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By Loretta Jackson
New Hampshire Herald
New Hampshire Herald
Killer Ticks:Lyme disease victims cry out.
Lyme disease is severely affecting residents
in New Hampshire who, in many cases,
suffer for years without a confirmed
diagnosis, sometimes despite numerous
examinations by a variety of doctors — so
says Hudson’s Carl Tuttle, a Lyme disease
victim and advocate whose wife and
daughter also suffer with the debilitating
disease.
The tick-borne disease was first discovered
in the United States in 1977 in Lyme,
Connecticut — the town that became the
namesake for Lyme disease. According to
in New Hampshire who, in many cases,
suffer for years without a confirmed
diagnosis, sometimes despite numerous
examinations by a variety of doctors — so
says Hudson’s Carl Tuttle, a Lyme disease
victim and advocate whose wife and
daughter also suffer with the debilitating
disease.
The tick-borne disease was first discovered
in the United States in 1977 in Lyme,
Connecticut — the town that became the
namesake for Lyme disease. According to
the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (NH DHHS), a group of youngsters
living in Lyme were the first to be diagnosed with the illness. Lyme disease is caused by a bacterium
— borrellia burgdorferi — transmitted by infected deer ticks, tiny six-legged insects that feed on blood
and regurgitate the bacterium while supping on an animal, or a human host. Statistics cited by the NH
DHHS online note that some 20,000 infections — conforming to strict criteria — are reported each year
in the United States. Probable cases of a more general description surely skyrocket the numbers.
Tuttle contends that there are serious problems with the methods of testing used today. One test — the
Elisa test — and another — the Western Blot test — are both used to reveal antibodies, proteins whose
presence in the blood are indicators of the disease. Unfortunately, as proven in numerous documented
cases, the Elisa test can give a false negative — a negative report that incorrectly indicates the patient
is not afflicted.
Backup testing with the Western Blot method, usually used only to confirm a positive Elisa, is not
generally prescribed for a negative Elisa. The patient often is dismissed as not having Lyme, said
Tuttle, adding that insurance companies will only pay for the Elisa test, in most cases. Ongoing quests
for relief, he noted, eventually cost patients thousands of dollars, out-of-pocket, for doctor visits,
antibiotics and hospitalizations.
Tuttle insists that both tests should be administered upon first suspicion of the disease to fully explore
whether or not the Lyme bacterium is present in a person with symptoms. The bacterium is a spiral-
shaped spirochete that travels through the body by drilling its way through the tissues. It can invade
muscle, joints, brain tissue and other body structures. Quick treatment with antibiotics can, in many
cases, achieve a cure.
Symptoms are wide-ranging. Joint pain, headaches, swollen glands, chills, fever, joint swelling and
extreme fatigue may — individually or together — indicate the presence of the disease. A bulls-eye
rash, consisting of circular skin eruptions around the site of the tick bite is a clue that Lyme has been
contracted.
However, victims frequently display no rash and many do not recall being bitten by a deer tick — an
insect that begins feeding on blood when it is a juvenile — the size of a poppy seed.
Those victims who rarely ventured into the grassy, weedy, woodsy areas that are prime tick habitats are
confounded as to the origin of their illness. Some may have overlooked possibilities that their family
pets roamed outdoors and returned to the home bearing ticks. The insects need little prompting to
crawl off a pet and onto a rug or a couch — or a nice, warm person. Tuttle noted that animal shelters
routinely test for Lyme when a pet is brought in for its annual physical or other attention.
Victims also may be unaware that their bird feeders and squirrel feeders encouraged a tick presence
because of tick-carrying mice, chipmunks, rats and raccoons seeking stray seeds. Plants brought in for
the winter from outdoors and field-cut Christmas trees may carry ticks. Literature about insects notes
that ticks tend to hide, especially in cool weather or rainy weather, in the crevices of branches or in leaf
debris on the ground. These days, climbing a tree, sitting on a stump or lying in the grass may be risky
activities. Hot weather motivates ticks to walk about, onto the tips of grasses and bushes — places
from which they can latch onto a passing animal or person. They also can pounce from overhead as
someone passes beneath a tick-inhabited tree branch.
Tuttle, a resident of Hudson, has learned volumes about ticks. He is a family man who three years ago
was diagnosed with Lyme disease, despite suffering symptoms that he reports went unrecognized for
some 12 years. He now is a Lyme disease advocate and the founder of New Hampshire Lyme
Misdiagnosis — a website focusing on education about the misdiagnosis of the disease. Tuttle at one
point in 2008 was so ill that he was bedridden and on oxygen.
Now, he and hundreds of other New Hampshire residents, people who have publicly testified about
their experiences, cope with chronic Lyme disease. Some twitch involuntarily and walk with a halting
gait, if at all. Some need to be carried to the bathroom because they are wheelchair bound. Some
experience excruciating headaches, yet try to maintain daily life. The manifestations seem endless.
Portrayals of many cases are shared in a highly acclaimed, award-winning documentary — “Under Our
Skin,” a work researched for four years and directed by its producer, Andy Abrahams Wilson, who in a
published discussion guide that accompanies the DVD states, “I discovered that the prevalence of
Lyme disease in the U.S. may be at least ten times greater than HIV/AIDS and West Nile Virus
combined.”
Many other cases recently were illustrated on New Hampshire Chronicle’s “Living with Lyme; New
Hampshire’s Exploding Epidemic,” a six-segment program aired in June and July from WMUR New
Hampshire Channel 9. It is a program in which the Tuttle family and several other Lyme sufferers,
medical practitioners and experts were featured.
Chronic Lyme disease is a condition deemed nonexistent by one major medical group — the Infectious
Diseases Society of America (IDSA), The IDSA group in 2006 set Lyme treatment guidelines touting a
two-to-four week dose of antibiotics. Those standards, Tuttle said, are restrictive and impact patient
care because insurance carriers follow the narrow guidelines and too often deny coverage.
Tuttle’s respite from symptoms is incomplete and he continues to use long-term antibiotics. He notes
that only a small window of opportunity exits — up to 30 days after being bitten — in which to secure a
timely diagnosis and the antibiotic treatments that frequently offer a cure when promptly administered.
Traditionally, according to the Mayo Clinic and other medical institutions, a course of 10-14 days of oral
doses of doxycycline for adults and children age 8 or older, or amoxicillin or cefuroxime for expectant or
breast-feeding women and children under age 8 is prescribed.
Conflicting opinions abound concerning the diagnosis of the disease. It is one with symptoms that may
mimic other conditions — chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia (muscle pain), multiple sclerosis,
ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Parkinson’s disease, Lupus, Alzheimer’s and others.
Tuttle recently said, “Many medical practitioners know little about the disease and tend to dismiss
symptoms as vague. A red rash esembling the concentric circles of a bulls-eye target at the point of the
tick bite is a tip-off to experts but many people do not get the rash — or they get an irregularly shaped
version of it.” Tuttle, 54 was an outside sales rep with a 25-year high-tech career supplying major
corporations with UNIX-based computer hardware. Chronic Lyme disease ended his career. He has
not fully regained his health and continues to struggle with the life-altering disease. His wife, Janet, and
his daughter, Erika, 21, also have chronic, ongoing, Lyme disease, although only Erika recalls being
bitten by a tick.
Much controversy is attached to the subject of Lyme diagnosis. Conflicting sets of guidelines from two
major groups of experts exist, for one set of guidelines is much narrower in its focus than the other. The
IDSA and the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) are at the forefront of the
divergent opinions.
The IDSA offers a narrow definition of the disease and requires either a positive blood test or presence
of a rash in the affected area as proof of Lyme. The group does not recognize long-term, chronic Lyme.
It proposes a short course of antibiotic treatment, 21 days or less. Once the course of treatment is
completed, any infection is considered cleared and patients are dismissed as cured.
The ILADS guidelines, on the other hand, state that diagnostic tests are often not sensitive enough to
rule out Lyme disease. The organization also allows for the possibility that some patients may
encounter Lyme as a chronic state and require continued antibiotic therapy to fully treat the infection.
The differences were among those presented at a Lyme conference held on Aug. 18 at the Division of
Public Health Services’ Department of Health and Human Services in Concord. The assembly was
organized by Tuttle and other Lyme experts to share information between clinicians representing late-
stage Lyme patients and public health officials.
Proposed resolutions urged that Lyme testing should include both Elisa and Western Blot to rule out
false-negative Elisa results. Also stressed was that patients should, through “Informed Consent,” be
made aware of the unreliability of existing diagnostic tests.
The resolutions presented at the end of the conference also urged that health insurance companies in
New Hampshire pay for both Lyme diagnostic tests — Elisa and Western Blot — not just the Elisa test.
Tuttle states that insurance will not cover the Western Blot and wonders if the omission is intentional,
as a way of limiting the numbers of Lyme cases and thus the insurers’ monetary reimbursements to
patients.
Conference attendees also heard pleas for the Department of Health to educate medical practitioners
regarding the low reliability of the Elisa test, one found in a two-year study by John Hopkins University to
be reliable less than 50-percent of the time. Tuttle added to the recommendations the need for a task
force to be appointed by the Governor to investigate the misdiagnosis of Lyme disease.
“Those of us who have lost jobs, savings, 401k funds and homes to this devastating disease were all
misdiagnosed,” said Tuttle. “We missed the narrow window of opportunity for successful short-term
treatment. We want to see an end to this needless suffering.”
Other actions reflect the scope of the problem in New Hampshire. Earlier this year, House Bill 295,
sponsored by Rep. Gary Daniels, of Milford, became law. It sought to protect physicians’ rights to
choose appropriate treatment protocols for atients with Lyme disease and was passed after an 18-
month journey through the legislative process.
Tuttle said that at the bill’s first public hearing in 2010, more than 200 supporters came forward to
impress upon legislators that chronic Lyme does indeed exist. The New Hampshire Lyme Legislation
Committee he credits for untold hours of work, culminating in passage of the bill, was headed by Rep.
Gary Daniels, Nancy Bourassa, Julie Hall, David Hunter, Cathy Kettmann and Greg Kettmann.
“New Hampshire doctors,” Tuttle said, “are under pressure from the medical community and insurance
companies to treat Lyme with a very limited antibiotic regimen, according to the IDSA guidelines —
standards which deny the existence of chronic Lyme disease. The bill safeguards their efforts to help
people, long term.”
Legislation to protect clinicians who treat late-stage Lyme with long-term antibiotics has been passed
in seven states: Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New York, Texas and now, New Hampshire.
Legislation is pending in Pennsylvania. Support groups are proliferating in nearly every state.
Tuttle asks, “Why is it true that all of us know someone who has been severely debilitated by Lyme
disease when the CDC and the IDSA claim that Lyme is easily diagnosed and easily treated with a
short course of antibiotics?”
Dr. Julia Greenspan, a Merrimack resident who heads the Greenhouse Naturopathic Medicine in Hollis,
is regarded by many Lyme patients as one of the region’s most Lyme-literate physicians and one who
is treating many victims. She was a featured speaker at the aforementioned Lyme conference, held on
Aug. 18 in Concord, where she talked about the state of Lyme disease in New Hampshire and its
impact on residents.
Greenspan, told the New Hampshire Herald that she, too, has been recently diagnosed with Lyme
disease. She said she doesn’t remember being bit by a tick, just as the majority of her patients don’t
remember being bitten. She said the symptoms are sometimes easy to explain away. She is a new
mother. New moms are supposed to be tired, she said. She works out. Sore muscles are inevitable,
she said. She added that she saw no bulls-eye rash. But she knew something was very wrong.
“Living in this area — there are ticks in the backyard and in many places,” said Greenspan. “Here,
everyone should be screened for Lyme. In my practice, if I get any red flags, I explain about Lyme and
we get to testing. People are surprised. But a person will get over a course of antibiotics much easier
than from the suffering caused by the disease.”
She too urged constant surveillance. Texts on Lyme disease prevention commonly recommend that
people working or playing outdoors wear light-colored apparel against which ticks can be quickly
spotted. Long-sleeved, white shirts and light colored pants with the legs tucked into white socks are
helpful during the routine inspection for ticks that should follow any stint out of doors.
A hat or cap may keep ticks off a person’s head. Nevertheless, once back indoors, a person should
have a full-body search, including the scalp, behind the ears, in the armpits and in the groin area. Help
from another person may be needed for areas hard to view by oneself.
Greenspan too urged caution when it comes to pets. She said dogs can be affected by Lyme. Ticks can
hitch a ride on a pet. She said it has to get below 40 degrees for a tick, an insect that lives for some four
years, to be rendered inactive. That means the beautiful, autumn season residents are now enjoying is
one that’s a period of business-as-usual to bloodthirsty ticks.
“The medical system sort of puts blinders on,” said Greenspan. “Yesterday, I examined a five-year old
whose parents brought in the tick. Lyme is a problem that will continue to grow. It is very confusing and
insurance won’t cover what’s needed. They’ll run an MRI, a spinal test, a CAT scan — but won’t run a
Western Blot — a test which costs a couple hundred dollars.”
Tuttle added comment that Lyme-literate doctors are increasing in number and that ILADS, especially,
has undertaken a stellar role in educating medics and the public about Lyme disease recognition,
prevention and treatment. He said awareness of the disease is growing but much more needs to be
done. Additional information on diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease can be found on the ILADS
website: www.ilads.org
The Greater Manchester Lyme Disease Support Group, a group with a membership approaching 500
people, meets on the third Wednesday of every month at 7 p.m. at the First Congregational Church of
Manchester, 508 Union Street. The facilitator is David Hunter. Hunter also facilitates the New
Hampshire Lyme Disease Support Group for Teens, held at the same location on the fourth
Wednesday of every month. Info is available via email: dhunter31@gmail.com or by phone: 603-488-
5371.
living in Lyme were the first to be diagnosed with the illness. Lyme disease is caused by a bacterium
— borrellia burgdorferi — transmitted by infected deer ticks, tiny six-legged insects that feed on blood
and regurgitate the bacterium while supping on an animal, or a human host. Statistics cited by the NH
DHHS online note that some 20,000 infections — conforming to strict criteria — are reported each year
in the United States. Probable cases of a more general description surely skyrocket the numbers.
Tuttle contends that there are serious problems with the methods of testing used today. One test — the
Elisa test — and another — the Western Blot test — are both used to reveal antibodies, proteins whose
presence in the blood are indicators of the disease. Unfortunately, as proven in numerous documented
cases, the Elisa test can give a false negative — a negative report that incorrectly indicates the patient
is not afflicted.
Backup testing with the Western Blot method, usually used only to confirm a positive Elisa, is not
generally prescribed for a negative Elisa. The patient often is dismissed as not having Lyme, said
Tuttle, adding that insurance companies will only pay for the Elisa test, in most cases. Ongoing quests
for relief, he noted, eventually cost patients thousands of dollars, out-of-pocket, for doctor visits,
antibiotics and hospitalizations.
Tuttle insists that both tests should be administered upon first suspicion of the disease to fully explore
whether or not the Lyme bacterium is present in a person with symptoms. The bacterium is a spiral-
shaped spirochete that travels through the body by drilling its way through the tissues. It can invade
muscle, joints, brain tissue and other body structures. Quick treatment with antibiotics can, in many
cases, achieve a cure.
Symptoms are wide-ranging. Joint pain, headaches, swollen glands, chills, fever, joint swelling and
extreme fatigue may — individually or together — indicate the presence of the disease. A bulls-eye
rash, consisting of circular skin eruptions around the site of the tick bite is a clue that Lyme has been
contracted.
However, victims frequently display no rash and many do not recall being bitten by a deer tick — an
insect that begins feeding on blood when it is a juvenile — the size of a poppy seed.
Those victims who rarely ventured into the grassy, weedy, woodsy areas that are prime tick habitats are
confounded as to the origin of their illness. Some may have overlooked possibilities that their family
pets roamed outdoors and returned to the home bearing ticks. The insects need little prompting to
crawl off a pet and onto a rug or a couch — or a nice, warm person. Tuttle noted that animal shelters
routinely test for Lyme when a pet is brought in for its annual physical or other attention.
Victims also may be unaware that their bird feeders and squirrel feeders encouraged a tick presence
because of tick-carrying mice, chipmunks, rats and raccoons seeking stray seeds. Plants brought in for
the winter from outdoors and field-cut Christmas trees may carry ticks. Literature about insects notes
that ticks tend to hide, especially in cool weather or rainy weather, in the crevices of branches or in leaf
debris on the ground. These days, climbing a tree, sitting on a stump or lying in the grass may be risky
activities. Hot weather motivates ticks to walk about, onto the tips of grasses and bushes — places
from which they can latch onto a passing animal or person. They also can pounce from overhead as
someone passes beneath a tick-inhabited tree branch.
Tuttle, a resident of Hudson, has learned volumes about ticks. He is a family man who three years ago
was diagnosed with Lyme disease, despite suffering symptoms that he reports went unrecognized for
some 12 years. He now is a Lyme disease advocate and the founder of New Hampshire Lyme
Misdiagnosis — a website focusing on education about the misdiagnosis of the disease. Tuttle at one
point in 2008 was so ill that he was bedridden and on oxygen.
Now, he and hundreds of other New Hampshire residents, people who have publicly testified about
their experiences, cope with chronic Lyme disease. Some twitch involuntarily and walk with a halting
gait, if at all. Some need to be carried to the bathroom because they are wheelchair bound. Some
experience excruciating headaches, yet try to maintain daily life. The manifestations seem endless.
Portrayals of many cases are shared in a highly acclaimed, award-winning documentary — “Under Our
Skin,” a work researched for four years and directed by its producer, Andy Abrahams Wilson, who in a
published discussion guide that accompanies the DVD states, “I discovered that the prevalence of
Lyme disease in the U.S. may be at least ten times greater than HIV/AIDS and West Nile Virus
combined.”
Many other cases recently were illustrated on New Hampshire Chronicle’s “Living with Lyme; New
Hampshire’s Exploding Epidemic,” a six-segment program aired in June and July from WMUR New
Hampshire Channel 9. It is a program in which the Tuttle family and several other Lyme sufferers,
medical practitioners and experts were featured.
Chronic Lyme disease is a condition deemed nonexistent by one major medical group — the Infectious
Diseases Society of America (IDSA), The IDSA group in 2006 set Lyme treatment guidelines touting a
two-to-four week dose of antibiotics. Those standards, Tuttle said, are restrictive and impact patient
care because insurance carriers follow the narrow guidelines and too often deny coverage.
Tuttle’s respite from symptoms is incomplete and he continues to use long-term antibiotics. He notes
that only a small window of opportunity exits — up to 30 days after being bitten — in which to secure a
timely diagnosis and the antibiotic treatments that frequently offer a cure when promptly administered.
Traditionally, according to the Mayo Clinic and other medical institutions, a course of 10-14 days of oral
doses of doxycycline for adults and children age 8 or older, or amoxicillin or cefuroxime for expectant or
breast-feeding women and children under age 8 is prescribed.
Conflicting opinions abound concerning the diagnosis of the disease. It is one with symptoms that may
mimic other conditions — chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia (muscle pain), multiple sclerosis,
ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), Parkinson’s disease, Lupus, Alzheimer’s and others.
Tuttle recently said, “Many medical practitioners know little about the disease and tend to dismiss
symptoms as vague. A red rash esembling the concentric circles of a bulls-eye target at the point of the
tick bite is a tip-off to experts but many people do not get the rash — or they get an irregularly shaped
version of it.” Tuttle, 54 was an outside sales rep with a 25-year high-tech career supplying major
corporations with UNIX-based computer hardware. Chronic Lyme disease ended his career. He has
not fully regained his health and continues to struggle with the life-altering disease. His wife, Janet, and
his daughter, Erika, 21, also have chronic, ongoing, Lyme disease, although only Erika recalls being
bitten by a tick.
Much controversy is attached to the subject of Lyme diagnosis. Conflicting sets of guidelines from two
major groups of experts exist, for one set of guidelines is much narrower in its focus than the other. The
IDSA and the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) are at the forefront of the
divergent opinions.
The IDSA offers a narrow definition of the disease and requires either a positive blood test or presence
of a rash in the affected area as proof of Lyme. The group does not recognize long-term, chronic Lyme.
It proposes a short course of antibiotic treatment, 21 days or less. Once the course of treatment is
completed, any infection is considered cleared and patients are dismissed as cured.
The ILADS guidelines, on the other hand, state that diagnostic tests are often not sensitive enough to
rule out Lyme disease. The organization also allows for the possibility that some patients may
encounter Lyme as a chronic state and require continued antibiotic therapy to fully treat the infection.
The differences were among those presented at a Lyme conference held on Aug. 18 at the Division of
Public Health Services’ Department of Health and Human Services in Concord. The assembly was
organized by Tuttle and other Lyme experts to share information between clinicians representing late-
stage Lyme patients and public health officials.
Proposed resolutions urged that Lyme testing should include both Elisa and Western Blot to rule out
false-negative Elisa results. Also stressed was that patients should, through “Informed Consent,” be
made aware of the unreliability of existing diagnostic tests.
The resolutions presented at the end of the conference also urged that health insurance companies in
New Hampshire pay for both Lyme diagnostic tests — Elisa and Western Blot — not just the Elisa test.
Tuttle states that insurance will not cover the Western Blot and wonders if the omission is intentional,
as a way of limiting the numbers of Lyme cases and thus the insurers’ monetary reimbursements to
patients.
Conference attendees also heard pleas for the Department of Health to educate medical practitioners
regarding the low reliability of the Elisa test, one found in a two-year study by John Hopkins University to
be reliable less than 50-percent of the time. Tuttle added to the recommendations the need for a task
force to be appointed by the Governor to investigate the misdiagnosis of Lyme disease.
“Those of us who have lost jobs, savings, 401k funds and homes to this devastating disease were all
misdiagnosed,” said Tuttle. “We missed the narrow window of opportunity for successful short-term
treatment. We want to see an end to this needless suffering.”
Other actions reflect the scope of the problem in New Hampshire. Earlier this year, House Bill 295,
sponsored by Rep. Gary Daniels, of Milford, became law. It sought to protect physicians’ rights to
choose appropriate treatment protocols for atients with Lyme disease and was passed after an 18-
month journey through the legislative process.
Tuttle said that at the bill’s first public hearing in 2010, more than 200 supporters came forward to
impress upon legislators that chronic Lyme does indeed exist. The New Hampshire Lyme Legislation
Committee he credits for untold hours of work, culminating in passage of the bill, was headed by Rep.
Gary Daniels, Nancy Bourassa, Julie Hall, David Hunter, Cathy Kettmann and Greg Kettmann.
“New Hampshire doctors,” Tuttle said, “are under pressure from the medical community and insurance
companies to treat Lyme with a very limited antibiotic regimen, according to the IDSA guidelines —
standards which deny the existence of chronic Lyme disease. The bill safeguards their efforts to help
people, long term.”
Legislation to protect clinicians who treat late-stage Lyme with long-term antibiotics has been passed
in seven states: Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New York, Texas and now, New Hampshire.
Legislation is pending in Pennsylvania. Support groups are proliferating in nearly every state.
Tuttle asks, “Why is it true that all of us know someone who has been severely debilitated by Lyme
disease when the CDC and the IDSA claim that Lyme is easily diagnosed and easily treated with a
short course of antibiotics?”
Dr. Julia Greenspan, a Merrimack resident who heads the Greenhouse Naturopathic Medicine in Hollis,
is regarded by many Lyme patients as one of the region’s most Lyme-literate physicians and one who
is treating many victims. She was a featured speaker at the aforementioned Lyme conference, held on
Aug. 18 in Concord, where she talked about the state of Lyme disease in New Hampshire and its
impact on residents.
Greenspan, told the New Hampshire Herald that she, too, has been recently diagnosed with Lyme
disease. She said she doesn’t remember being bit by a tick, just as the majority of her patients don’t
remember being bitten. She said the symptoms are sometimes easy to explain away. She is a new
mother. New moms are supposed to be tired, she said. She works out. Sore muscles are inevitable,
she said. She added that she saw no bulls-eye rash. But she knew something was very wrong.
“Living in this area — there are ticks in the backyard and in many places,” said Greenspan. “Here,
everyone should be screened for Lyme. In my practice, if I get any red flags, I explain about Lyme and
we get to testing. People are surprised. But a person will get over a course of antibiotics much easier
than from the suffering caused by the disease.”
She too urged constant surveillance. Texts on Lyme disease prevention commonly recommend that
people working or playing outdoors wear light-colored apparel against which ticks can be quickly
spotted. Long-sleeved, white shirts and light colored pants with the legs tucked into white socks are
helpful during the routine inspection for ticks that should follow any stint out of doors.
A hat or cap may keep ticks off a person’s head. Nevertheless, once back indoors, a person should
have a full-body search, including the scalp, behind the ears, in the armpits and in the groin area. Help
from another person may be needed for areas hard to view by oneself.
Greenspan too urged caution when it comes to pets. She said dogs can be affected by Lyme. Ticks can
hitch a ride on a pet. She said it has to get below 40 degrees for a tick, an insect that lives for some four
years, to be rendered inactive. That means the beautiful, autumn season residents are now enjoying is
one that’s a period of business-as-usual to bloodthirsty ticks.
“The medical system sort of puts blinders on,” said Greenspan. “Yesterday, I examined a five-year old
whose parents brought in the tick. Lyme is a problem that will continue to grow. It is very confusing and
insurance won’t cover what’s needed. They’ll run an MRI, a spinal test, a CAT scan — but won’t run a
Western Blot — a test which costs a couple hundred dollars.”
Tuttle added comment that Lyme-literate doctors are increasing in number and that ILADS, especially,
has undertaken a stellar role in educating medics and the public about Lyme disease recognition,
prevention and treatment. He said awareness of the disease is growing but much more needs to be
done. Additional information on diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease can be found on the ILADS
website: www.ilads.org
The Greater Manchester Lyme Disease Support Group, a group with a membership approaching 500
people, meets on the third Wednesday of every month at 7 p.m. at the First Congregational Church of
Manchester, 508 Union Street. The facilitator is David Hunter. Hunter also facilitates the New
Hampshire Lyme Disease Support Group for Teens, held at the same location on the fourth
Wednesday of every month. Info is available via email: dhunter31@gmail.com or by phone: 603-488-
5371.