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LYME DISEASE: WHAT YOUR DOCTOR DOESN’T KNOW MAY HURT YOU

New York, NY (May 23, 2005) – The rate of Lyme Disease in New York is one of the highest in the country and you don’t have to spend your days in a lush backyard upstate to be at risk either. Birds are known carriers of the tick as are dogs and mice, making city dwellers just as vulnerable to the illness. Just ask Meg Cabot, best selling author of The Princess Diaries.

Ms. Cabot joined Dr. Brian Fallon, Director of the Lyme Disease Program at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University Medical Center, and other writers as well as the Lyme Disease Association (LDA) at a media breakfast on May 18. Ms. Cabot, who shared a panel with Amy Tan (“Joy Luck Club”) and Jordan Fisher Smith (“Nature Noir”), started her presentation by saying “I hate nature, which is why I live in New York City.” After seeing five doctors about her mysterious illness, she was diagnosed several years ago with Lyme Disease, which she attributes to sleeping with a friend’s dog while on vacation.

While she is doing well now, others are suffering needlessly because many practitioners are not knowledgeable enough to diagnose the disease. “Pinpointing the bull’s eye rash isn’t all there is to diagnosing Lyme,” said Dr. Fallon. “In fact less than 50% of people develop the rash. Some develop no rash at all.”

Many patients do complain of neuropsychiatric symptoms, though. Preliminary PET imaging results from Dr. Fallon’s NIH-funded study on the effects of IV antibiotic treatment on cognitive symptoms indicate that “Lyme disease causes verifiable brain dysfunction.” This finding may help validate the feelings of patients whose Lyme-related symptoms of severe fatigue, memory and mood problems were often mislabeled as neurotic, attention-seeking behavior.

Funding to establish a Lyme Disease Center, the first of its kind, is close to being completed. Two of its primary focuses, said Dr. Fallon, will be to identify better diagnostic markers as well as to develop a national tissue bank to further clarify how the Lyme spirochete affects its host.

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