Any Doctors in Ireland willing to treat Lyme disease?

Tick Talk

We are looking for a doctor who would be willing to go to the U.S. for a short time to shadow a Lyme disease expert. Lyme disease sufferers are desperately in need of forward thinking doctors who would be able to specialise in this terrible disease. The training would be done through the ILADS physician training program.

Anyone interested are welcome to drop me a line on this board or can contact us via the Tick Talk group at:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=44960753282

As some of you know we are also looking for signatures on our new petition to make Lyme Disease Notifiable. This will help us to raise awareness of the disease in the medical profession.

If anyone would like to help us sign the petition or even just click on the link to read the comments from infected people (both here and abroad) we'd be very grateful.

Our target is 250 signatures and we are almost there!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Lyme-Disease-Ireland

Thank you!

LegacyUser

Dont think the ticj vector lives in Ireland. If it existed it is in isolated deer herds, haven't heard of a case picked up in Ireland.

Alun

Unregistered wrote: »

Dont think the ticj vector lives in Ireland. If it existed it is in isolated deer herds, haven't heard of a case picked up in Ireland.

So what? People do occasionally travel outside of the country to places where they do have it (GB esp. Scotland, Mainland Europe) and can become infected there, so Irish doctors should be aware of it, certainly more so than they are at the moment, which is hardly at all in my experience.

Tick Talk

Unregistered wrote: »

Dont think the ticj vector lives in Ireland. If it existed it is in isolated deer herds, haven't heard of a case picked up in Ireland.

Totally have to disagree with you there on no cases being in Ireland. I run a group for sufferers and personally know people who have been infected in Ireland. Check out this article below by Prof Gray from Dublin also.

Prof Gray's article:

http://www.ucd.ie/agri/html/homepage...ERM/ERM05.html

Extracts from the text - full report in link above:-

Lyme disease in Ireland J. S. Gray, F. Kirstein, O. Kahla and J. N. Robertson Institute of Zoology, Free University of Berlin, Germany; Lyme Disease Reference Unit, Southampton General Hospital, UK.

Lyme disease (Lyme borreliosis - LB) is a potentially debilitating disease transmitted by ticks, but although the tick vector, Ixodes ricinus, is common and widespread in Ireland, awareness of LB is low. The series of studies described here investigated the biology and epidemiology of Irish LB in an attempt to assess the present and future risk that it may pose.

Prevalence of infection in ticks:- The influence of habitat characteristics on risk of infection was further investigated in field studies in Connemara, Co. Kerry and Co. Wicklow, in which ticks collected from well-described habitats were analysed for infection by IFA or polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It was found that ticks collected from woodland had markedly and consistently higher infection prevalences (11-28%) than ticks collected from open farmland (0-1%), in which tick hosts were almost exclusively sheep or cattle.

Additionally, it was found that the highest infection prevalences were found in the most heterogeneous woodland, presumably reflecting the wider variety of vertebrate hosts present. It is thus apparent that risk of LB cannot be determined from risk of tick-bite alone and that the nature, abundance and variety of tick-hosts in a given habitat are also important.

Also see this map about abundance of Lyme disease? It contains Ireland!
http://www.gideononline.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/image001.png

A doctor in Connemara area has interviewed many doctors in his region and guess what, most of them had one and sometimes more Lyme disease patients in each practice,

Finally, see our petition to make Lyme notifiable in Ireland - there's a few on there if you read the messages that got infected in Ireland.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Lyme-Disease-Ireland

If Lyme is endemic in the UK how come it is possible for Ireland not to be affected - we do not live in a bubble!

Map from Tick Watch on Lyme areas in the UK:
http://www.tickalert.org/map.html

DrIndy

We're not as bad as Eastern Europe where if you walk around in long grass with shorts, you are virtually guarranteed to pick it up.

Common enough here - but mostly from returned travellers.

Lyme's disease can cause complicated nerve and brain damage when in its advanced stages which can be subtle to pick up and difficult to treat which is what I think TickTalk is brushing on.

There are very good Infectious Disease teams in Ireland which are invariably all US trained - but they are not at every hospital.

I can appreciate you want it to be notifiable - what this allows doctors to do is map the spread, chase any contacts and understand the true incidence. However, the disease is not human-human communicable and the prevention is not isolation and contact tracing but tick avoidance (if possible) so apart from making a true assessment of numbers, will it actually prevent the infections from happening?

Either way - nothing will happen in ireland until piggy flu is in the slaughter house.

Tick Talk

Hiya - just a quickie to mention that many cases of Lyme in the U.S., U.K, Ireland and no doubt many others(!) are originally misdiagnosed as ME, MS, Parkinson's, Fibromyalgia etc. etc. This could mean countless numbers of patients not realizing they even have the disease. A patient survey by the ME group in the UK mentioned the following stats:

http://www.mesupport.co.uk/index.php?page=borreliosis-lyme-m-e

"Many people in the United Kingdom with M.E. who are now being tested privately are finding they are infected with bacteria from the Borrelia Burgdorferi species that cause Borreliosis or Lyme disease. It wouldn't be surprising if a very significant percentage of those currently with a diagnosis of M.E. are actually infected with Borrelia or similar bacteria. An e-mail group poll showed that 80% of those with a diagnosis of Borreliosis or Lyme disease had a previous diagnosis of M.E."

Lyme disease untreated can have awful complications for instance blindness, meningitis and paralysis (thankfully only in rare cases). Also children can be infected.

Unfortunately, our Lyme petition was started before the swine flu erupted. We feel that although there are very good ID consultants in hospitals, they are more adept at treating acute rather than chronic forms of the disease (just based on experience by many, many Lyme patients).;)

tbh

moved from LTI

deelyj

Are there ANY doctors in Ireland who recognize and treat Lyme Disease or at least the symptoms associated with it?

My sister has been diagnosed here in the States but needs to return home to Ireland to be with family.

We are in a difficult situation as funds are low and she can't afford to stay here.

Your suggestions/advice are much appreciated.

deelyj

Tick Talk

deelyj wrote: »

Are there ANY doctors in Ireland who recognize and treat Lyme Disease or at least the symptoms associated with it?

My sister has been diagnosed here in the States but needs to return home to Ireland to be with family.

We are in a difficult situation as funds are low and she can't afford to stay here.

Your suggestions/advice are much appreciated.

deelyj

Hi there - I don't have much good news as we're still looking for someone to specialise in Lyme on a long term basis (rather than the 3 weeks and you're cured method!) I'll email you with some tips though for personal reading.

deelyj

Thanks....anything is very much appreciated.

Tick Talk

I was wondering if this would be of interest to consultants & GP's due to the rising problem of Lyme disease in Ireland? The conference is aimed at medical students, medical practitioners and researchers. Details as follows:

'Lyme Disease Action' are hosting their 8th UK Lyme & Tick-borne Diseases Conference on 18th September 2009 at Leicester University.

Objectives

It is anticipated that participants will benefit from:

* An examination of the tests that are available to assist in diagnosis
* An in depth focus on the current hot topics facing GPs needing to treat patients
* Instructive case studies on the long term treatment of patients
* A greater understanding of the breadth of chronic tick associated diseases
* An appreciation of the importance of recognising uncertainties about treatment effects
* A discussion on antimicrobial resistance
* An opportunity to share and exchange ideas with leading practitioners in the field

Who should attend:

* All medical practitioners – particularly General Practitioners, A&E physicians, infectious disease specialists
* Occupational Health Physicians
* PCT managers
* Carers and patients
* Researchers with an interest in infectious diseases or microbiology

The conference will be based at John Foster Hall, Leicester University, Manor Road, LE2 2LG.
Conference fee

The conference fee is £35 which includes coffee, lunch, tea and conference papers.

Medical students, foundation doctors and GP Registrars will have ALL of their £35 conference fee refunded on the day on production of their NHS ID card but must register for this refund when booking. (I have inquired and Irish doctors/students can avail of the refund if they meet the above criteria).

For more details and a booking form go to:

http://www.lymediseaseaction.org.uk/conference.htm

With very best wishes,

Tick Talk Ireland
http://ticktalkireland.wordpress.com/info/

Splendour

Tick Talk wrote: »

Hiya - just a quickie to mention that many cases of Lyme in the U.S., U.K, Ireland and no doubt many others(!) are originally misdiagnosed as ME, MS, Parkinson's, Fibromyalgia etc. etc. This could mean countless numbers of patients not realizing they even have the disease. A patient survey by the ME group in the UK mentioned the following stats:

Hi, can't help you out with your request but just want to say that Lyme disease must be prevalent in Ireland as I went to my Doctor a couple of years back with classic chronic fattigue symptoms and I was tested for Lymes disease. Good luck in your quest!

GradMed

Tick Talk wrote: »

Lyme disease sufferers are desperately in need of forward thinking doctors who would be able to specialise in this terrible disease. The training would be done through the ILADS physician training program.

What do you mean by forward thinking?

tallaght01

GradMed wrote: »

What do you mean by forward thinking?

Honestly, let's not start that fight.

We don't allow recommendations of specific docs on here.

If this thread involves people debating the epidemiological links between lyme disease and the various ME/depression symptoms, then fine. If not, I'm going to lock it.

I got bitten by ticks a couple of times over in New England during the summer.I was working as a landscaper.Its only the deer tick that gives Lyme disease.Also, I think the tock has to be present for 24 hours on the skin before it enters.So if you are in a high risk area ie densely packed woods.Just look over your body for any small bites.Ticks are usually 1mm-3mm long and the bite is usually a circular reddish expanding one.