Colorado: Mountain Medicine Directory
Within these groups of individuals across the United States and other countries, there are fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters and so forth. As Dr. Jemsek states, “sooner or later” your family will be affected by this growing disease and you, too, will be trying to make a difference.
“In the Lymelight” ~ Mountain Medicine Directory
Mally decided to help a friend in need, she didn’t know an act of kindness would lead her to assist others in dealing with the crippling disease of Lyme. This is her story:
“In late April, I went searching for a friend’s lost dog above the hogback west of Carbondale, Colorado. When I got back home I found a tick crawling down my calf and flushed it down the toilet. Three days later a perfectly round flat red rash developed about 3.3 inches across in the back of my left hip. I had been bitten by ticks throughout my life, but had never seen such a thing.
I had seen pictures of the migrans rash associated with Lyme years ago, however.
When I consulted the website of the Colorado Center for Disease Control I was informed, unequivocally, that there is no Lyme in Colorado. I am now one year and three months into Lyme disease. The chances of regaining energy and a pain free life dwindled with each tiny increment of time lost before I began treatment. I could have fought it from the word go, and early diagnosis has a huge impact on outcome, but because of the misinformation I got from the Colorado CDC, I held off and dismissed the rash. Now what? I don’t feel so good, but hope for the best.
The very day my test results came back, my daughter fished with her grandfather in the hills west of Carbondale. She came back in the evening and showed me a migrans rash on her inner thigh. When I took her to a local doctor who had not seen Lyme–he told us it was a spider bite. When I took it to Dr. Atlas who has seen a lot of Lyme over a 30 year practice in CT–he was able to identify my daughter’s migrans rash on the spot. With 100 new Lyme’s case reported just this very spring in Utah we may be in the midst of a Lyme explosion. To get the migrans rash is a sign that the Lyme’s has entered the system. What one needs need is a doctor who can identify it. Only 33% of all Lyme patients get this red flag from the immune system. My family was very lucky, indeed.
There are two kinds of doctors out there now: one group thinks Lyme’s is easy to get and hard to treat–the other thinks Lyme’s is hard to get and easy to treat. Find the doc that works for you. And, keep in the back of your mind this strange factoid: in Colorado last year 1086 dogs tested positive for Lyme’s. In Utah only three tested positive. Yet, this year in Utah, approximately 100 human case of Lyme were suddenly registered by the CDC. Only one human being in Colorado made it through the red tape to be placed as a reportable case. If only this information had made it to the CCDC website! All I needed was one case to make it real and to begin strong antibiotics early in the game. My daughter got antibiotics early–she is not showing any symptoms of Lyme. I got antibiotics three months after my rash had cleared. I am now at a somewhat better energy level, and doing better cognitively–I do have Lyme arthritis–which seems to linger in some people even after the active infection and treatment is over.
There is an extreme reluctance in Colorado to say Lyme’s has arrived. Doctors feel helpless in the face of all the questions Lyme’s presents. Lyme is a very serious health challenge. After a year where there is a bumper crop of acorns the mouse population explodes, mice carry 40% more ticks–you can imagine what that will mean to the larger mammals, such as deer. Lyme’s eventually can attack the heart and central nervous system–we are not talking about a quick fix.
I spent last winter doing research: was there any science to back up the theory that Lyme disease exists here in Colorado? Yes. Borrelia bissettii was found in packrats in Northern Colorado 20 years ago. (Just when MS in Northern Colorado happened to spike–the MS data was disposed of. They hadn’t been able to collect complete information from every neurology practice.) In 2008, Borrelia bissettii was cultured from the heart valves of 12 Lyme patients in Eastern Europe. To read the research on Lymeincolorado.com please go to www.mountainmedicinedirectory.com and read our full report on page 29 of the 2010 issue. American scientists have also induced disease in a mouse model;–using Borrelia bissetti–these researchers are calling for the findings from Eastern Europe to be given careful attention. American findings now back up findings from Eastern Europe. Borrelia bissetti does indeed appear to cause illness; both, in a mouse and human model and many, many, animals in Colorado now carry this pathogen. Yet, the CCDC has failed to establish a vector. No studies are planned for the future.
So silence reigns. Currently one in 800 people has been diagnosed with “Multiple Sclerosis” in Colorado even while it is well known that Lyme can cause demyelination and multiple plaques on the spine and brain. Meanwhile, researcher money pours into West Nile and H1NI–diseases which strike relatively few.
Addendum 9/28/10: Rhonda HP, who was diagnosed with MS fifteen years ago, was raised in Redstone CO. She is fully incapacitated in a wheelchair and has trouble speaking. After hearing my Lyme story, Rhonda tested positive for Lyme at the beginning of the summer.
Let us be very precise:
Borrelia bissettii 25015 has been demonstrated to 1) Exist in many animal populations in Colorado, including the white footed deer-mouse. 2) It has caused illness in a mouse model (B. bissetti 25015) 3) It has caused illness in a human model (B.bissettii 25015).”
(NOTE: No part of Mally’s narrative is to be taken as medical advice. Please consult a Lyme Literate medical doctor.)
Lyme-Aware is an independent organization and has no affiliation with this organization or individual.
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