A recent discussion on Eurolyme was about when a doctor or their loved one gets sick with Chronic Lyme Disease - it seems that only then is a paradigm shift in how they view the disease.
I have heard the comment a number of times : 'You don't get Chronic Lyme until you get Chronic Lyme' so true.
A recent response in the BMJ from a Doctor was highlighted on the Lyme Disease Action website here
'What have i learnt? I have learnt to take a good travel history and that guidelines are just that - guidelines, and not always applicable to every patient and that clinical assessment is just as important'.Caroline J Rayment, GP partner.
Link to the BMJ here
It was with interest I read the following presentation from the Lyme Disease Action conference 2012 here
The Neuropsychiatry of Lyme disease: Case presentation
Dr Sandra Pearson, MB ChB, MRCPsych Consultant Psychiatrist and Medical Director www.LymeDiseaseAction.org.uk Link here
There are a growing number of doctors that have been touched by Lyme but even so their colleagues are slow to pay attention, I remember one doctor saying that despite the number of doctors and consultants they were in touch with they had to travel to US from UK to get appropriate treatment.
How sad that medicine is such a slow grinding process even when innovative treatments are proving successful.
Hopefully with more awareness of Lyme Disease people will seek early medical treatment and avoid a chronic illness developing.
In the meantime there will be a few more thousand patients to every Doctor that gets sick with Chronic Lyme Disease so here's hoping doctors start listening to all the available research sooner rather than later and realise as Caroline Rayment points out 'guidelines are just that - guidelines, and not always applicable to every patient and that clinical assessment is just as important'
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