Discussion 1: Lyme disease
Why isn’t Lyme disease recognized like any other disease we are faced with? There are hundreds of diseases that patients are being treated for, yet Lyme patients are getting substandard care. Patients who have this debilitating and crippling disease are often overlooked or they are not getting the proper medical treatment and attention they deserve. Many physicians will only prescribe patients one course of antibiotic therapy treatment for their symptoms. If a patient goes to a doctor after a bite by a tick the general rule is that you are not tested until 30 days after, however, symptoms of the disease can appear as early as 3 days after the bite. Often times, doctors are telling their patients “there is nothing wrong with you,” “it’s all in your head.” “Lyme disease can be difficult to identify and doctors use both symptoms and tests to diagnose the disease. A common early calling card — a bull’s-eye rash around the bite — does not occur in everyone; while others don’t notice it. Tests are indirect, looking for antibodies the body produces to fight the infection, not the bacteria itself. A person who has early Lyme might not have begun producing …show more content…
Insurance companies will get rid of doctors who cost them too much money, so they will get physicians to try to claim that chronic Lyme disease does not exist. Physicians can be dismissive toward patients who believe they have chronic Lyme because their claims cannot be proven, and some are outright disrespectful. The cost for some treatment can be in excess of $5,000 a month. Many doctors are “frustrated at having no explanation for patients’ suffering, some doctors push them toward psychiatrists, both patients and doctors say. Shunned, patients hunt answers elsewhere. In the end, the public and even many doctors on the front line are left with
Why isn’t Lyme disease recognized like any other disease we are faced with? There are hundreds of diseases that patients are being treated for, yet Lyme patients are getting substandard care. Patients who have this debilitating and crippling disease are often overlooked or they are not getting the proper medical treatment and attention they deserve. Many physicians will only prescribe patients one course of antibiotic therapy treatment for their symptoms. If a patient goes to a doctor after a bite by a tick the general rule is that you are not tested until 30 days after, however, symptoms of the disease can appear as early as 3 days after the bite. Often times, doctors are telling their patients “there is nothing wrong with you,” “it’s all in your head.” “Lyme disease can be difficult to identify and doctors use both symptoms and tests to diagnose the disease. A common early calling card — a bull’s-eye rash around the bite — does not occur in everyone; while others don’t notice it. Tests are indirect, looking for antibodies the body produces to fight the infection, not the bacteria itself. A person who has early Lyme might not have begun producing …show more content…
Insurance companies will get rid of doctors who cost them too much money, so they will get physicians to try to claim that chronic Lyme disease does not exist. Physicians can be dismissive toward patients who believe they have chronic Lyme because their claims cannot be proven, and some are outright disrespectful. The cost for some treatment can be in excess of $5,000 a month. Many doctors are “frustrated at having no explanation for patients’ suffering, some doctors push them toward psychiatrists, both patients and doctors say. Shunned, patients hunt answers elsewhere. In the end, the public and even many doctors on the front line are left with