Is Multiple Sclerosis Lyme Disease Left Untreated?

By Marjorie Tietjen
2-6-04

January 29 the State of Connecticut held a Hearing On Lyme Disease. One of the main issues Attorney General Blumenthal addressed was misdiagnosis. In my other articles I've mentioned many times how Lyme Disease is being misdiagnosed as Multiple Sclerosis, ADD, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, ALS, Lupus, etc.

We are looking further into the M.S /Lyme connection which is apparently being covered up. We need more stories of people who either were once diagnosed with Lyme and then were later told that they had Multiple Sclerosis or Multiple Sclerosis patients who later found out they really had Lyme Disease.

One of the testifiers at the Hearing was a woman who was misdiagnosed for 10 years with Multiple Sclerosis. She lost a child under a year old to what appears to have been congenital Lyme disease, acquired from the mother in utero. She recently found out that her hospital records from 10 years ago stated that when her spinal fluid and blood was tested for Lyme, that it was positive. The hospital retested these fluids without telling her she ever tested positive for Lyme. Supposedly the second time the fluids were tested, she was negative and they labeled her with M.S. She did have lesions on the brain but Lyme disease can also cause these lesions.
This woman has contacted other M.S. patients ...some of who are now on antibiotics and improving. She wanted to speak to the Multiple Sclerosis Society concerning this discovery, however, they are not interested!

The tests for Lyme disease are extremely inaccurate and therefore cannot be used to rule out Lyme disease. The diagnoses of Lyme MUST be based on clinical history and symptoms. The Center For Disease Control states that their diagnostic criteria concerning the Western Blot, is ONLY to be used for surveillance and not for diagnoses. The CDC also attended the Connecticut hearing. When first invited, the NIH the CDC and Yale, all refused to attend. Our congressmen and the CDC placed pressure on them and the NIH did end up sending representatives. Our Attorney General asked the CDC why our doctors were using the very restrictive CDC criteria to diagnose Lyme when supposedly the CDC advises against this. The CDC really didn't have any good answer. Attorney General Blumenthal then strongly suggested that the CDC send a warning or special notice to all doctors NOT to use their restrictive criteria to diagnose Lyme. The practice of using the CDC criteria has caused much senseless suffering and misdiagnoses.

To this day the CDC has done nothing to rectify this situation.