Local Pediatricians Seeing Many Lyme Disease Cases
Excerpted from KDKA ( Posted: 08/11/2010 )
Pediatricians across the region are seeing a rise in Lyme disease cases this summer.
In the early stages, Lyme disease can cause a rash; and in serious cases, it can cause problems with the heart, nerves and joints.
In early July, Kim Cogley says her son, Zach, wasn’t acting like a typical 11-year-old.
“He would have a headache, and he would sleep for hours on end afterwards,” said Cogley, who is from Natrona Heights. “This persisted for two weeks, then we got really concerned something was going on, a tumor or something.”
It wasn’t a brain tumor. Instead, it was the bacterial infection
, Lyme disease, caused by a deer tick bite. The tip off was a bull’s eye rash in the middle of his chest.
“Totally shocked, did not even think about Lyme disease,” said Cogley. “He had the rash. We thought it was ringworm as well as the pediatrician thought it was ringworm. We only saw the inner circle, not the outer circle.”
But Zach isn’t alone. There’s been a surge of Lyme disease this summer at Children’s Hospital.
“Usually, in the summer months, we’ll see one or two cases of Lyme disease in the course of a couple weeks,” said Dr. Marian Michaels, an infectious diseases specialist at Children’s Hospital, “but my very first day on the inpatient service, I had four children with disease that was actually meningitis.”
For the full article: http://kdka.com/health/Lyme.disease.children.2.1855171.html
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