There is an amazing amount of buzz concerning Lyme disease these days, not just wacky internet chatter either. This is a good thing because Lyme is a problem that is grossly underestimated. Read up on it and stay informed lest it crush you or someone dear to you. Lyme is no joke.
North Carolina finally acknowledges the seriousness of Lyme infections. LINK
After years of cautioning that people were unlikely to get Lyme disease in North Carolina, state health leaders are now advising that the tick-borne illness can, in fact, be acquired here.
In at least four cases this year, Lyme was confirmed among patients who never left their home counties, ruling out the prospect that they picked up the bacterial infection while traveling.
Based on the new evidence, Dr. Megan Davies, state epidemiologist, said the state is now working to get the word to doctors, who for years were reluctant to even test patients for Lyme because it wasn’t considered much of a possibility.
The citizens of Wisconsin are trying hard to get their point across to legislators. LINK
“What we are trying to convey today is the seriousness of Lyme disease; what an issue it is in Wisconsin and how many people are suffering,” Andrews said.
According to Andrews, the health care costs associated with Lyme disease are a financial burden for many Wisconsin families, and some residents have to go out of state to receive treatment because there are only two specialists in Wisconsin.
Last, there is now more research being conducted than ever before. Some of the results are both promising and disturbing. Doctors in every state are beginning to see the potential for disaster and are becoming educated. Articles like the following are finally and thankfully becoming more common. LINK
…The spirochete, a corkscrew-shaped bacterium, is unique in the known bacterial realm because of the quantity of DNA it carries that enables it to evade detection and attack the human immune system. It can change its outer protein coat, cloaking itself from immune detection. It also can completely change form, becoming a treatment-resistant cyst, or shed its outer coat to enter our own cells to set up shop.
The success of antibiotic therapy generally depends on the activity level of a bacterium; how fast it grows and how often it reproduces. Most common bacterial diseases we encounter in medicine are from bugs that reproduce in less than 24 hours. When antibiotics “hit” the reproductive or active metabolic machinery of these germs, they die. This is why when we treat common illnesses such as pneumonia or urinary infections, people usually get better in a few days.
The Lyme bacterium, however, has a reproduction cycle as short as a day but as long as about nine months. During a phase of prolonged inactivity, it is very hard to kill. This is one of the reasons an established Lyme infection can be hard to eliminate. It also is thought and there is real data to support this that the Lyme bacterium eventually takes up residence with other co-infecting bacteria, in what is called a biofilm community…
It is no coincidence that the news I picked to blog about stretches literally from coast-to-coast, California to North Carolina. Although the material can be dry and the anecdotes can be upsetting, I implore you to stay informed on the topic of Lyme. It is a bastard whose day is coming.