard just to get through the day.”
She was sick off and on for years, and didn’t know what was wrong with her.
In February, an urgent care doctor near her home told her he thought she had Lyme disease, a bacterial infection people get after being bitten by deer ticks. A bulls-eye lesion on the skin is a common symptom.
About 30,000 cases are reported nationwide each year, though experts say the number of cases could be much higher.
In Texas
, however, the number of reported cases is far lower – only about 100 annually – and experts say that number could be lower because the ticks that spread Lyme disease aren’t common here.
For Reed, this was the second time she was diagnosed with the disease.
“I was bitten right around 16, up in New Jersey,” she said.
She believes when got Lyme disease as a teenager, she was never fully cured. Another physician, Dr. Ron Wilson of Denton, prescribed an aggressive treatment of antibiotics for Reed.
This treatment helped land Reed in the middle of a controversy that’s dividing the medical community and spurred the Texas Legislature to study the issues surrounding the disease.
“This is a very clever organism,” said Dr. Ron Wilson of Denton, who prescribed Reed the antibiotics. “A simple antibiotic for a short period of time may get rid of the symptoms for a while, but they come back.”
Reed said Wilson prescribed an IV infusion of antibiotics every twelve hours, four days a week for eight straight weeks. Reed keeps leftover medical supplies tucked away inside boxes.
“There is no evidence to support the fact that there is such a thing as chronic Lyme disease,” said Dr. Michael Norgard, chair of the Microbiology Department at the University of Texas
Norgard and other infectious disease doctors nationwide are convinced the disease should be treated with short-term antibiotics, no longer than three weeks. They worry extended use of these drugs could actually ruin a patients health.
Norgard, who specializes in Lyme disease, said doctors who treat the disease with ongoing and aggressive antibiotics are irresponsible.
“They’re subjecting their patients to false hopes,” he said. “They’re not really getting to the real ideology of the underlying illness.”
Wilson changed his OB/GYN practice so he could also treat patients with Lyme disease.
“Whether it’s controversial or not is not my problem,” he said, “my job is to take care of people.”
Reed even credits Wilson with her recovery.
“I feel like for the first time in ten years, I can actually get through the day and feel pretty good,” Reed said.
But Reed is forced to find a new doctor: The Texas Medical Board received a complaint about Wilson and investigated his treatment of Lyme disease. The board disciplined the doctor for failing to use “the generally acceptable standard of care…” based on guidelines from the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
“I feel discounted,” Wilson said. “I feel singled out.”
The board also concluded that the doctor recommended a patient buy a vitamin supplement that he received a percentage of profits for recommending. The state said Wilson must comply with its standard in treating Lyme disease and take an ethics course.
For the full article: http://cbs11tv.com/local/Lyme.disease.controversy.2.1901165.html
Here is a blog poat about thq researcher that appeared on that video and his double talk. It’s crazy.
http://lymeideas.wordpress.com/2010/09/11/ethics-and-lyme-michael-v-norgard-ph-d/
Kyle.
Thanks for your post.
I detest the argument: “There is no credible evidence.” It tends to be a copout. If evidence is provided and one disagrees, then they should be able to disprove it. Just generically saying all evidence is false is pure dismissal and carries no credibility.
I think Dr. Norgard needs to explain what exactly is happening to all the Lyme patients after treatment. If he were correct about CL, this would be easy to explain. Yet, all the disbelievers point to psychosis as an explanation. Again, a copout.
All the best,
Rob
Dr. Wilson, the Denton Community misses you so much! You are easily the best ObGyn we had the pleasure of seeing, and you helped so many people deal with Lyme’s as well! You aren’t the only one that was hurt by this, Denton as a whole felt the blow. You saved my life, literally, and it wasn’t even OB related. You caught my appendecitis just in time, and I was in surgery when it burst. I owe you so much! Thank you for being one of the few Drs willing to help the patient, and not discount very real medical issues.
I was just diagnosed with lyme’s, and I live in Idaho! Wished I could get a great doctor, I just got out of a six day stay in the hospital. It is nice to know that you can have a life after treatment! Thanks for sharing, your story gives me hope.
Rhonda Wilson
CAldwell, Idaho
Rhonda,
I hope you have a good and informative support group helping you get through all this.
I’m not too familiar with the LD situation in Idaho, but if your doctors caught it early enough then you have a reasonable chance of overcoming the worst of it.
Here in the Northeast, I know scores of chronic LD patients who were detected and treated long after being infected. In their cases, long-term antibiotics are helping relieve symptoms, but it does not seem to be sustainable. Many of these chronic patients have sought out alternative treatments, but they too, have sustainability issues. If you find yourself relapsing hard, you may want to try focusing on detoxing and rebuilding your immune system. One’s immune system is one of the few weapons that have a lasting success against chronic Lyme.
Also, you may want to mention your Lyme Physicians names here so that others in your area can seek out help as well.
Best of luck with your battle,
Rob
will I am not working with any doctors in Idaho, I quiet because all they wanted to do was more test. My brother- n – law is a Lyme Disease doctor in another state! I work with him with antibots, because by the tim they found what I had, I was already at Chronic Lyme Disease. I am working with a herbal Registered Nurse in FruitLand, Idaho. They have herbs, for Lyme even my doctor has told me to take the same ones that Jane tell me to take. I just got out of the hospital was in there a week, I had to change everything seemed to be poising my body, all the drugs the doctors were given me, while I was seeing them, but I stopped and the inside of my body feels awesome, I am still weak, but off the walker, and on the cane so improvement. I also put my life in with God our Lord, and I have a wonderful husband who has been through will lets just say I am not the first wife, and he is twenty- one years older then I am, but with his brothers help, and God’s, and all the people from our church is just awesome, and that has just made my recovery much more easier to get through. I pray for everyone out there who is suffering from Lyme Disease, it is real, its not in our mind, and we are not crazy when doctors look at us and wonder why we keep coming when they tell us they can’t find anything wrong, We are real people with real hurts, and suffering! So I hope, and pray that who ever has not been diagnosed will find a blessing in a doctor, and those who have been diagnosed I hope you all get the help you need, and not just help the real help! Bless all of you, and there is a rainbow at the end of the darkness, and when you are deep over your head in the ocean their is someone to pull you out to safety the number one person, for me is God the second is my husband, and his brother, and Jane! God bless you all, have a great day!
By the way I tested postivate for five of the blood bands for Lyme Disease!
Anyone that has a question, or just want to talk about their day please connect me by e mail which is rhondawilson40@yahoo.com
Check out my new web site, I have research, recipes, and other things!
http://cms.rhondawilson40.webnode.com