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Be Afraid Of Lyme Disease

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Be Afraid Of Lyme Disease

To the Editor:

With great interest I read the article about Lyme disease and the efforts of Dr Eva Sapi and her staff to determine the level of Lyme and other tick-borne illnesses in the Newtown area. I was also quite taken by the remarks of Ms Culbert saying that a tick-borne disease is serious business. That is such an understatement. It can kill if left untreated.

I am writing from first-hand knowledge. Left untreated, a tick-borne illness can result in debilitating lifelong disability and even death.

My husband started developing alarming symptoms in early June of this year. High fever, severe weight loss, severe, unexplained pain in the back, arms and legs. Bell’s palsy, agitation, insomnia, and sudden onset of arthritis. It was a revolving door with his doctors and our local hospital. They just continued to send him home while his symptoms became increasingly worse.

Then on July 14 of this year he could no longer walk and fell in the driveway so severely that he was covered in bruises and his knees and legs bloodied by him trying to crawl up the gravel drive to the house. I found him collapsed by the garage door. Sick and tired of the nonresponse I got from our local hospital and doctors, I took him to the University of Virginia Medical Center where they immediately diagnosed some sort of encephalopathy.

He was finally admitted and he immediately went into a full blown psychosis and was very near death.

Infectious disease was called in and he was eventually diagnosed with Lyme.

My husband spent a month in the hospital on IV antibiotics and had to be admitted to a skilled nursing care facility for intensive physical therapy and is still extremely weak and has recently developed grand mal seizures due to the severe undiagnosed infection in his brain caused by the Lyme bacteria. His short-term memory is also shot.

Ms Culbert is right. Tick-borne disease is serious business — very serious business. If one is lucky enough to have the classic bull’s-eye rash run, don’t walk to your nearest health care provider at the onset.

Early intervention with antibiotics is critical in preventing the physical and emotional devastation of untreated, late-stage Lyme disease.

If you don’t have the classic bull’s-eye rash known as erythema migran (presents in less than 50 percent of cases according to the CDC) please be aware of neurological changes, gait changes, weight loss, Bell’s palsy, agitation, insomnia and sudden onset of arthritis.

Be afraid. Be very afraid of Lyme disease. This disease brought my very healthy husband to his knees and changed his life forever.

Sharon Donahue Emerson

370 Walnut Hills Road, Staunton, VA 24401   November 22, 2008

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