The June 23rd edition of the BMJ had a large tick on the cover heralding a couple of articles inside in this week’s Practice section: Tick bite and early Lyme Borreliosis: a 10 minute consultation Lyme neuroborreliosis: a patient’s journey. The 10 minute consultation discussed what steps a doctor should take in investigating a rash […]
more...For Diane in Cornwall, they were essential. Her story is featured in the July issue of Candis magazine, a family magazine that has nearly a quarter of a million paid up subscribers, so will get wide circulation. Diane, a nurse and keen horse rider, was bitten by a tick in April 2011 and developed a rash, […]
more...The functions of the Health protection Agency (HPA) Lyme Borreliosis Unit are being transferred from Southampton to the Rare & Imported Pathogens Laboratory (RIPL)* at HPA Porton which already has considerable experience in testing for other tick borne pathogens, in particular Rickettsia and Coxiella (Q fever). On May 1st two of LDA’s trustees spent a […]
more...The Netherlands Journal of Medicine has been shining an interesting light on attitudes to Lyme disease: now you see reason; now you don’t. In March 2011 the Netherlands Journal of Medicine published a review (Tired of Lyme borreliosis. Coumou et al) which seemed intended to help Dutch physicians cope with the many people who believe they […]
more...In anticipation of its incorporation into Public Health England, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) has been reviewing its microbiology services and management. As part of the resulting re-organisation the functions of the Lyme Borreliosis Unit are being moved to the Special Pathogens Reference Unit at Porton which already provides reference services for a number of […]
more...Chronic Lyme Disease: It’s Time to Solve the Medical Mystery Inside an Enigma. This well-written and moderate article from the US, seeking research into the unknown areas of optimum length of treatment, best drugs to use and so on, caught our eye precisely because it was so well written and moderate, despite the writer experiencing […]
more...How do we know how the immune response develops in untreated patients? It is generally said that after a tick bite, the IgM response develops first, followed by the IgG response. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) states “The chances of a positive test in early infection range from about 30% in the first two weeks […]
more...Swedish Patients’ experiences: a BMJ open access paper has just been published. Wessel M, Lynøe N, Juth N, et al. The tip of an iceberg? A cross-sectional study of the general public’s experiences of reporting healthcare complaints in Stockholm, Sweden. BMJ Open 2012;2:e000489. doi:10.1136/ bmjopen-2011-000489 Sweden has a Patients’ Advisory Committee, similar in function to […]
more...Medical science moves on; guidelines need updating because clinicians use them. No-one can believe it is a good thing for clinicians to apply guidelines that are known to be out of date. Because of this the National Guidelines Clearinghouse (NGC) in the USA requires that American guidelines are reviewed every 5 years. The IDSA guidelines of […]
more...At the LDA 2011 conference Faith Smith told us about her research project at Bristol University surveying pet dogs to estimate the prevalence of Lyme disease infected ticks. Her paper has just been published. The random samples of ticks were from dogs inspected at veterinary surgeries across the UK. Samples positive for Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that […]
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