The area Lyme Support Group will meet Aug. 30 in the meeting room of the Hillsboro Public Library, 819 High Ave., Hillsboro, Wis., from 6:30-8 p.m.
This informal meeting is open to Lyme sufferers, their families, and the general public. Any questions? Email garycepek@yahoo.com, or phone 608/489-2725 (ask for Gary).
The following quotes, intended to help readers in their understanding of Lyme disease, are taken from “The Lyme Wars,” an article by Michael Specter for the July 1 ,2013 New Yorker magazine:
Kaleigh Ahern was twelve years old when a (deer) tick bit her. She noticed it “perched” on her shoulder... it was embedded in (her) skin. ... Ahern assumed the doctor would prescribe antibiotics. But he said that he wasn’t going to treat it. “If a rash develops or (you) have flulike symptoms, (come) back,” he told her. …
No rash developed, and Kaleigh was fine—strong enough to become an all-American swimmer both in high school and college. There were times during high school when she felt mentally hazy and not quite right physically, which she attributed to allergies or a teen-age bout of mononucleosis. But at the end of her freshman year in college she found herself crippled by anxiety, depression, and insomnia. ... beset by searing headaches, her muscles often felt as though they were on fire, and her brain seemed wrapped in a dense fog. ...
Kaleigh tested positive for Lyme disease. Like most physicians, her doctor followed the standard medical practice, endorsed by public-health officials throughout the United States, and prescribed a three-week course of antibiotics. ... The drugs didn’t work. ...
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has established highly specific criteria for the diagnosis of Lyme disease: an acknowledged tick bite, the appearance of a bull’s-eye rash, and, for those who don’t live in a region where Lyme is common, laboratory evidence of infection. Most people who fit the profile respond well to antibiotics, even months or years after the initial infection. Many Lyme specialists, however, believe that short-term antibiotic therapy may suppress symptoms but rarely cures the disease. Kaleigh switched doctors and began a course of antibiotics that lasted eight more months. There was no change. ...
Furthermore, there is no evidence that prolonged antibiotic therapy helps patients with Lyme disease, so insurance companies almost never pay for it. ...
Kaleigh’s condition had become so grave that she withdrew from school. “I would have episodes where I would just lie on the ground writhing. ...”
Kaleigh turned to alternative treatments often recommended by Lyme patients with similar experiences. She took herbs—turmeric and ginger, which are thought by some to strengthen the immune system—and she gave up gluten, grains, refined foods, and sugar. The goal was to reduce inflammation caused by her body’s production of insulin and to inhibit the growth of the bacterium that causes Lyme. She also began treatments with a Rife machine, an electromagnetic device invented in the nineteen-twenties which emits radio signals that, some researchers suggest, can destroy harmful bacteria. ...
Kaleigh began to feel better. She still has headaches and severe muscular pain at times, but she returned to Union a year ago and graduated this spring.
