Chronic Lyme Disease Essay

At the time my doctor and I were under the impression that it would be a short recovery and we were very relieved that my symptoms would resolve quickly. However we were wrong. What we thought was going to be a month of antibiotics turned out to be three and a half years, two of which I was essentially confined to my bed. While my friends were off at football games, shopping, and attending school, I was doing what I could to avoid spending my nights in the emergency room. Every day was a struggle. I suffered from a variety of symptoms, including headaches, muscle pain, joint pain, dizziness, and fatigue. I would sleep for 14 hours and wake up exhausted, of course this was only on the nights were I wasn’t in too much pain too sleep. Despite how terrible Lyme disease was I am more than grateful that I was able to come out a stronger person. Without Lyme I do not think I would have the same determination, focus, or confidence that I posses

A disease caused by the bacterium which is belongs to the class of Spirochaetes which implies cockscrew-shaped. This bacterial infection is caused by four species. Borrelia burgdorferi and Borrelia mayonii cause the disease in the United States, while in Europe and Asia it is Borrelia afzelii and Borrelia garinii.

Improvements in health care and life sciences are an important source of gains in health and longevity globally. The development of innovative pharmaceutical products plays a critical role in ensuring these continued gains. To encourage the continued development of new drugs, economic incentives are essential. These incentives are principally provided through direct and indirect government funding, intellectual property laws, and other policies that favor innovation. Without such incentives, private corporations, which bring to market the vast majority of new drugs, would be less able to assume the risks and costs necessary to continue their research and development (R&D). In the United States, government action has focused on creating the environment that would best encourage further innovation and yield a constant flow of new and innovative medicines to the market. The goal has been to ensure that consumers would benefit both from technological breakthroughs and the competition that further innovation generates. The United States also relies on a strong generic pharmaceutical industry to create added competitive pressure to lower drug prices. Recent action by the Administration and Congress has accelerated the flow of generic medicines to the market for precisely that reason. By contrast, in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and

Woodroof shouted at the FDA during a town hall meeting “People are dying. And y’all up there are afraid that we’re gonna find an alternative without you.” This was Woodroof’s way of saying that the FDA only backs up the pharmaceutical companies because they will give the FDA incentive to put the stamp of approval on their product. “You see the pharma companies pay the FDA to push their product. They don’t want to see my research. I don’t have enough cash in my pocket to make it worth their while” he explained. This is the error the patients see in the American healthcare system, the FDA was hesitant to license new drug therapies and also didn’t want to let patient’s tryout with their own medications. AIDS patients felt like they were denied access to life-saving drugs by an insensitive federal government. Author of the book, HIV and The blood Supply, Lauren B. Leveton suggested that “The evaluation of policy decisions and actions taken over a decade ago is a problematic enterprise.” Even Woodroof’s doctor has concerns about the pharma company that makes AZT when she asks another doctor “Doesn’t it drive you a little bit crazy to see these guys talking about curing the sick while flashing their gold

There are many people who have a stake in the healthcare industry. There are several stakeholders such as the patients, healthcare providers, insurance companies, organizations, and those who enforce policy. The patients’ interest is the need of the best healthcare procedure to be healthy. As a healthcare provider the quality of care that can be useful for patients. Insurance companies sells health insurance to patients or employer that can be beneficial to providers. Organizations develop plans that are used for patients. Policymakers create and implement laws that to improve quality care to the public. These stakeholders can play a major role in the safety concern of patients. The concern for the safety issues of vaccination in children

Lyme disease was discovered in the 1970’s, as any other disease was, by a large number of cases, with patients having the same symptoms. In Lyme, Connecticut, a doctor was having patients who were all suffering from the same symptoms that made patients become debilitated. There were so many cases that the doctor marked it as an unknown disease. It wasn’t until later in the 1980’s that there were more widespread cases throughout the north-east. Lyme disease is becoming a serious problem in the north-east and especially in New York State, given the drastic increase of cases. Without treatment Lyme disease can result in blindness and in severe cases, death.

The high prices set by pharmaceutical companies for drugs allows the companies to continue researching, developing, and producing new drugs. As new diseases are discovered, new medications must be discovered in order to treat them.

Disseminated Lyme disease symptoms are most prevalent in victims of either misdiagnosis or total lack of prior diagnosis. The difficulty at this stage prevails with the nature of the symptoms, which could be confusing because of the nature of being persistent or transient (California Lyme Disease Association, n.d.). The disease finally sets in the chronic stage, characterized by a late infection that is persistent. However, the complication of the Lyme disease at this point is connected to the lack of universal recognition of the condition, even by experts in infectious disease. Thus, the diagnosis of Lyme disease becomes a controversial presentation (Lyme Research Alliance, n.d.). The chronic stage notably takes up to months and at times years to appear following initial bites by a

In the early 1970s, a number of rheumatoid arthritis cases occurred in Lyme, Connecticut. Researchers considered several possible causes to outbreak, such as contact with germs in the water or air. However, their attention focused on the deer tick population as a probability once they realized that most of the affected children lived and/or played near wooded areas. Researchers discovered that the symptoms started during the height of tick season in the summer. Many of the children recalled seeing a rash before the arthritis started, and others remember being bitten by a tick at the site of the rash. By the mid 1970s, researchers started to associate these signs and symptoms with the disease, now called “Lyme Disease” to help physicians diagnose patients. However, it wasn’t until 1981 did researchers at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana discover the connection between the deer tick and Lyme Disease.

In the 1970s a group of children, as well as adults in Lyme, Connecticut and the area surrounding it, were suffering from different types of health issues. Their symptoms concluded to swollen knees, paralysis, skin rashes, headaches, and severe chronic fatigue. 1981 a scientist who was studying Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (which is also caused by a tick) started to observe and become more attached to Lyme Disease. Lyme disease was described as an infectious illness by Dr. Alan Steere and his colleagues in 1977 and is also known as the leading disease in the United States. Since the 1980s Lyme Disease has started to become much more popular and is now an important health disease in many areas of the United States. Believe it or not, Lyme Disease has existed for 15 million years

The CDC tracks instances of Lyme disease by utilizing strict observation criteria, not intended for determination of individual cases. The rate has been increasing after some time; this is not just a consequence of expanded acknowledgment, on the grounds that in expresses that perform dynamic reconnaissance, genuine rate and geographic reach have expanded. The reasonable reasons for this increment are extension of deer groups and the extended scope of the

Lyme disease has been the most commonly reported vector-borne illness in the United States since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started reporting it in 1991 [1]. It should be noted that Lyme disease does not occur everywhere in the US, and is heavily concentrated in upper Midwest and northeast United States [1]. This report has been compiled to provide recommendations for antimicrobial prophylactic treatment of Lyme disease once a patient encounters a tick bite.

(Topic 1) With Lyme Disease being such a large factor in the lives of many Americans, scientists are trying to discover a vaccine that will prevent those in the most infected areas from getting the disease. In the early 1900’s drug companies established a potential vaccins for the disease. LYMErix was a vaccine that moved to extensive research and was studied with patients to see if the vaccine would reduce the onset of the disease. The LYMErix vaccine was a 3 dose vaccine that was given to those between teenage years and elders under the age of 71. It had results that showed prevention to be

For example, Vedula (2012) notes that FDA guidelines state pharmaceutical companies can use peer-reviewed articles to publicize evidence of a drug’s effectiveness for off-label uses, as long as a number of conditions are met—perhaps the most essential of which is that “the information disseminated must not be false or misleading.” However, Vedula continues, there is no unyielding regulation that all research findings have to be published. Therefore, a company can still choose to selectively disseminate favorable findings. His article concludes that there is now a copious amount of evidence that suggests selective reporting of study results, based on the strength and direction of findings, is performed extensively by the pharmaceutical industry.

Gloria, I can tell you that you are right about the Lyme's disease. I was diagnosed with it 3 years ago and because I went so long without being treated, I also ended up with Viral Meningitis. I was not only experiencing The Most Severe Headaches I had ever had, but fevers, I could not walk or talk, I did not eat because I felt like my throut would not let anything down it. It was as if the muscles stopped working, the doctor said that I was right, my brain had so much fluid on it that it was pressing against my skull. I lay in bed for 6 weeks thinking I was going insane. I was treated with high doses of Doxycycline and then IV drip treatments. This past month has been hard due to this darn disease peaking whenever I am very stressed.