hacked by p@3t_b@y for turks

By Lorraine Fisher, 21st November 2009

Our weather has been warm and wet, the perfect climate for ticks - those blood-feeding parasites - to multiply.

Although vets are aware of the dangers of tick bites to animals, humans are also at risk from Lyme disease - a vicious infection that attacks the immune system and can cause paralysis, encephalitis and meningitis.

It is caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, found in the digestive systems of animals such as mice, pheasants and deer. When a tick bites an animal carrying this bacteria, they can become infected with it. The tick - part of the spider family - can transfer the bacteria to a human by biting and attaching itself to a person’s skin for days.

Lyme disease is transmitted only if the tick remains attached for more than 36 hours. Although you may think it easy to tell if a tick was on your body, they are only a few millimetres in size and do not hurt, so are easy to miss.

Veterinary charity PDSA has reported a 150 per cent leap in animals suffering from the bacterial infection.

‘As cases among pets have increased, more people are at risk of catching this dreadful condition,’ says senior vet Elaine Pendlebury.

‘There has also been an increase in the deer population, and ticks love the warmer, wetter weather.’

While the most recent Health Protection Agency report estimates that there are fewer than 2,000 cases of Lyme disease a year in the UK, it is on the rise.

The first symptom is a red circular skin rash, which subsides after a week or two. A high temperature, muscle pain and joint swelling are then symptoms.

The disease is often misdiagnosed, as the symptoms are similar to a range of common illnesses, including arthritis.

Lyme disease is easy to treat if it is caught in the first few weeks, according to Terence Daymond, a rheumatologist at the Brakespear Hospital in Hertfordshire.

‘If it is detected in the early stages, the patient will need antibiotic treatment for a couple of months, and that will cure it.

But if it is not caught, fatigue, encephalitis, meningitis, muscle pain and loss of memory can arise. In rare cases it can kill, and I’ve seen two instances where it has attacked the spinal cord and paralysed the person from the waist down.’

Jonathan Oakton, 51, suffered for 14 years before he was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2006.

The father of two, from Redditch, Worcestershire, believes he was bitten during a paintballing game shortly after he married his wife Anne.

‘About a week later, I began to feel very tired. It felt like flu. Then I suffered night sweats, while shivering in the day. I went to my GP but blood tests revealed nothing amiss and my temperature was normal.’

While his symptoms abated, they returned a month later - a cycle that would be repeated for a year.

‘Then I began to have severe headaches that would last for five days and the area surrounding my right eye turned red and I’d have trouble seeing. Then, a month or so later, the same thing would happen.’

His GP blamed it on a common bacterial eye infection - conjunctivitis. Other later misdiagnoses included stress, migraines and depression.

The disease causes inflammation throughout the body and, as time went on, he suffered from swollen testicles, an eye growth and numbness in his face and in the back of his hands - all key pointers to Lyme disease.

‘My GP referred me to different specialists, an eye hospital and an ear, nose and throat hospital but to no avail. By 2005, he’d run out of ideas and didn’t know what to do.’

Jonathan’s health deteriorated to such an extent that one morning he woke to find the right-hand side of his body paralysed.

‘I was extremely ill,’ he says. ‘I walked with a stick and could drive for only 20 minutes because my joints hurt so much and my limbs felt so heavy. And my headaches were blinding in their intensity.’

Anne, 45, and their daughters Hannah, now 15, and Charlotte, 14, despaired of their ‘grumpy daddy’. ‘I was so irritable it affected every part of my life. I lost my job as a sales manager, my girls avoided me and it put an immense strain on my marriage. For my wife, it was like having a grandad for a husband. I was beginning to despair.’

Jonathan started to research his symptoms on the internet. ‘I typed in “red eye” as that was one of the most constant problems I’d had,’ he says, ‘and two options came up. One, Chagas disease, I could discount as I had not been to Central or South America but the other, Lyme disease, seemed a possibility.

‘When I looked up the symptoms, I was stunned. There were dozens and I’d had most of them.’

But he faced one more battle. After being referred to a tropical disease clinic in Birmingham, and undergoing a blood test for Lyme disease, the result came back negative.

‘I’ve since been told that false negatives are a problem with this test,’ says Jonathan, ‘but it was frustrating. However, I then discovered the Lyme Disease Action Group and a Welsh GP who specialises in the disease and he made a clinical diagnosis.’

He prescribed strong antibiotics and immediately Jonathan improved. ‘Within four days, my legs were less painful and my eyes improved. The headaches stopped and I haven’t had red eye since.

‘But I’m still shocked that I had to diagnose myself.

‘It is important that GPs are aware of Lyme disease and its terrible symptoms.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1229854/Lyme-disease–danger-lie-wait-innocent-country-walk.html

By Karen Gardner, News-Post Staff , Originally published November 12, 2009

Eight-year-old Brianna Adams is recovering at home in New Market after having a tick extracted from her left eye Tuesday evening at the Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
Dr. Dan Paskowitz, the ophthalmologist who removed the bloodsucking insect, said a tick making its way into someone’s eye is rare.

“I’ve never seen or heard of this happening before,” he said.

A few such cases do exist in medical literature, he said.

Fortunately for Brianna, the procedure to remove the tick is routine. That’s probably why few such cases are reported, Paskowitz said.

Brianna’s mother, Christina Beachner, noticed the tick when Brianna came home from school Monday afternoon and was rubbing her eye, saying it itched. Beachner looked at her daughter’s eye and noticed a tick was embedded in the cornea.

Beachner took her daughter to Frederick Memorial Hospital, but then decided Brianna needed to be seen by an ophthalmologist. She went to Kids Eye Care in Frederick on Tuesday morning, and was referred to the Wilmer Eye Institute. Surgery was set for 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The Wilmer Eye Institute is one of a handful of hospitals in the country that has an ophthalmologist available around the clock.

In the meantime, Brianna’s tick crawled beneath her lower eyelid and became 60 percent embedded. Beachner said doctors told her it is unusual for a tick to crawl into the eye because ticks prefer dry environments.

“We don’t know how it got there,” she said.

Brianna was put under light sedation by an anesthesiologist. Dr. David Ramsey, who assisted Paskowitz in the surgery, spread Brianna’s eyelids apart, giving the two doctors a good view of the insect. Paskowitz then grabbed the tick by its legs using metal forceps, and pulled it out of Brianna’s eye. The whole procedure took about 15 minutes.

The doctors made sure no part of the tick was left behind. The tick was in the fornix, the space between the eyeball and the eyelid, off to the side of Brianna’s eye, near her temple. It was buried in the conjunctiva, a membrane. A tick feeds on blood, and the conjunctiva has a lot of blood, Paskowitz said.

Brianna and her mother were home before midnight that night.

“They put a little slit in the eye and the tick came out,” Beachner said.

Brianna was running around Wednesday.

“Kids bounce back,” Beachner said. “Her eye’s a little swollen.”

Brianna and Beachner arrived at the Baltimore hospital about 1 p.m. Tuesday, and a social worker stayed with Brianna most of the day. Beachner praised the social worker, who kept her daughter entertained.

Brianna was brave throughout the procedure, Paskowitz said.

“She did ask to have the tick so she can show it to her friends at school,” he said.

Brianna is in third grade at Deer Crossing Elementary School, and her mother thinks she might have picked up the tick on the playground. Paskowitz does not think it is a deer tick. Deer ticks carry Lyme disease. Just in case, Beachner said Brianna will be watched for symptoms of Lyme disease.

Brianna has the tick in a jar, a little souvenir of her medical adventure.

Beachner and her husband, Kurt, have four children. Brianna is the oldest.

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=97715

Tuesday, November 10, 2009, BY CRAIG D. REBER TH STAFF WRITER

A movie helps a couple finally discover what is afflicting their young son.

PLATTEVILLE, Wis. — Leonard Mast and Valerie Gill-Mast estimate they’ve spent at least $70,000 in out-of-pocket expenses — with insurance — to treat their 7-year-old son, Shannon, who was diagnosed with Lyme disease.

“We’ve spent all of our savings, our investments and his college fund,” Valerie said.

Now the rural Platteville couple and two other southwest Wisconsin women suffering from the disease have become advocates to help people better understand Lyme disease.

Caused by the bite of an infected deer tick, Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that features a skin rash, swollen joints and flu-like symptoms. Lyme disease can cause problems with the joints, heart and the nervous system if not treated by antibiotics at an early stage.

Shannon came down with the disease when he was 5.

At first, the couple thought their son was suffering from growing pains, but when Shannon limped and screamed with pain, they knew it was something more. Shannon initially underwent surgery for septic arthritis. After his joints started swelling, the diagnosis was either rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatic fever or Lyme disease.

“It was March 2008,” Valerie said. “We were told the ticks couldn’t be out at that time of the year.”

Shannon was treated with antibiotics, but still the disease persisted.

“He kept on going down, and going down,” Valerie recalled.

The couple conferred with specialists in both Wisconsin and Iowa.

“I was told that he must have rheumatoid arthritis and was in an auto-immune response to Lyme disease, though he tested positive twice for Lyme disease,” Valerie said. “We kept on seeing our son get sicker and sicker.”

Shannon suffered for five months during his kindergarten year.

“We weren’t sure if he was going to make it to first grade,” Valerie said.

How Shannon, now healthy and vibrant, made it to first grade was fortuitous. The couple saw the movie “Under Our Skin” that featured Dr. Charles Ray Jones, an 80-year old Connecticut pediatrician who has treated more than 10,000 children with Lyme disease over the course of his career. He is located in New Haven, and the Masts made the trek to Connecticut. Today, they cite Jones’ efforts to help their son.

“It’s my experience that many doctors don’t know about Lyme disease or they are afraid to treat it,” Valerie said. “Dr. Jones gave him long-term antibiotics (since August 2008). He gradually got better, so he was able to function and go to school. Now he’s active and he’s doing well.”

The couple suspects Shannon might have initially contracted the disease when he was 2. Valerie recalled her son was playing along the edge of the woods and later developed a body rash. A physician treated the child with a steroid cream.

“Shannon never had the (telltale) bull’s-eye rash, but it was dormant for a long time,” Valerie said. “We never saw a tick.”

Roxanne Adams, of rural Platteville, noticed something was amiss about 3 1/2 years ago. She didn’t realize she had been bitten by a tick. One day, she couldn’t get out of bed. She had chills and aches, and she didn’t know why.

“Because that’s not me, because I’m like the Energizer Bunny, I just go,” she said. “A voice inside my head kept telling me this is Lyme disease, this is Lyme disease.”

Initially she was told it was probably the flu.

“I was really, really ill,” Adams said. “My family thought I was dying.”

After a test, Adams was treated for the disease with antibiotics. When she sought different ways to build up her immune system, she started getting better.

Joanne Beadle, of the Fairplay area, almost died of Lyme. She was bitten 14 years ago. An emergency room doctor finally diagnosed her — all of her symptoms were typical — with the disease after numerous visits.

“I, like Roxanne, had suspected I had the disease,” she said. “It’s a terrible, misunderstood disease. It can be debilitating and life-threatening.”

Adams and Beadle both said they successfully used natural treatments to quell the disease.

Antibiotics have not been a successful long-term treatment, Valerie said.

“A lot of people can even go undiagnosed because the symptoms mimic MS (multiple sclerosis), arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease).”

The fever, muscle aches and fatigue also can easily be mistaken for viral infections — such as influenza or infectious mononucleosis.

What’s the best defense against Lyme disease?

“Educate yourself,” Adams said. “Keep the immune system built up. After you’ve been in the woods, check your body.”

Leonard Mast believes there’s hope.

“I think the medical establishment is learning about this,” he said. “Not that they have all the answers, but they are learning. You also need to be educated.”

http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=262898

By Sarah Salehian, Saturday November 7, 2009

A MOTHER who rushed her son to hospital with a strange insect bite was forced to wait so long for treatment that she took him to a vet instead.

Vanessa Marsden went to accident and emergency after discovering a blood-sucking tick on the head of her 19-month-old son Daniel.

But the nurse took so long to deal with the problem the frantic mother rang up a nearby vet for advice and was told to bring Daniel there.

Mrs Marsden, 38, of Bolton, said: “The hospital didn’t seem to know what to do but the nurse at the vet’s was fantastic. We were in and out in 10 minutes and with no charge.”

Mrs Marsden’s husband, Gary, 44, added: “When Vanessa told me she’d taken Daniel to the vet’s I thought she was joking but he got better service there than at the hospital.”

Gemma Yates, a nurse at Darley House Veterinary Surgery in Farnworth, said: “We were only too happy to help but it’s rare for us to treat humans instead of animals.”

The couple, whose other son Matthew is four, believe Daniel may have picked up the tick on a recent trip to Cumbria. The parasites normally live on animals but can attach themselves to humans and cause potentially serious Lyme disease.

Heather Edwards, a spokeswoman for Royal Bolton Hospital, said: “The nurse involved had not seen a tick bite before and did the correct thing in asking for advice, looking it up on a website and waiting for the patient to be seen by one of the doctors.

“The relatives contacted a vet while waiting to be seen and decided to go there. This was not on the advice of our staff as it would have been dealt with correctly when the patient was seen by the doctor.”

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/138710/Forget-hospital-mum-takes-son-to-the-vet-s
 

By Matthew Taylor: 10:20am Monday 26th October 2009
A FATHER-of-two is seriously ill with the potentially life-threatening Lyme Disease after being bitten by a blood-sucking parasite while in the Lake District.

Father of two, Kevin Slater, 48, was walking in Grisedale Valley, Patterdale, when he was bitten by a tick.

A tick is an arachnid that cuts through flesh with barbed teeth before inserting a needle-like feeding tube.

The disease has now developed into encephalitis – inflammation of the brain that can cause brain damage, blindness and even death.

Now, after receiving conflicting medical advice, Mr Slater is calling for a greater recognition of Lyme Disease among the UK medical profession, and that landowners erect warning signs in places known to house ticks carrying Lyme Disease.

Mr Slater noticed the parasite clinging to his calf while in the shower the day after the walk in August.

“It looked like a blood clot. I brushed it and it fell off.

“I picked it up and could see it had small legs. It was fully engorged – very round and filled with blood,” he said.

Aware not all ticks carry Lyme Disease, Mr Slater carried on as normal.

“Three days later I began to feel very odd. The first feeling was like motion sickness; light headed and giddy. Then there was a feeling of nausea,” he said.

Mr Slater, a self-employed engineering consultant from York, was in Germany and rang NHS Direct.

Back in the UK, he visited various doctors, becoming frustrated with their advice, which he felt was contradictory.

NHS director of public health for the North West, Professor John Ashton, said the UK was behind America in recognising Lyme Disease, but steps were now being taken to make people more aware of the dangers.

Mr Slater has been unable to work for eight weeks and is currently receiving antibiotic treatment from his specialist in Newcastle.

http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/4701533.Dad_battles_deadly_tick_bite_illness_after_Lake_District_trip/

By Sandra G. Boodman Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Research sheds light on dangerous reactions

This cannot be happening again, Hayden Newell thought as the angry, red, ferociously itchy welts encircled his waist and spread up his arms. The 57-year-old metallurgist from tiny Boones Mill, Va., who was attending a business lunch in Florida, knew what would probably happen next: His lips would grow numb, making it hard to speak, he would become short of breath and his blood pressure would plummet: all unmistakable signs of anaphylaxis, a potentially fatal allergic reaction. Newell knew from experience that he had to get to an emergency room — fast.

The same thing had happened a month earlier, in August 2008, an event that culminated in an early-morning ambulance ride to a hospital in Roanoke. At the time, his general practitioner suspected that Newell had developed an allergy to the oysters he had eaten the previous night. But tests revealed no shellfish allergy, so Newell had grazed at a buffet, sampling shrimp, scallops and meatballs.

What, he wondered, as a colleague drove him to a Florida ER, could be causing these frightening episodes that came out of nowhere?

The probable answer did not emerge until nearly six months later, and it seemed downright bizarre. The diagnosis, shared by a growing number of patients on two continents and described in two recent studies, has upended long-held views about an allergy previously considered rare.

“It has changed our thinking,” said Newell’s allergist, Saju Eapen of Roanoke.”This was not something we looked for in the past.”

* * *

In July 2008, Newell spent several days visiting his nephew in rural North Carolina. Three days after returning home he noticed a red spot between two toes on his left foot, evidence of a tick he had picked up while walking barefoot in the country. He extracted it and, assuming the bite had become infected, called his doctor, who prescribed an antibiotic.

Problem solved, Newell thought.

But a month later, hours after a dinner that included oysters Rockefeller and filet mignon, both of which he had eaten many times before, Newell awoke at 3 a.m. to discover that his chest and waist were blanketed by itchy hives.

“I wasn’t sure what was going on,” Newell said, so he got up and took a shower, increasingly alarmed by the huge, spreading welts. “I got into bed and tried to relax until morning.”

At 7 a.m., while driving to his general practitioner’s office, Newell realized his lips felt numb. He sat in the empty waiting room, hoping the doctor would arrive soon, while he could still talk. Instead, the nurse took one look at him, he recalled, and said, “You’re having anaphylactic shock. We need to get you to a hospital right away.” She called 911, and Newell was whisked by ambulance to a nearby ER, where he was given Ben-adryl and other drugs to counteract the severe allergic reaction. His doctor, thinking he might be allergic to oysters, sent him to Eapen.

The allergist performed skin tests and took blood samples, warning Newell to stay away from shellfish. A few weeks later, after tests found nothing, he was told it was safe to eat seafood. The next month was the fateful Florida buffet. This time, the hives appeared more quickly, in less than an hour.

“I figured, it’s got to be some kind of seafood,” said Newell, who this time had eaten crab and scallops, but not oysters.

Eapen said that at this point he wasn’t sure whether Newell was suffering from a true anaphylactic reaction or chronic hives, which can cause anxiety and shortness of breath. He prescribed an EpiPen, a device that administers an emergency epinephrine injection, which he told Newell to carry at all times. Then he handed him an order for a blood test. In the event of another attack, he told Newell, doctors should test his blood for levels of serum tryptase within three hours. An elevated reading would indicate true anaphylaxis, not just anxiety.

Newell didn’t have to wait long. In December, after eating chicken and beef — but not seafood — he was driving home from a business lunch in Norfolk when he felt the unnerving itching.

“I was thinking, ‘I won’t be able to eat anything,’ ” as he pulled off the highway and headed for the nearest hospital, he recalled. The episode did lead to one definitive answer: His serum tryptase level was elevated, which meant the anaphylaxis was genuine. But what was he so violently allergic to?

At an appointment the following day, Eapen asked a crucial question: “Do you remember if you had beef when you had shellfish?” The answer, Newell said, was yes, every time.

Eapen said he thought knew what was wrong. When the allergist asked about tick bites, Newell told him about the July incident.

Eapen took a blood sample and told Newell he was sending it to a lab at the University of Virginia School of Medicine for testing that might point to the suspected culprit: an allergy to red meat. Eapen was familiar with groundbreaking work underway at U-Va.’s allergy clinic that had found a link between a reaction to tick bites and the development of a sudden allergy to red meat, as well as pork and lamb, in people who had eaten it all their lives without incident.

A team headed by U-Va.’s Thomas Platts-Mills, an internationally prominent allergist, published a study in February detailing the cases of 24 adults who developed a sudden allergy to red meat. Eighty percent had reported being bitten by ticks weeks or months before the allergy appeared, and many had experienced anaphylaxis as much as six hours after eating red meat, a highly unusual occurrence because food allergies typically cause violent reactions within minutes.

Similar findings were reported in the Medical Journal of Australia in May by a team of Sydney allergists.

So how does a tick bite trigger a sudden allergy to meat?

Scott Commins, an assistant professor of medicine and lead author of the U-Va. study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, said that in susceptible people such as Newell, a tick bite that causes a significant skin reaction seems to trigger the production of an antibody that binds to a sugar present on meat called alpha-galactosidase, also known as alpha-gal. When a person who has the antibody eats meat, it triggers the release of histamine, which causes the allergic symptoms: hives, itching and, in the worst case, anaphylaxis.

But many questions remain unanswered, said Platts-Mills, whose research is continuing. His lab has collected data on more than 300 patients from across the country and abroad.

“We’re sure ticks can do this,” he said. “We’re not sure they’re the only cause.” Nor do researchers know why anaphylaxis is so delayed or why only some people develop a problem after tick bites. They do know that the allergic reaction is dose-related: Eating a tiny amount of meat probably won’t cause a serious reaction. A large steak will.

Commins said researchers have also observed that people with certain blood types appear to be more at risk. Those with the rarest types — B and AB — do not appear vulnerable, because their blood is chemically similar to alpha-gal.

Climate appears to play a role: Blood samples from Boston and Scandinavia almost never reveal alpha-gal antibodies, which are common in samples from patients in Virginia, North Carolina and other parts of the South, as well as parts of Australia.

Testing of Newell’s O-positive blood in Platts-Mills’s lab revealed very high levels of alpha-gal, and other tests confirmed that after more than a half-century of eating meat, he now had an untreatable allergy. Newell is now enrolled in a large allergy study at U-Va.

Eapen can’t advise Newell — or the 30 or so other patients in his practice found to have a meat allergy — to do much except avoid red meat, lamb and pork.

An enthusiastic cook, Newell said he misses making and eating his favorite dishes: beef bourguignon and beef Bolognese. The biggest problem, he said, is avoiding meat at business lunches, which often take place in steakhouses.

“It’s probably better for me in the long run,” Newell said wistfully, “but I’d still like a nice steak occasionally.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/19/AR2009101902874.html?hpid=sec-health

Oct 7 2009 by Helen Rae, The Journal

PEOPLE walking or going camping are being warned to be on their guard after a dramatic increase in the number of suspected cases of Lyme disease.

Since 2003 the number of laboratory-confirmed cases in England and Wales have been rising, with 815 cases recorded by the Health Protection Agency last year. That includes almost 30 in the region.

And veterinary charity PDSA is urging pet owners to be on their guard after seeing a 150% increase in the number of suspected cases of the viral disease in pets, which can then affect owners too.

Dr Edmund Ong, consultant in infectious diseases at Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Each year we see dozens of people in the region with Lyme disease.

“However, the UK does not have nearly as big as problem with the illness as America does – which sees up to 20,000 diagnoses of the disease each year – and I don’t see the condition spiraling out of control in the UK.

“Ticks can stay on a person’s body for up to two days so people need to check themselves after they have been out walking. If they do find a tick they must remove it, making sure the head of the tick is gone. That should be sufficient to avoid any risk of infection.”

Lyme disease is transmitted by a tick bite that carries the bacterium Borrelia burgdorfei. The most common symptom of Lyme disease is a slowly expanding rash, which spreads about five to 14 days after the sufferer is bitten by a tick.

Other symptoms can include fever, headache and fatigue.

Most cases can be treated with antibiotics, but if left untreated, infection can spread to joints, the heart, and the nervous system. In extreme cases it can cause paralysis, blindness and even death.

The majority of people bitten by a tick do not experience any symptoms. This could be because the tick is not infected, or because the infected person does not show any symptoms.

This latter group may never fall ill, however, some may become unwell several years later and so do not associate being bitten with feeling unwell. Elaine Pendlebury, senior veterinary surgeon with the North East’s PDSA, said: “There is no doubt we have seen an increase in the number of pets and their owners displaying symptoms of Lyme disease.

“There is currently a lack of awareness about the illness and people really need to understand that you can catch Lyme disease while out walking in the moors, woodlands or even a city park.

“Tick bites can be difficult to detect as they are relatively painless but symptoms of the infection can develop months, even years, after the bite.

“People need to cover up when walking, particularly in the countryside or park. You should wear long-sleeved tops and full-length trousers and after a walk a person should check their armpits, groin, belly button, neck and head for ticks.

“The number of people being diagnosed with Lyme disease in the UK has steadily risen over the past 10 years.”

MOTHER Ellie Marshall suffers from Lyme disease.

In 2002, the 48-year-old (pictured above) started suffering from a catalogue of horrendous symptoms, including excruciating chest pains, palpitations, dizziness, extreme fatigue and severe headaches.

But it was only at the beginning of last year that she was finally diagnosed with Lyme Disease after a private specialist ran a blood test.

Mrs Marshall, of Hexham, Northumberland, said: “I remember having a bite on my arm and I thought nothing of it until a few weeks later when I started to feel really weird. But I didn’t know anything about Lyme Disease back then.

“It does not surprise me at all that the number of cases of the illness is increasing. I actually think there will be many more cases than what has been recorded. People need to be aware of how serious a condition Lyme disease can be and ensure they protect themselves from getting bitten by a tick.”

http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2009/10/07/lyme-disease-warning-for-walkers-and-campers-61634-24870083/

Monday, August 31, 2009, 09:30

A mum suffering the effects of a tick-borne disease is offering herself as a research subject in the hope of finding relief.

Christine Jennings contracted Lyme disease after being bitten in Bradgate Park 16 years ago.

Despite trying to find ongoing medical help, the former artist from Barwell has now become blind, developed brain tumours and is virtually bed-bound.

Lyme disease can be easily treated with a short course of antibiotics if it is treated early.

But Christine said she had to “fight” to get doctors to acknowledge she had the disease.

Unable to find anyone in the NHS to take on her case she paid for private treatment under a specialist, but that ended when he retired two years ago.

Since then Christine, 47, has been treated for various conditions, but not Lyme disease itself. Now she is pinning her hopes on a Lyme disease conference at Leicester University on September 18.

Christine’s daughter, Becky Sabin, will circulate details inviting any of the doctors present to take up her case – and use her for research purposes if necessary.

Christine said: “If there are doctors interested in it, just for the research aspects of it, I would be ideal.

“Apparently it is so rare to have all these eye conditions and problems that have occurred in the brain.

“If someone would take it on it might help others and it might help me. That is what we are desperately hoping.”

She added: “I haven’t got any money any more to go private, and I haven’t got the mobility to travel.

“The public health people are acknowledging that there are more cases now, and Lyme disease is becoming more known, but there are not the specialist doctors to deal with it.

“Doctors have said to me, ‘You need a Lyme Disease specialist’, but they are not prepared to find one for me.”

Dr David Jenkins, a consultant microbiologist at Leicester’s hospitals, said he did not believe Lyme disease was a particular problem in Bradgate Park.

He said: “It’s still a pretty rare condition in the UK.

“It can cause a diagnostic challenge; if patients have been exposed they should tell their doctor, but it isn’t something people should be worried about.”

http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/Leicestershire-mum-ready-guinea-pig-bid-beat-illness/article-1296826-detail/article.html

By Melanie Vass, 7:30pm Wednesday 12th August 2009

A FERNDOWN mother is urging people to protect themselves against ticks after her daughter was bitten three times while walking in the New Forest.

The 10-year-old girl had one tick on her arm, one on her leg and another on her shoulder after a long hike through the forest at the weekend.

Her mother removed them all safely and took her to her GP to be checked but is now warning others of the risk of ticks.

She said: “It wasn’t something I was even aware of so it was a surprise to see that she had three of them.

“She’s absolutely fine but we just don’t want anyone else to be bitten if it can be avoided. The fact she had three attached to her makes me think there must be loads of them out there.”

The risk with ticks is that they might be infected with the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which causes Lyme disease in people.

Lyme disease can have devastating effects if left untreated and affects several hundred people in England every year.

In the UK, Lyme disease occurs mainly in the New Forest, Salisbury Plain, Exmoor, the South Downs, parts of Wiltshire and Berkshire and Thetford Forest.

Ticks are particularly prevalent during mild, wet summers and are more active between April and October.

Walkers are advised to cover up as much as possible, wearing boots rather than sandals, tucking trousers into socks and keeping shirt sleeves long and buttoned up.

Risks can also be minimised by keeping to the centre of footpaths and checking for ticks every few hours.

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/4542839.Alert_over_ticks_after_girl_bitten_three_times/

Alyssa Schnugg • The Oxford Eagle • July 17, 2009

OXFORD — At 28 years old, Adan “Juancho” Quezada-Lopez was strong and healthy and looking forward to celebrating his daughter’s first birthday on July 8 with his wife, Autumn Lee Quezada-Grant.

But instead of it being a happy time for the couple, Autumn found herself having to say goodbye to her husband who died on July 9 from Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

A landscaper with the University of Mississippi, Adan started to run a 103 degree fever on June 29. The next day he went to the doctor who suspected Adan might have swine flu since Autumn had just recently returned from a trip to Mexico.

“By Wednesday (July 1), he couldn’t eat and he started having pain in his legs and terrible headaches,” Autumn Lee Quezada-Grant said. “We went back to the doctor on Thursday.”

Tests showed Adan’s platelet count was very low. He was given more antibiotics and anti-viral medications.

“Nothing was working,” Autumn said.

Autumn took her husband to the emergency room at Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi in Oxford on Saturday. A battery of tests were performed, but Adan’s illness was still a mystery.

By Sunday, Adan was in the intensive care unit. On Tuesday, his body was covered in a rash and Autumn alerted the attending physician.

“Once the doctor saw the rash, he said, ‘Rocky Mountain spotted fever’,” Autumn said.

After receiving the usual treatment for Rocky Mountain spotted fever, some of Adan’s symptoms improved. He was able to tell Autumn that one day after work a week prior, he had several ticks on him. Two swollen tick bites were found on Adan’s knee.

Adan died shortly after midnight. “He was so young and strong,” Autumn said.

Occurrences of Rocky Mountain spotted fever are rare in Mississippi. So far this year, five cases have been reported in the state. There were five cases in all of 2008.

Three cases of lyme disease - another tick-borne disease - have been reported in Mississippi since March, according to the Mississippi Department of Health.

Rocky Mountain spotted fever is a seasonal disease and occurs throughout the United States during the months of April through September, according to Christopher Cox with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The highest incidence rates have been found in North Carolina and Oklahoma,” Cox said. “Although this disease was first discovered and recognized in the Rocky Mountain area, relatively few cases are reported from that area today.”

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20090717/NEWS/907170328/1001/news/Unsuspected-tick-kills-Oxford-man