Rotary’s Lyme Disease Forum April 28 At The Fireside Inn

By Kaaren Valenta

Ed Osterman is worried about an imminent public health threat. It is not SARS, the acute respiratory syndrome from China, or even the West Nile virus, which is expected to make another repeat performance this summer.

“I’m very worried about Lyme disease,” Mr Osterman said. “People are getting complacent about it because they have heard about it for so long, but is an epidemic in this area and it can have serious consequences. There are people who can no longer work because they have Lyme.”

When Mr Osterman’s son was bitten by a deer tick and got Lyme, he was lucky because the characteristic bull’s-eye rash appeared on his forehead so he got prompt medical treatment.

“Some people don’t get the rash and don’t know they have Lyme until much later,” Mr Osterman said. “Others don’t test positive for Lyme, even though they get all the symptoms.”

Mr Osterman, who lives on Webster Place, said two of his neighbors got Lyme around the same time that his son did.

“It was as if a deer walked through our yards, leaving ticks,” Mr Osterman said.

Mark Dennen knows that the ticks are already out. The Sandy Hook resident went fishing last Saturday for the start of trout season and wound up with two deer tick bites. He went to his doctor, but learned that medical authorities, concerned about the overuse of antibiotics, no longer prescribe them unless there are symptoms and a diagnosis of Lyme disease.

For the past few weeks a 35-minute television special about Lyme disease has been airing at 10 pm daily on Channel 17. The host is Dr Evan Pitkoff, superintendent of the Newtown schools, with guests Dr Thomas Draper; Donna McCarthy, director of the Newtown Health District;, and Maggie Shaw and Kim Harrison of the Newtown Lyme Disease Task Force.

Dr Draper, medical adviser for the town and the schools, said Connecticut has the highest incidence of Lyme disease in the country. Persons who are infected, but who do not develop a rash, may develop have flu-like symptoms. Untreated, the disease can produce symptoms of arthritis and neurological problems such as facial paralysis, he said.

On Monday night, April 28, the Newtown Rotary Club and the Lyme Disease Task Force will co-sponsor the fifth annual Lyme Disease Forum at the Fireside Inn from 7 to 9 pm. The guest speaker will be Dr Bernard Raxlen, a practicing physician in Greenwich who specializes in diagnosis and treatment of complicated Lyme disease, other tick-borne diseases, and nutritional medicine. He is a neuropsychiatrist with more than 20 years of experience with approximately 2,000 cases of persistent Lyme disease.

He will discuss the spectrum of Lyme disease with focus on the neurological, psychiatric, and cognitive symptoms; other tick-borne diseases including erhlichiosis, babesiosis, bartonella, and mycoplasmas; and testing and diagnosis. There will be time for questions and answers.

Dr Raxlen is a founding member and secretary of the board of governors of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS). He has been a featured speaker at many conferences and workshops on psychoneuroimmunology and Lyme disease, and has been on national television discussing medical concerns that pertain to the practice of integrated medicine.

The meeting is free and open to the public. For more information, call 270-3301 or visit the websites www.lymenet.org and www.ilads.org.