This photo of a deer tick on someone’s finger shows just how tiny they are and how difficult they are to detect once attached to a host.
The corkscrew shape of Borrelia burgdorferi, which is called a spirochete, allows it to bore into any type of healthy cell where it can hide while causing widespread disruption. (Photo from CDC website)
Fair Health’s analysis of insurance claims shows a significant difference in the reports of male and female incidence of Lyme disease.
Clay Beck is grateful to have his life back after his multiyear struggle with Lyme disease. Since his recovery, he has married and has two children. Clay is shown here with his wife Jennifer and sons EJ and Tommy.
Brittany (Kahler) Atteberry’s symptoms were chalked up to being a new mom when she first started having problems. She is shown here with husband Kurtis, son Chason, and new baby boy Easton.
Sufferers of Morgellons disease were traditionally thought to be delusional and the fibers were attributed to clothing, but recently the filaments produced by the disease were found to be human tissue and consistently show infection with various kinds of Borrelia spirochetes. (Photo from Morgellonsdisease.org)
Rose Wolf and her doctor thought that she was dealing with hormone fluctuations when her symptoms first started appearing. She is shown here with her family, l to r: Charlyttte, Triston, Trenton, Rose, JJ, and Treydon.
When doctors decided that Brittany was suffering from mental health, her parents took her to Dr. Calzada of the Bioadvanced Medical Clinic in Mexico, who diagnosed her Lyme disease and put her on the path to recovery.
Brittany put Rose in contact with Sarah Kracht of the Omaha Health Therapy Center in Omaha. Kracht is able to provide many treatments in her office and at Sandhills Wellness Clinic in Atkinson, NE.
An erythema migrans rash is a slowly expanding rash, resembling a bullseye. Its presence is almost a guarantee of a Lyme disease diagnosis, but only about 50% of people get it. (Photo from CDC website)
Local residents struggle to get diagnosed, treated for Lyme disease
Lyme disease. Many people, including many medical professionals will tell you that it isn’t a problem in this area. In fact, it is the most predominant tick-borne disease in the United States, but most cases occur in the northeast and north central parts of the country. Some Lyme disease specialists will even insist that it doesn’t exist in South Dakota, but in 2017, the South Dakota Department of Health recorded 11 cases across the state. Those are only the reported and confirmed cases; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that only 10% of cases are actually included in official counts nationwide.
Besides doctors who refuse to acknowledge the possibility of Lyme disease in the South Dakota and Nebraska area, another obstacle to recording Lyme cases is the extreme difficulty of diagnosing the disease.
First recognized by the medical community in the 1970s, Lyme disease is named after Lyme, CT, where residents became convinced that they were not getting a proper diagnosis or treatment for an illness they were experiencing.
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