Sunday, September 7, 2008

Tick Borne Illness Pt 1

I get a lot of questions about Lyme Disease. The questions I get the most are ... How did you get that? That question is followed by, "Where did you get it?" I can answer that with one simple word "Here." That is often followed by a look of shock and "Really? I thought it was only in the New England states." Those statements were recently made to me on Friday by a Physician at a hospital. In a blog I read (Alice's blog), I mentioned Tick Borne Illness in a comment. She requested that I write something for her to post on Tick Borne Illness. So I did.

They are small. Some are small as the size of the period at the end of this sentence. However, ticks carry big diseases. Some that you may have heard of are Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Not only are there other diseases, but each disease has many different strains making it difficult to diagnose and to treat. There are several diagnostic tests for tick borne illnesses, but those tests only test for a few of the strains of each illness causing many false negatives. The best lab in the United States to test for Tick Borne Illness is IgeneX in Palo Alto Califnornia, but even they don’t test for all the strains of the bacteria.


Next Part: Specifics on Lyme Disease

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