AMHERST - Joy Gould believes physicians need to become more aware of Lyme Disease.
The 51-year-old Amherst woman has finally learned she has the disease and may have had it since she was 10.
"For nearly four decades I have suffered not only excruciating physical symptoms but have paid socially and emotionally as well," said Gould. "Lyme disease, and the failure to diagnose and treat it, has deprived me of the opportunity to have a healthy family life, a career and the ability to secure a retirement and simply enjoy a good quality of life."
Gould said physicians are not trained to recognize Lyme disease and are often diagnosing it as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, lupus, Parkinsons disease or some form of mental illness.
Lyme disease is a serious illness spread by the bite of a certain species of ticks.
Because of recurring misdiagnoses and a lack of treatment, Gould said her life has become one of complete disability in that she can no longer work and can no longer do the things many take for granted like go for a long walk.
She was tested several years ago with the results sent to a lab in Winnipeg. She was never told that the test results were indeterminate, meaning they could be positive. She had another test with the results forwarded to a lab in California that uses a different testing process. This time the result came back positive and she's now under the care of a doctor in Port Hawkesbury.
The province's deputy chief medical officer would not comment specifically on Gould's case, but said the Office of Health Promotion and Protection has been sending information out to physicians about Lyme disease - as it has for influenza and West Nile Virus.
"Doctors are busy people and it's important we present to them information we believe would be helpful to them from a public health point of view," said Baikie. "They have that information at their fingertips. We send them the tick information because in order for them to make a diagnosis of Lyme it's important they know not only the symptoms but that they take a history of that person."
While Gould is convinced she was exposed to the disease nearly 40 years ago, Baikie is unsure of any diagnoses prior to 2002.
"That's a difficult question to answer. The first case we had reported to us was 2002. We had just started identifying the ticks. I've done a lot of literature review on this and there were a couple of ticks reported before 2001, 2002 but they were from migratory birds," Baikie said. "I can't say how long it's been around and I don't think anyone can."
Baikie feels that now the blacklegged ticks are around they will become more established. For this reason, people need to take precautions when in areas where ticks may be located.
dcole@amherstdaily.com
Thank you for publishing this important story. I would like to ask Ms. Baikie to respond to my particular situation. Can it please be explained to me why, as a person who had lived in an endemic US region I was denied not only treatment - BUT EVEN TESTING? As I told the doctor repeatedly that the tick biteS had occurred in New York State, a KNOWN endemic region, and as I had a referral in hand from a Infectious Disease Specialist who devoted more than half her practice to treating people suffering with KNOWN and REPEATED tick bites, WHY did the Canadian doctor tell me with no hesitation whatsoever, that there was no reason to consider Lyme disease? This is not a case of denying a Canadian tick bite - it is a case of a Physician discounting irrefutable evidence and medical records! The Canadian Infectious Disease specialist in question told me up front that "he had no experience with Lyme and tick borne diseases" yet REFUSED to defer to the clinically knowlegable US doctor who, with years of experience treating tick borne illness had given me a positive diagnosis (based on test and on CLINICAL presentations, which is after all the way the Centers for Disease Control state this Disease should be diagnosed.) Result: I went to a clinic and got Canadian testing. It was Positive. Conclusion: Canadian doctors are refusing considering testing or diagnosing Lyme EVEN in cases where the patient reports having been bitten OUTSIDE of Canada! This defies logic and disrespects Medical responsibility. QUESTION: where does that leave the ones bitten INSIDE of our borders. (and why are our Borders impermeable to infected migrating ticks??) These questions are NOT rhetorical. They demand some explanation. Thank you for printing this important story.