From: mcg2@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (Marc Gabriel)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Yet another Lyme nightmare...
Date: 6 Sep 92 00:34:08 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University
Attention: All Lyme skeptics... pay attention...


  Two years ago, I began experiencing headaches, concentration problems, foot
  pain, extreme fatigue, and periodic loss of feeling in my limbs.  I had
  never been "sick" in my life, other than the standard flus and childhood
  sicknesses.

  The symptoms were deemed to associated with stress (sound farmiliar to
  anyone?), and I was told to take it easy.  It was the beginning of my
  sophomore year as an EE major, and this made sense at the time.
  After the symptoms got worse a few months later, I saw my HMO doctor (an
  incompetent idiot), and he sent me to see a specialist for each symptom.

  During that time (summer '91), I developed pain in my knees.  The pain was
  sharp at times, and they felt as if they were burning.

  None of the so called specialists could find anything, and my primary doctor
  was about to give up.  In the HMO world, this means a default diagnosis of
  CFS, "chronic mono" (an oxymoron if you ask me), or psychosomatic illness.
  He was going to send me to the shrink when a friend of mine (an orthopedist)
  asked me to stop by for an evaluation.  After 3 visits, he told me that i
  should be tested for Lyme.  I had NO IDEA what Lyme disease was.

  My primary doctor took blood for a cheap ELISA, and the results came back
  "boarderline."  A second ELISA came back negative.  That should have told
  him something about the quality of that test in the first place.

  He declared that I did not have LD.  I wasn't pleased.  I had educated
  myself on the subject of LD, and found out that my symptoms (and the
  PROGRESSION of my symptoms) were LD symptoms.  I asked him to treat me for
  Lyme, but he didn't want to.  After I insisted, he prescribed oral
  Doxycycline, 100mg bid for 30 days.  I had chronic arthritic and
  neurological involvment, and he thought this would take care of everything.

  The doxy did some good, but when I came off it I relapsed back to where I
  was before it.  My doctor sent me to another round of specialists.  In May
  of 1992, after the infectious disease specialist refused to send blood
  samples to SUNY Stony Brook for some more accurte LD blood tests, I went to
  SB myself without his knowledge.  They diagnosed me with LD.

  This was too little too late, however.  By that time the spirochetes were
  well embedded in my tissues, and 6 weeks of IV ceftriaxone only cured my
  neurological symptoms.  That was last month.  My arthritis persists.

  Even though the neuro symptoms are (for the most part) gone, I have
  sustained minor permanent damage.  I have decreased sensitivity (i.e.
  feeling) in my upper arms and thighs.  I don't expect this will go away.

  I am currently being treated for the arthritic pain my Dr. Derrick DeSilva
  in Edison, NJ (a Lyme Foundation approved Dr.).  His job is now to clean up
  the mess left my the other doctors.

  I have lost a total of one semester of school, I have gone through long
  bounts of depression, and lost huge sums of money.  The toll is heavy.
  I will probably suffer with the chronic arthritis for years.
  If I was given the doxy early on (cost ~$30), this entire nightmare could
  have been prevented.

  But if my doctor would have done so, he would have been labeled a "quack" by
  Gordon and those who subscribe to his narrow minded philosophy.  They would
  have complained that there was no positive test to "prove" the infection.
  They claim to understand that Lyme is a clinical diagnosis, but they don't
  practice what they preach.  They would have preferred to wait until I was in
  a wheelchair, that way they could have had more conclusive evidence of
  infection.

  What we have to due is sue these doctors 'till they hemorrhage.  That's the
  only language they speak.

  In endemic areas, at the first sign of LD (even if the symptoms are not
  clear), TREAT with oral doxy (or amoxicillin).  I would rather be called a
  quack than be responsible for yet another wheelchair case.

  -Marc.
-- 
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             Marc C. Gabriel '93    -  U.C. Box 545  -
               (215) 882-0138        Lehigh University
              mcg2@Lehigh.EDU       Bethlehem, PA 18015
                Compu$erve: >internet:mcg2@Lehigh.edu
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 I'm still thinking about the witty one-liner I'm supposed to put here.
Newsgroups: sci.med