Beating Lyme: Understanding and Treating This Complex and Often Misdiagnosed Disease

Author and health educator Bean (Methods of Childbirth), along with Lyme disease awareness activist Fein, present the complete story of Lyme disease, a resilient and difficult-to-treat disease transmitted by deer ticks: its identification in 1975, the two-decade increase in reported cases (it's now ""the fastest-growing infectious disease in America""), symptoms (which can be ""arthritic, neurological, behavioral, cardiac, dermatological, muscular, or otherwise""), diagnosis and, most disturbingly, the disconnect between two powerful groups of physicians regarding its treatment. ""Just as likely to be found in suburban yards as they are in woods and fields, or among coastal bushes and grass,"" the deer tick's ubiquity accounts for cases in 46 states in 2006 alone; alarmingly, ""at least 10 percent"" of contractors become chronically ill due to lack of treatment, which ""remains remarkably unavailable"" unless the bite is caught promptly. Occurring as both acute and chronic disease, Lyme has a cost to society of ""about $2 billion a year"" total; the authors' recommendations for avoiding exposure to deer ticks, as well as detailed information on diagnostic tests and pharmaceutical treatments, will prove useful to readers and medical personnel in Lyme-endemic regions.