In July 2013, Brockville fire captain John Paul cut his grass like any other summer day. When he finished, he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. But within 24 hours he was sweating profusely and had many other symptoms of the common flu. “I was really sick for about a week,” said Paul, adding that his wife noticed a bug bite on his hip that eventually developed into a big bruise. He didn’t see a doctor right away, but after a week of flu-like symptoms, he starting getting a sharp pain in the middle of his back that got increasingly worse. “My wife’s a nurse, and she noticed the only thing different about my symptoms from the flu was that I had a bug bite.” It turns out Paul was experiencing the early symptoms of Lyme disease. Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care identifies the Brockville area, or more specifically this area of the St. Lawrence River corridor, as a hot spot for endemic populations of ticks. Lyme disease can have symptoms ranging from flu-like in its early stages to, if left untreated, more serious affects on the central nervous system, brain or heart. Paul noticed six posters in the hospital’s waiting room warning of Lyme disease when he arrived. However, doctors refused to test him for the disease despite his wife’s suggestions. “They would not test me for Lyme even though there was a bug bite,” he said. “The real problem is that most general physicians don’t know about it.” He was initially treated with heavy doses of morphine and other pain medications, but they weren’t touching the pain because it was neurological. “I would just pace through the house and I couldn’t stop pacing because if I stopped I’d lose my mind because I was in so much pain. That turned out to be Lyme attacking the nerve endings as it goes into my spinal cord.” He ended up at Kingston General Hospital (where he saw 30 doctors in his four weeks there, and they still would not test for Lyme, despite specifically requests for the test. “They came up with every explanation but Lyme. It was so bad that the other families with me in the emergency room were begging doctors to give me Lyme testing.” They eventually tested him, and it was positive. Not every tick carries Lyme disease, and not every tick is actually visible. “Most people don’t even know they’ve been bit,” said Paul. Joan Mays, manager of community health protection at the regional health unit, said when they once accept tick specimens from the public, over 20 per cent were positive for Lyme. But the tick being infected is just one piece of the puzzle in terms of disease transmission. “It’s not just about the tick having the bacterium, it’s also the length of time the tick is attached to a person,” she said. “Just because is tick attached, does not mean it has transmitted.” The health unit stopped accepting ticks because a more active tick surveillance program began, going into geographical areas where they didn’t have much data. Paul’s condition kept him off work for seven months. He’s still experiencing neurological problems. While he’s back at work now, his future is unclear. “It’s neurological damage so they can’t predict whether it will come back fully or if it will go away suddenly or gradually.” “This year seems to be a particularly bad year for ticks as well. It’s becoming so bad it’s growing faster than AIDS and West Nile,” said Paul. The health unit does not have data for how many ticks are in the area this year, so Mays was unable to confirm locally if numbers have been higher. She acknowledged, however, the St. Lawrence area is particularly susceptible to the black-legged tick. There has been political movement at the federal and provincial levels calling for more research into the largely-misunderstood disease. In December 2014, private member’s bill C-442 – the Federal Framework on Lyme Disease Act – unanimously passed the Senate. It will “establish a framework for collaboration between the federal, provincial and territorial Health Ministers, representatives of the medical community, and patients’ groups to promote greater awareness and prevention of Lyme disease, to address the challenges of timely diagnosis and treatment, and to push for further research.” Paul said he’s happy some action is finally being taken. “There’s going to be changes coming, thank God,” he said. “I guess now we’re just waiting.” Original article and pictures take http://www.recorder.ca/2015/05/08/time-starts-ticking-on-lyme-disease-season site
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