
Damn, I'm having that symptom again where I can't remember what I was just thinking about it.
1) Oh, I should write a post about that.
2) Click over to this blog.
3) Man, what the hell was it that I wanted to write about? Ok now I recall.
Here's the post:
Last night, my boyfriend was saying that hopefully in a few years, maybe a decade, medicine will understand and respect these tick-borne illnesses.
The research is certainly developing, despite lack of funding for the real research. A few people are getting grants from Turn the Corner Foundation for good Lyme research, and then there's also good research on the other tick-borne infections. Also there is good research coming from countries besides the US. So although the pace is slow, we are making it somewhere.
I am so encouraged by the amazing research that Ed Breitschwerdt's team is doing at North Carolina State University. It is so good to get this information on the prevalence, diagnosis, and treatment of bartonellosis. If there's one disease that's close to my heart (perhaps literally, as well) right now, it's bartonellosis, since it is under-appreciated, under-diagnosed, and completely awful to have, especially given the violent and tendencies that it can engender. The world would really benefit from better Bartonella diagnosis and treatment.
Anyways, I can't wait until these things are mainstream and accepted. I do what I can to inform people I meet. In the course of doctor's appointments, I inform doctors of things confidently, e.g. "Oh, yes, the recent research shows that Bartonella can be a chronic infection even in the immunocompetent. B. henselae can cause a variety of serious symptoms. Oh, and it is transmitted by ticks and certain other arthropods." It really helps me to be more confident when I talk with them if I have kept up on the research myself. The doctors seem to trust me, whereas they won't trust me if I say I read something on the internet--if there is a question, I have to make clear that these are peer-reviewed articles in good journals.
Looking back at the early 2000s, maybe doctors of the future will think, "I can't believe they ignored tick-borne and other vector-borne infections. These have been an epidemic all over the country, and they just missed it, and all those people went undiagnosed. And it's one of the major things we treat now, along with cancer and heart disease."
What would sane approach look like?
-Millions or billions of dollars to research vector-borne infections.
-Research on controlling the transmission of these infections.
-Preventative measures, if not vaccines then routine testing for people who are exposed to animals, arthropods, or who live in endemic areas.
-Development of far more sensitive testing methods.
-Research on how to treat multiple infections at once (is this even in the literature--what to do if a patient has bartonellosis and Lyme disease and babesiosis at the same time?)
-Insurance coverage of as much treatment as is necessary.
-Psychiatrists recognizing the scope of tick-borne illness mental symptoms and referring all patients with confusing symptoms for tick-borne illness testing.
-Good disability coverage for tick-borne illness.
- - - -