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Lyme Disease symptoms vary from person to person. (lymes disease lyme's disease lime disease limes disease)
The data and information presented in this web site are presented in good faith and believed to be accurate regarding Lyme disease (commonly misspelled lymes disease lyme's disease lime disease limes disease) and other related diseases. Any and all liability for the content or any omissions including any inaccuracies, errors, or misstatements in such data or information is expressly disclaimed. The web site is compiled for the sole purpose of informing community members of resources and information pertaining to Lyme Borreliosis Disease and its coinfections. Lyme disease symptoms may vary from person to person.
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Consult a qualified Lyme ( Borreliosis ) Disease literate doctor for medical advice if Lyme Disease is suspect to discuss your Lymes Disease Symptoms.
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From: L'actualité magazine, Quebec, September 1st, 2008
Ticks are on the rise
The tick that transmits Lyme disease is establishing itself in Quebec, reveals an interim study of the National Institute of Public Health. Some places might even soon be declared “endemic zones”.
After West Nile virus, Lyme disease is coming to your garden. For years, entomologists have suspected that ticks able to transmit this disease would come north.. Now the National Institute for Public Health in Quebec confirms it: ticks have started to reproduce at a number of sites in L'Estrie, in Monteregie and on Montreal Island. If that is confirmed this year, and that should happen, then certain zones will be considered “endemic”.
This new information encourages a few dozen Quebecers who say they have Lyme disease, but who have difficulty getting this diagnosis recognized. According to the entomologists, the tick responsible for this illness was up to now too rare in Quebec to justify all these cases.
The National Institute for Public Health should very soon put on line information for the general public and health professionals. But what do we really know about this emerging illness?
Difficult, difficult, the diagnosis
Lyme borreliosis is an infectious illness know throughout the northern hemisphere. Because its symptoms (rash, rheumatic, muscular, neurological) are varied, this illness with three phases can be difficult to diagnose. If untreated, it can become extremely debilitating, and even in rare cases fatal.
In North America, the black legged tick, or deer tick, would be the only one to transmit the Bb, which causes the illness, In order to become an “contaminating agent”, the tick must itself be infected. It becomes infected when nourishing itself on animal blood, most often rodents, who naturally carry the bacteria. It must stay attached to human skin for 24 to 48 hours to transmit the bacteria. Therefore, not all people who get tick bites get infected.
Four endemic zones in Canada, at present
Ticks like humid zones, in particular broad-leaf forests. They are found on tall plants, from where they attach to animals (rodents, deer, birds, domestic animals) or to humans.
Unites States: Present in 40 states. The zones with greatest risk are just on the other side of the Canadian border in the North-east states.
Canada: Four known endemic regions: south-east Ontario, parts of Manitoba, parts of Nova Scotia and southern British Columbia.
Unsettling symptoms
A bull's eye rash (a red circle around a clear center) is considered to be the signature of the illness. It appears during the days following the bite and is often accompanied by flu-like symptoms. More than half of the victims stay asymptomatic for months, even years. As the bacteria that causes Lyme borreliosis attacks the systems (muscular, cardiac, nervous etc.), sufferers complain of different and varying symptoms: rheumatic aches, migraines, neurological difficulties, and so on.
From 5 to ..... 200,000 cases a year
In Quebec: Between 5 and 10 new cases each year, according to the National Institute of Public Health. Unreal statistics, according to Suzanne Marineau, of the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation, who says she has talked to around 300 sick Quebecers in the last 3 years.
In Canada: About 70 new cases a year. “Lyme borreliosis is an emerging disease and we must take it seriously” explains Dr Harvey Artsob, director of the Zoonotic Division of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. “Up to this year, it wasn't a reportable disease in certain provinces. Our figures are therefore underreporting reality.”
In the U.S.: 20,000 new cases each year, according the the CDC. But, they admit, the number could be close to 200,000 because often the tick bite is not noticed.
How to Diagnose
In endemic zones, the Canadian Ministry of Health recommends establishing the diagnosis first based on symptoms, which could turn out to be a real challenge for doctors. Called the great imitator, Lyme disease is often confused with MS, fibromyalgia, lupus, chronic fatigue syndrome, or even Alzheimer's ... when the mental heath of the patient is not called into question.
In non-endemic zones, Health Canada recommends blood tests. The number of false negatives et false positives is significant, but federal and provincial laboratory experts consider them “over 90%” reliable.
Two treatments
According to one school of thought, represented by the IDSA, Lyme disease is treated by 4-6 weeks of antibiotic therapy. For experts of this association, Lyme does not have a chronic form. The symptoms that former Lyme patients who are treated by antibiotics complain about is part of a vague “post Lyme borreliosis”.
The researchers and doctors of ILADS represent a second school of thought, a minority. According to them, long treatment, even several years, is often necessary to come to the end of the bacteria if the disease is not treated in the acute phase. Even if some victims do not show improvement, many others get very satisfactory results.
The worst is yet to come?
With global warming, some zones at latitudes as far north as Quebec should, according to some models, be endemic by 2020. Already, the number of ticks is rising...and with that, the number of infected ticks. For the moment, they represent only 4% of black-legged ticks, but that proportion could grow quickly.
And a controversy
“There is not a Lyme disease specialist in Canada” reports Suzanne Marineau. People go to the U.S. They empty their pockets or, if they can't pay, they crash and burn.
Suzanne Marineau, spokesperson for Canlyme, has a heavy heart. According to her, in the absence of openness in Canada for this emerging illness, Quebecers must buy their medication from the U.S. Or find a Quebec doctor who would agree to fill the prescription him/herself. “At the risk” she says “because by doing this the doctor could lose his/her licence.”
One does not lose a licence because of helping someone with Lyme disease, says Dr Yves Robert, spokesperson for the College of Doctors. Certainly a Quebec practitioner could be exposed to sanctions to the point of being stricken from the rolls if he/she orders a prescription from another doctor without examining the patient him/herself. But not if the doctor follows procedures and respects treatment protocols. “If a doctor unilaterally changes the treatment protocol, that is another matter.”
In Canada, the protocol is that of IDSA, whose the recommendations are considered the authority for the majority of doctors in North America. IDSA, which does not recognize a chronic form of Lyme disease, does not therefore recommend the use of antibiotic therapy for more that 4-6 weeks.
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