A Patient's Guide to Navigating the Labyrinth of Diagnosis and Treatment
What if, at this very moment, hundreds of thousands of people were unaware that they were living in midst of an epidemic so large that it dwarfs the AIDS epidemic by sheer numbers in North America?
What if this epidemic cut across all populations: women and men, children and adults, the infirm and the fit, the very poor and the very rich?
And what if many of our best doctors in cities like New York, London, Paris, Dublin, Sydney and San Francisco were unaware of this very same problem?
This epidemic is upon us. It lurks in the most seductive of locations outside our cities – sought after vacation places frequented by urban dwellers. These are the favorite getaway spots for the often millions of people who work in our city centers, many of whom are unaware that they are at risk of infection from this insidious microbe.
The epidemic in question is a tick-borne disease, namely the spirochete bacterium
Borrelia burdorferi
, or Lyme disease, as it is more commonly known. Along with a number of other co-infection pathogens, including deadly viruses, this bacterium has become the scourge of the Northern Hemisphere and is now spreading into Asia and even Australia.
In this book, Dr. Bernard Raxlen attempts to answer many of those questions through the perspectives of patients and physicians from around the world, exploring the reasons for the medical myopia that blocks accurate diagnosis and treatment of tick-borne disease. He draws on his thirty years in the field and more than forty thousand clinical hours listening to and treating TBD patients and also invites other expert physicians in TBD from around the world to share their experiences and expertise. His recovered former patient, co-collaborator and Lyme advocate, Allie Cashel, author of
Suffering the Silence: Chronic Lyme Disease in an Age of Denial
, contributes a section of the book, illuminating life after TBD and the difficulties encountered in the post-Lyme world.
Also includes contributions from international authorities Dr. Laura Alonso Canal (Spain), Dr. Jennifer Armstrong (Canada), Michael Cook (UK), Doug Fearn (US), Dr. John Lambert (Ireland), Jenna Luché-Thayer (United Nations), Dr. Mualla McManus (Australia), Zhaneta Misho (Germany), Dr. Omar Morales (Mexico), Dr. Christian Perrone (France), Dr. Armin Schwarzbach (Germany), and Dr. Leo Shea (US); with illustrations by Rolo Ledesma.