Lyme Disease

kingelmo

Hi All,

I have just a query about this disease.Im not even sure how to start this... My step father (in his early 50's), is a farmer so is always tearing and lifting heavy objects(buckets, bags of meal etc). He has always had a problems with his back.

It started off as a collasped disk in his neck (apparently due to wear and tear as he was told- after seeing doctors, gots scans done and a consult visit), then 10 years ago he became very ill (knocked on deaths door) with Wheel's Disease. After a lengthy spell in hospital he came home as was over the worst of it..

Recently in the past year or two the pain from his neck and numbed his both arms - with no feeling/ sensation watsoever..(i mean now u cud stab him and he'd feel nothing)..

In more recent times ie 6months he has in awful pain with his hip - cant walk, if he manages to get to the car he is stuck in it for the day because he cant get out.. I cant stress how much pain he was in with this.. He put all his weight onto his good leg, resulting in his good leg to swell.

Doctors sent his for tests and scans- local GP questioned colasped disk in lower spin and blood clot in good leg.. He has neither!!

Went to two different hospitals and he has the doctors baffeled- they dont know what is causing this pain - and sent him for pain management(which he hasnt gone to cause it sounds rediculous).

Got transfered to a Consultant who reviewed all the scans and mri's etc, who wants to do more and more scans(typical) but this consult is makes off that all his symptons of pain and sleeping problems(which i forgot to mantion at the start sorry) could be down to Lyme Disease...

So he has to go to local GP to get tested for that while they still go ahead with more scans.. Went to GP and he said to his own words "sher would ya go way - that thing aint in ireland".:eek: shocking hey.. and that he didnt even know how to test for it...

They(step father and mother) go on holidays every year normally Spain or in that general area - was in Egypt maybe 4years ago.. But this consult says because he works with animals he caught it from them...

Now if thats the case.. There are a hell of alot of famers in ireland so why is Lyme disease not more ramptent in the county and Why does no one know anything about it????

Its 2011 like how are people now up to speed on this disease??

anyways think im finished with my rant!!

Anyone know anything about it, i read posts on this site from back in 2007 but thats about it...

ta very much

trishawisha

Hi kingelmo, when i was going through all the tests for Multiple Sclerosis as part of that they tested for Lymes disease. They didnt think I had it but it was just another possible cause to rule out. It comes from ticks on deers I think. It was a seperate blood test than the others.

cltt97

This is a good site to go to for Lyme http://www.ticktalkireland.org/index.html

goat2

two years ago, my daughter presented with a rash, i recognised it there and then, i told her go to the doctor right away, and mention that this rash is the sign of lymes, she did remember taking a tick from her underarm a few weeks earlier and did not know how dangerous that was, she had been walking in the hills of kerry the day she found this tick, there are sheep on the hills, plenty grass, bushes, brush,
the doctor told her she was lucky to have someone who knew what was going on at that moment,
coincidentially about three months before that happening i had read up on lymes, and had heard it was on the up and up here in ireland with a few places having more cases than others, kerry being one of the hot beds for the disease.
If i had not read up on it a few months earlier just out of boredom, i would not have known the trouble that would be ahead of her, i had to scare the daylights out of her to get her to go, i am glad i did

mariannewims

I would second that Ticktalk should be your first port of call.
Even if your Dad's GP does a lyme test, the tests here are notoriously unreliable. I was tested by a rheumatologist 6 months in to my illness and it came back negative so was dismissed as a potential cause. I later tested positive at several different labs in Germany and the US. If only that original test had been reliable and came back positive, it could have saved a lot of heartache. And if the test comes back positive here, the treatment is generally 2-4 weeks of antibiotics which is just not enough to treat chronic lyme (symptoms of more than 6 months)

My advice would be to read up all you can yourselves. Check out Eurolyme on Yahoo groups too, excellent information there.
It is my belief that there actually IS a huge amount of lyme here, particularly Wicklow, Cork, Kerry, Mayo, and especially those working with animals or keen hill walkers etc are at risk. However, it is a controversial illness with a lot of doctors here of your GP's opinion; shur that doesn't exist here, it's an American thing, or it's not that serious, a few weeks antibiotics and you'll be right as rain.
Wrong.
I am convinced that I would be in a wheelchair at best, if not bedbound if I had relied on the Irish health system. I could barely walk prior to treatment for the lyme, hobbling about like a 90 year old even though I was in my early 20's. I was eventually diagnosed in Germany and the majority of my treatment I received at the Breakspear hospital in England. I'm lucky in that my parents could afford to pay privately and my health insurance covered a good deal but sadly, at the moment anyway, the only way to get adequate treatment is to go abroad, to the UK, Germany or the US.

I hope my ramblings are of some help, please feel free to pm me if you like and I hope your Dad receives the help he needs.

Tick Talk

Oh dear, the GP should know that Lyme is in Ireland, it is now a notifiable illness for stage 3 (neuroborelliosis) cases. Shame on the GP! Tick Talk have recently published some results of our latest surveys, including tick studies in Ireland plus a survey for Lyme sufferers who were either infected in Ireland or infected abroad & living in Ireland.

Although it is consdered rare I do wonder if it's not just being misdiagnosed as something else. After speaking to the HPSC about this they did write an article on possible misdiagnoses which was published in EPI insights, a publication that doctors can read.

Lyme disease often under diagnosed says HPSC - Epi-Insight, Volume 10, Issue 11, November 2009 http://ndsc.newsweaver.ie/newepiinsight/u39uoefvv381trn9tg2qo4

Sadly the testing can miss cases for various reasons (idenitified as a problem bythe test kits themselves) so tracking true cases is very difficult. The official figure is about 50 cases per year but I beleieve that this is a serious underestimation. To raise more awareness among the public as well as doctors we are having a conference coming up in June of this year in Dublin. More details on our conference & surveys can be found at: http://ticktalkireland.wordpress.com/

goat2

Tick Talk wrote: »

Oh dear, the GP should know that Lyme is in Ireland, it is now a notifiable illness for stage 3 (neuroborelliosis) cases. Shame on the GP! Tick Talk have recently published some results of our latest surveys, including tick studies in Ireland plus a survey for Lyme sufferers who were either infected in Ireland or infected abroad & living in Ireland.

Although it is consdered rare I do wonder if it's not just being misdiagnosed as something else. After speaking to the HPSC about this they did write an article on possible misdiagnoses which was published in EPI insights, a publication that doctors can read.

Lyme disease often under diagnosed says HPSC - Epi-Insight, Volume 10, Issue 11, November 2009 http://ndsc.newsweaver.ie/newepiinsight/u39uoefvv381trn9tg2qo4

Sadly the testing can miss cases for various reasons (idenitified as a problem bythe test kits themselves) so tracking true cases is very difficult. The official figure is about 50 cases per year but I beleieve that this is a serious underestimation. To raise more awareness among the public as well as doctors we are having a conference coming up in June of this year in Dublin. More details on our conference & surveys can be found at: http://ticktalkireland.wordpress.com/

my view is that this is seriously underestimated, fifty people per year, we have lots of walkways here in ireland, the one my daughter picked up the tick bite is a very busy little place,
our gp told my daughter that she is a lucky girl that i had recognised the rash and had asked her to ask for the lymes test, otherwise we would be in and out of hospitals and doctors clinics to get to the bottom of the mystery, i thank the lord that i had read up on the disease only a couple months previously,

Tick Talk

I feel a little guilty now saying the doc should have known better as lyme was only made notifable in Sept & the original post was in June BUT on the other hand, GP's only need to look up the words Lyme diseae Ireland & know that it' here. Even before Tick Talk Ireland was set up there were already many articles about Lyme in ireland on the internet, mostly by Prof Gray of UCD. Most of his studies were in the 90s. More recentlly College Hospital Galway & Kildare Community health have written articles as well as the HPSC placing warnings in papers. Every county council across Ireland have been asked to place links to the HPSC Lyme brochure on their wesbites (most have but only after constant pestering from us mind you!) Teagasc & Coillte now also have warnings as does the Irish Deer Alliance. The sad thing is that folks travel these days, Lyme is everywhere. All across Europe is affected. Often we are told it is rare but anything is rare if you don't recognise it, how many folks are told they have ME for instance which have overlapping symptoms. There are 12,000 ME cases in Ireland & a quarter of a million in the UK. All very scary!

Some links to Irish studies available at: http://ticktalkireland.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/lyme-mapping-west-of-ireland/ (see further down page)