Lyme Handbook

Yesterday, the  IDSA finalized their review of themselves and decided that their LD guidelines were fine and that chronic LD does not exist.  How convenient, and how self serving.  With this decision, insurance companies will once again refuse to pay insurance claims to LD patients for their costly antibiotic treatments. 

Looks like we have yet another self-regulating industry in this country.  Now where did I see that before?  Oh yeah, Wall Street.  But don’t fret.  The market will regulate itself.

And to my ethically bankrupt friends in the IDSA, pick up the paper any day of the week to see how much damage you are causing your fellow citizens and country.

• Excerpted from an article by Richard Hutton [ NiagaraThisWeek ( Posted: 04/22/2010 )]

Not feeling well after a 2002 outing with her husband, Melisa Young embarked on a string of visits to doctors and infectious disease specialists before learning nearly seven years later she had contracted the tick-borne illness

For the full article:  http://www.niagarathisweek.com/news/article/804517–living-with-lyme-disease

• Excerpted from an article by Aleese Kopf [ Kansan.com ( Posted: 04/23/2010 )]

It’s late. Christy restlessly lies in bed waiting for the painful cries she knows will soon wake her. Abruptly, she hears her son shout for her. Sweat drips from his body. The fear and pain on his face is unmistakable. Christy brings a heating pad for the cramps in his stomach and legs. She gives him Tylenol to ease the piercing in his head. She sits with her arms around him in the bed, a remedy the medicine can’t provide.

Her son, Michael, is 9 years old and suffers from Lyme disease. The dark circles under his eyes are the only traces of terrors his body endures each night. His mother, Christy Barnett of Lawrence, said she has taken him to the hospital numerous times.

“Michael is very strong and courageous, but he can be afraid,” Barnett said. “He is afraid of what is going to happen to him. He has told me, ‘I am not going to get as bad as you.’”

Michael has seen the medicine bottles, syringes, and IV equipment in his mother’s bedroom and knows the torment she endures. He now sees his father, who he has had to increasingly depend on in his mother’s absence, endure the same pain. Michael, his mom, his dad and perhaps his sister Trinity, who is currently being evaluated, all suffer from Lyme disease.

For the full article: http://www.kansan.com/news/2010/apr/23/learning-about-lyme-disease/

Even though we are displeased with the review panel’s results, we do appreciate the AG’s efforts.   Please email and thank Richard Blumenthal for investigating the IDSA and for enforcing the settlement agreement at attorney.general@po.state.ct.us .

~ by Rob on April 23, 2010.

Posted in Commentary, IDSA, Lyme
Tags: Ct, Doctors, IDSA, Lyme, Lyme Disease