Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Lyme Disease Specialists In Pa

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Our Daughter Got Her Life Back

Pennsylvania Leads Country With Highest Number Of Lyme Disease Cases

Our pre-teen daughter had always been active in sports and engaged at school. Suddenly she was complaining of aches and pains and was exhausted all the time. She became lethargic at school and no longer wanted to play soccer. Her pediatrician repeatedly dismissed her symptoms as growing pains and moodiness. Months later, our daughters symptoms had worsened to include headaches, swollen joints, shortness of breath, and more. For more than a year, we visited a variety of experts, all of whom told us it wasnt Lyme disease and prescribed a long list of medicines, ranging from anti-inflammatories to antidepressants, meant to ease her symptoms. Nothing helped. When another parent told me how much the chronic disease experts at Bock Integrative had helped his child, we knew I had to give Dr. Bock and Jennifer Petkos a try. The comprehensive approach they took in evaluating our daughters condition allowed them to diagnose her with two lesser-known tick-borne illnesses and they were able to design a treatment program that restored balance to her immune system. Shes now an active high school athlete and straight-A student. Thank you for giving our daughter her life back!~ Victoria, Hesler, Somerset, New Jersey

Why Are Lyme Disease And Other Tick

A large number of cases of tick-borne illness are misdiagnosed, especially among children. A variety of bacterial organisms can cause Tick-borne diseases, so the progression of these diseases typically dont follow a specific pattern. Tick-borne illnesses are complicated to diagnose and treat because they can affect many different body systems, and their symptoms vary widely between infected individuals. The accurate diagnosis and effective treatment of Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses requires an experienced and knowledgeable practitioner with a thorough understanding of the complexity of these disorders.

How You Can Prevent Lyme Disease

While this past winter may have been frightful, researchers have found that even frigid temperatures wont make a sizable dent in the deer tick population. Knowing where, how and when Lyme disease is most often contracted can help you prevent it as these pesky, pint-sized carriers crawl out of their hiding places.

Also Check: How Long Does A Lyme Blood Test Take

What Is The Best Treatment For Lyme Disease

Lyme disease is treatable and can be cured in most people, but its vital to begin treatment with oral antibiotics as early as possible. Dr. Ramos and Ms. Sokoloski may prescribe doxycycline, amoxicillin, cefuroxime, or another antibiotic to cure the infection.

They may also recommend supportive therapies that help your body fight the infection and heal more quickly, like intravenous nutrition therapy to boost your bodys natural healing ability and high doses of vitamin C.

Lyme disease treatment will be the same even if the disease spreads to other parts of your body. Most of the problems caused by Lyme disease, including arthritis, are cured with comprehensive treatment.

A Comprehensive Approach To Lyme Disease Treatment

Lyme disease is #1 in Pennsylvania

Lyme Disease is the perfect example of a condition that requires not only antimicrobial therapy, but also comprehensive physiologic balance . As one of the few practices nationwide that focuses on integrative pediatric Lyme disease, we provide our patients with an alternative to the conventional one-size-fits-all treatment approach. We go beyond just treating the symptoms to determine the real cause of illness and provide our patients with a clear explanation of their medical problems. When evaluating a patient for possible tick-borne illness, we consider symptoms, physical findings, and laboratory results. Our tick-borne illness experts design and implement an individualized comprehensive pediatric Lyme disease treatment protocol for each patient. This inclusive diagnostic approach is in line with the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society . Our comprehensive model of individualized care is designed to maximize the chances for a positive clinical response that can restore your childs health.

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Do Your Research And Get Referrals

You can learn a lot just by researching doctors and reading patient reviews online. You can also connect with other patients through local and online support groups for various tick-borne diseases. Asking other patients to recommend or share their own experiences with different doctors can be particularly helpful when youre trying to locate and learn about physicians who specialize in various tick-borne illnesses.

The following sites can connect you to online support-group forums or help you identify different tick-borne support groups in the United States:

Diagnosis And Treatment Of Lyme Disease

To diagnose the condition, your doctor will perform a complete physical exam and review of your medical history while also assessing your risk for Lymes, such as spending a lot of time outdoors in tick-infested areas. He or she may also recommend a blood test for the antibodies of Lyme disease. Because it often takes a few weeks for your body to produce antibodies , your test may come back negative at first.

Lyme disease can progress and be very difficult to treat, sometimes causing chronic symptoms. If diagnosed and treated early, however, treatment is generally successful with antibiotics.

Prevention remains the best cure so its important to practice safe habits when working or playing in areas where Lyme disease is common. This includes wearing DEET skin and clothing protection, checking for ticks after being outdoors, showering within a few hours of being out in tick areas, and washing any clothing or bags that may have brought ticks in from outdoors. Be sure to check your outdoor animals for ticks as well.

To schedule an appointment with a specialist at Main Line Health, or use our secure online appointment request form.

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Bannwarth Syndrome In Early Disseminated Lyme Disease

Welcome to another Inside Lyme Podcast with your host Dr. Daniel Cameron. In this episode, Dr. Cameron will be discussing the case of a 66-year-old man with Bannwarth syndrome with urinary retention in early Lyme disease. By Dr. Daniel Cameron Omotosho and colleagues described this case in an article entitled A Unique Case of Bannwarth Syndrome in Early Disseminated Lyme Disease.¹ The man presented to the emergency room with generalized

What Are Lyme Disease Co

Pennsylvania Leads Country With Highest Number Of Lyme Disease Cases

Lyme Disease is no longer an infection caused by just one organism, the well known Borrelia Burgdoferi bacteria. We now know that there are many tick-borne diseases and co-infections that co-occur with Lyme from the same tick. These can include bacteria such as Bartonella and Mycoplasma, as well as viruses like Epstein Barr Virus. All of these co-infections cause further havoc in our bodies on top of the damaging effects of the Lyme itself.

One of the most common Lyme disease co-infections is mold illness. Mold illness is fungal in nature, and fungi are opportunistic, meaning that they take advantage where they can. If Lyme is weakening the immune and neurological systems in the body, mold will likely also be present. Mold is a leading cause of inflammation and can trigger chronic inflammatory response syndrome , which affects your immune system. The physicians at Meeting Point have extensive experience in treating mold illness and other Lyme disease co-infections.

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The Earlier In The Course Of Tick Borne Disease That The Treatment Is Started The Better For The Patient And The Worse For The Microbes

Early detection, however, can be difficult. Lyme IS the most prevalent tick borne disease in the states and it is increasing in incidence year to year. Yet the Center for Disease Control estimates only 10% of the cases of Lyme disease are reported annually. This is because only 50% to 68% of patients have a clear bulls-eye rash. Only 26% ever see the tick that gives them Lyme disease. Most people do not know that a flu in the late spring, summer or early fall can be a sign of Lyme disease. Most doctors do not know that Lyme exists anywhere but the northeast part of the United States. So early treatment is a challenge. I try during tick season in Northern California to have short appointments to check out a tick bite or erythema migrans rash, in order to effect early treatment.

What Treatments Are Available For Lyme Disease

Conventional treatment for Lyme disease is a course of antibiotics to destroy the bacteria responsibly. Early intervention should kill the bacteria, but if youve had Lyme disease for a while, you will need intravenous therapy too.

Meeting Point also offers therapies that can kill pathogens of Lyme disease, its coinfections and toxins, restore neurological and immune balance, and ease the symptoms, to help you recover. Some of the techniques we use include:

  • Intravenous Ozone Therapy
  • Fatigue

In the chronic stage, you may also experience:

  • LYME ARTHRITIS the bacteria can easily get into joint tissue as it loves to feed on collagen.
  • FACIAL PARALYSIS Lyme can also cause Bells Palsy, which is a condition involving the seventh cranial nerve. It causes paralysis of the muscles of the face. This tells us that Lyme can also hide in nerve tissue.
  • LYME ENCEPHALITIS in chronic cases, the central nervous system, and particularly, the brain can get involved. Chronic headache and brain fog with memory issues are typical symptoms.
  • LYME CARADITIS which is a heart disorder caused by Lyme and affects the conduction system. Symptoms include chest pain
  • Without treatment, Lyme disease can eventually cause a range of other symptoms. Among the most common are weakness or numbness in your limbs and neurological disorders.

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    Lyme Disease Is Your Worst Body Hacker

    Lyme disease is debilitating and often misdiagnosed. The CDC estimates nearly 300,000 new cases annually, misrepresented due to lack of reporting or potentially misdiagnosed.

    Also called borreliosis, Lyme disease is caused by the Borrelia Burgdorferi bacteria. It can proliferate to several areas in the body through the transmission to humans by a tick bite.

    The disease can hide and suppress your natural immune system. It is one of the most difficult diseases to identify, as it mimics other illnesses.

    Sadly, our home region of southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey are not spared from the threat of Lyme Disease.

    Since it is especially prevalent in our area, understanding the symptoms of Lyme disease is the first step towards the ability to overcome any complications that may arise.

    In the case of Lyme disease suspicions, it is not uncommon to potentially see patients with multiple problems in their body ranging in severity and degree, including:

    • Rashes
    • Neurological problems such as headaches, migraines, or lack of coordination
    • Poor short term memory
    • Speech difficulties

    Typically these symptoms come and go, hitting patients with different strengths. The main issue with Lyme is that many of the symptoms mimic other conditions, making it difficult to pinpoint and identify by name.

    What Are The Most Common Chronic Lyme Disease Symptoms

    Diagnose Lyme disease from

    Early symptoms often resemble the flu or general fatigue, so you may not connect the symptoms with a tick bite. About 70-80% of those infected with the bacteria develop a rash, which begins at the bite, then gradually expands. It may develop a bulls-eye appearance, but it can also look like an ordinary rash.

    If the infection is left untreated, it spreads and causes symptoms like joint, muscle, and bone pain. In severe cases, Lyme disease leads to nerve pain, an irregular heartbeat, and brain inflammation. Schedule an appointment with the team at Ramos Rheumatology if you have any Lyme disease symptoms to ensure they catch it at an early stage.

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    What About The Lab Tests

    There are several problems with conventional lab tests for Lyme Disease: Most labs used in the U.S. do not properly test for Lyme and its co-infections, making the results inaccurate. Furthermore, Borrelia Burgdorferi is a special kind of organism that can curl up into an undetectable little ball and hide in tissue, which means it wont be in the bloodstream when testing, once again leading to an inaccurate test.

    None of this should be new information for many doctors that are literate in Lyme Disease. Secondary and Tertiary Lyme Disease are well-known conditions in which Lyme did not present initially as mentioned with a rash, but rather presented in a different system of the body. At Meeting Point, we do a full tick-borne lab workup of borrelia and its multiple co-infections. While typical functional testing can cost thousands, our lab partner, Vibrant Wellness, has cut costs significantly by using proprietary cutting-edge microchip analysis. In fact, their test has the highest specificity and sensitivity of any tick-borne test.

    Call Ahead And Ask Questions

    Even if you find a doctor who specializes in treating tick-borne diseases, you will want to ask some questions before making an appointment and committing your time and money. A few basic questions to consider asking upfront include the following:

    • What is your experience in treating patients with tick-borne diseases?
    • How do you diagnose diseases? Do you use any specific labs or lab tests to confirm diagnosis?
    • Do you test for coinfections?
    • Do you use traditional antibiotics and/or herbals?
    • Do you have any patient success stories you can share?
    • Do you strictly adhere to CDC test interpretation criteria or are you open to alternative criteria?

    If youd like to find a LLMD and want to know more about how to vet them, read the Tick Talk blog, What Makes a Doctor Lyme Literate?

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    For women who have Lyme disease, the struggle can be especially difficult, given the complicated nature of the disease.

    “The problem with Lyme disease is that there are so many different strains,” said Dr. Andrea Gaito, a New Jersey-based rheumatologist who specializes in treating Lyme disease. “One person can have it and have headaches, someone else can have joint pain, someone else can have palpitations. And none of these are specific to Lyme. There’s no Lyme test that’s 100% accurate. Unless you have a tick in a baggie, literally, and a bulls-eye rash, there’s sometimes a delay in diagnosis.”

    A Long Journey of Pain and MisdiagnosisTait estimates that she had Lyme for about 15 years before she was diagnosed. She thinks she was bitten by a tick as a teen in Californias Bay Area, where she grew up. In high school, she was a dancer. Suddenly she was getting injured more than usual joints coming out of their sockets and ligaments tearing after doing normal routines. During class, she was exhausted and having trouble concentrating. Her grades started to slip.

    Looking back, its now clear I was neurologically starting to not be myself, she said. But when youre a teenager, a lot of it is just attributed to, Youre a teenager!

    Tait, who was thin with a bubbly personality, recalled one doctor telling her she was too pretty to be sick.

    Eventually she was diagnosed with depression and prescribed an antidepressant.

    Lyme Disease Continues To Flood Chester County Communities

    Lyme Disease Cases Up Drastically In Pennsylvania PA Leads Country With Highest Number Of Cases
    Adobe Stock

    Lyme disease has permeated our regionâespecially Chester County, with its exploding deer population. Local families are paying the price.

    EDITORâS NOTE: To celebrate the magazineâs 25th anniversary, weâre highlighting standout stories from our archives addressing topics that define our region. This feature was originally published in the June 2011 issue of Main Line Today.

    The Sheas are a Lyme disease family through and through. They even had bright-green âLyme Lives Hereâ flags made. They planned on flying them from the mailboxes of affected families in their rural Coatesville neighborhoodâthat is, until undiagnosed residents and local real estate agents got wind of it.

    Chester County has a notoriously high incidence of Lyme disease. Ray Shea is from West Bradford Township. His wife, Jayne, grew up in Glenmoore, where her mother, another Lyme victim, still lives. Their earliest exposure to deer ticks came in their backyards. Ray once worked at an orchard. Jayne lived next to an abandoned one, played there and always returned home covered in ticks.

    Ray is a gastrointestinal Lyme patient. Jayneâs joints are infringed. She sits in a whirlpool for an hour each morning before caring for their 21-year-old son, Jared. Lyme has permanently incapacitated Jared, who is confined to a wheelchair and needs a device to talk.

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    Treatment Starts With Accurate Diagnosis

    The only way to get the proper treatment for your tick-borne disease is to get the right diagnosis in the first place and one of the best ways to do that is, if possible, to see a physician whos experienced with tick-borne diseases. Accurate diagnosis also requires high quality testing at a reputable lab. Learn more about why doctors and patients trust the tests offered by IGeneX.

    Tick Season In Eastern Us Brings Risk Of Lyme Disease

    Lyme disease is named after a town in Connecticut where a number of people first experienced symptoms caused by a certain bacteria transmitted by way of deer ticks. The condition is most prevalent during the warm weather months in the eastern United States, particularly the mid-Atlantic and New England regions and areas that are heavily wooded.

    When a tick bites a human, the tick may or may not transmit disease. Usually the tick must latch on or be embedded in the skin for more than 36 hours in order for the person to contract Lyme disease. Once the tick is removed, the tick bite itself looks like a small red bump. A person may or may not have any symptoms for a few days or even as much as 30 days later.

    One of the most obvious signs of Lyme disease is a rash that may start to look like a bulls-eye, with a red blotch in the middle, then a white ring then a red ring.

    Other symptoms may include:

    • Facial palsy
    • Flu-like symptoms, such as fever, chills, headache
    • Severe joint pain or swelling, especially in the knees and large joints
    • Swollen lymph nodes

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