Lyme disease less of a mystery now
News Desk
by bob allen
Debbie Brown, a 42-year-old Timonium resident and director of the Fire
Museum of Maryland, started noticing something was wrong about six
years ago.
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"I started feeling very tired, and I had flu-like symptoms and once a
month or so I'd get a low-grade fever," said Brown, who until then had
been active in sports and ran five miles a day. "I would literally wake
up in the morning feeling like I was 80 years old, but I just kept
pushing myself through it."
But Brown's condition continued to deteriorate in mysterious ways. Her
knees started swelling, then her leg. Her doctor told her it was
probably from running on hard surfaces. She laid off running, but the
swelling continued until she finally had to have the fluid drained from
her knee, which was the size of a grapefruit.
After that, she felt good for a few weeks until the maladies worsened.
Her right knee swelled and pretty soon she was on crutches. Then her
elbow swelled and her jaw started to lock up.
Finally, after several months of suffering, her doctor ran a blood test
and told Brown she had Lyme disease, something that had never occurred
to her. She blamed her symptoms on everything from arthritis to chronic
fatigue syndrome. When the diagnosis of Lyme disease finally came, it
was something of a relief.
"They put me on heavy antibiotics for several weeks, and it was like a
fog was lifted. I felt human again," said Brown, who nearly six years
later remains symptom-free. "But I wouldn't wish that on anybody."
Cases on the rise?
Welcome to the world of Lyme disease, a potentially debilitating
tick-borne bacterial disease whose high season is right now, when all
the insects and blood-sucking critters rise up and do their dirty work.
According to the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene,
there were 1,235 cases of Lyme disease reported in Maryland in 2005, up
39 percent from the previous year.
And health officials say that number is probably low because many cases
of the disease simply go undiagnosed.
Gary Thompson, supervisor of the Office of Communicable Diseases of the
Baltimore County Department of Health, said that doesn't mean Lyme
disease is on the rise. It just means that the public is more aware
that it is a health hazard, and citizens are seeking medical treatment
when they suspect they've contracted it.
"There's a universal awareness that being bitten by ticks should be
avoided," Thompson said. "The higher numbers don't mean it's more of a
problem. It just means there is more surveillance."
Dr. Charles Haile, an infectious disease specialist affiliated with
both St. Joseph Medical Center and Greater Baltimore Medical Center,
said he's treated hundreds of cases of Lyme disease in recent years and
three or four cases so far this year. Haile doesn't think the disease
is any more prevalent than it was a year or two ago.
Haile said he has seen a heightened public awareness about Lyme disease
and about the importance of protecting oneself against tick bites or
exposure to ticks during the warmer months.
Even so, he said, Lyme is often tricky to recognize and diagnose
because its flu-like symptoms frequently match those of other
disorders. Often, a telltale symptom is a circular "bull's eye" rash
that appears around the tick bite three to 30 days after the victim is
bitten. But about 30 percent of the time, no rash appears.
Also, the deer tick - also called the black-legged tick and a frequent
carrier of the disease - is relatively tiny. Unlike the larger and more
common mule tick, a deer tick is often hard to spot when it has
attached itself to you.
"The bugaboo is that people often don't see the tick bite or they
confuse it with an insect bite or a spider bite," Haile said.
"The tick that gives you Lyme disease is often the one that you don't
even see," Gary Thompson added.
Haile said that if Lyme disease is diagnosed and treated early with
antibiotics, "almost all patients do well."
But in a few cases, people, for unknown reasons, will suffer from what
is called Post-Lyme syndrome, "where people continue to be ill with
joint pains after the Lyme is cured."
Cases of Lyme disease that go undiagnosed for the long-term can become
more difficult to treat and can result in more severe disorders,
including heart palpitations or murmurs, blindness, mood swings,
violent outbursts and hair loss.
Thompson said that being bitten by a deer tick doesn't necessarily mean
a person has been infected.
For one thing, the tick must be attached to you for at least 36 hours
before it can infect you. "And there are also a lot of other
variables," he said.
Deer ticks, though nearly invisible, are as ubiquitous in Maryland as
the deer who often carry them, so the prospect of reducing the tick
population is just about zero.
The best protection, Thompson said, is prevention.
"Avoid exposing yourself to the ticks. That is the biggest thing."
E-mail Bob Allen at Bob Al...@patuxent.com