The Lyme disease war zone is described by Stephen Harrod Buhner, in his book called Healing Lyme, as "...a battle between people holding competing theories of Lyme disease and its treatment. The intensity of the conflict has regrettably reached almost religious levels amongst the different proponents. Caught in the crossfire are those with Lyme disease who are trying to understand what is happening to them, and to discover how best to deal with it. This is, in my opinion, reprehensible."
When pondering the thought of Lyme disease and how I was infected, most doctors would take me back in time, to memories of when I may have experienced a tick bite. Of course, having late stage Lyme, I cannot remember any such occassion. However, the physicians have never inquired regarding other causes of my transmitting the disease, nor have they inquired regarding my family and their health circumstances.
"In order to reduce the incidence of this disease, the education of health professionals, the public and politicians about Lyme, needs to be addressed."
--Wendy Leffel, M.D., "Healing Lyme"
Did you know that there are other possible means of transmiting Lyme disease?
Note: most of these are refuted through the CDC's site CDC Lyme Disease
*Human Breast Milk
*Tears
*Urine
*Semen
*also has been transmitted to babies in the womb
*mosquitos
*mites
*fleas
*biting flies
*other documented routes
The stereotype that Lyme is only spread through tick bites is one of the things that keeps the medical community from diagnosing and treating the growing, unreported, number of cases of Lyme disease..."...that a significant amount of reputable research is being ingnored by the mainstream medical community."
"Epidemiologic data suggest that the actual incidence of Lyme disease could be as much as 10 times higher than CDC data indicate. This probably is a result of a restrictive case definition from the CDC, inevitable misdiagnosis, and the fact that physicians tend to under report reportable diseases of all kinds."
--Jonathan Edlow, M.D., Harvard Medical School
These organisms (borrelia) are often present in such small numbers, and antibodies are so low in some of those infected that they don't show up on the standard blood tests for Lyme. Therefore, there is a desperate need for standard use of more sensitive tests to accurately diagnose the population. There may be many of those that have tested negative for the disease, who are actually infected.
"We desperately need practitioners on the frontlines who recognize and treat Lyme properly in the early, most curable stages and who take appropriately aggressive measures in later stages."
--Wendy Leffel, M.D., "Healing Lyme"
Other approaches to treatment need to be approached. Antibiotics are known as not tough enough in the fight against late-stage, or chronic Lyme disease. Even with this research and evidence, the CDC recommendations for treatment are exclusively built around antibiotics. See their recommendations for treatment here CDC treatments and links
"Science, though it often is, should never be the plaything of the powerful nor used to control the innocent for the accummulation of power and profit."
--Stephen Buhner, "Healing Lyme"
What treatments are the correct treatments?
What diagnostic data is the correct data to report?
What tools and tests should be used for diagnosis?
"Six points stand out to me after a rather long and intense examination of the existing material: (1) There is a lot of hysteria about Lyme disease. Everybody is pretty scared, most are not really sure what to do, including the physicians; (2) There are a lot more sick people than the statistics indicate; (3) Antibiotics are not nearly as effective as purported to be; (4) Clear, concise, unemotional information is hard to obtain; (5) Tests for Lyme disease are not very reliable; (6) Something very strange is going on in the field of Lyme disease and its treatment."
--Stephen Buhner, "Healing Lyme"
Why aren't patients, across the country, being tested for Lyme? Why is this such a hard diagnosis to obtain, when it is the correct diagnosis?
Sources:
www.cdc.gov
www.lymenet.org
www.lymediseaseassociation.org
Healing Lyme, by Stephen Harrod Buhner
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