LETTER: Lyme disease meeting a success

To the Editor:

Thank you so much for printing my lengthy letter about Lyme disease. Because of your efforts, the turnout at our Thursday night support group meeting exceeded all expectations.

We had people from as far away as Woodville attend, along with many others, some of whom (after reading the article ) contacted me for more information. Our presenter Marina Andrews did a marvelous job, not only with her presentation but in answering the many questions that followed.

Lyme disease, our guests were able to learn, can be a difficult disease to diagnose. Consequently, we need to know as much as possible when seeing our doctors. Tick-borne Lyme disease co-infections are sometimes present too, complicating both diagnosis and treatment. Anaplasmosis and ehrlichiosis are common co-infections; however, in a recent study 62 percent of patients diagnosed with Lyme disease tested positive for Bartonella infection (bartonellosis), an infectious tick-borne disease no longer tracked in Wisconsin.

Co-infections are treated with antibiotics like Lyme disease, but babesiosis, yet another co-infection, stems from a malaria-like red blood cell parasite. It is treated with anti-malarials in addition to antibiotics; antibiotics alone are not effective treatment.

The library here in Amery has a wealth of informational books on Lyme and other tick-borne diseases to be checked out. For more information, readers should visit http://www.wisconsinlyme.net/ and the Minnesota Lyme Association’s site at http://www.mnlyme.com/. There are many other web sites with accurate information, all of which you can learn about by attending our group’s final meeting for the year on Thursday, Sept. 27. We meet at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church on County Road F, Amery, at 7 p.m. (Our 2013 meetings will begin again in March).

Ann Krisik

Amery

Tags: letters to the editor, opinion