Baltimore Sun

December 6, 2006

Letters to the Editor

Antibiotics ease `Lyme-arthritis'

I want to congratulate The Sun for its editorial on Lyme disease ("Missing the mark," Nov. 30).

My late wife suffered from this horrific malady from 1993 until her passing in 2003 (although she did not die from the disease).

And if you think that diagnosing the disease is a nightmare today, go back 13 years and experience it then.

Lyme disease was virtually unheard of at the time in the Philadelphia area, where we then lived and my wife contracted the disease.

Many of the unlucky patients who contracted Lyme disease in those days now suffer with what I have heard doctors call "Lyme-arthritis."

The only relief a Lyme disease patient can look forward to is heavy doses of antibiotics.

Shame on the Infectious Disease Society of America for issuing guidelines that argue against long-term antibiotic treatment.

But more shame on Maryland legislators who have dropped the ball on behalf of a large number of their constituents.

We need to put the heat on our legislators in the upcoming session and on the new governor to get a bill passed that will do what the original 2005 bill was intended to do.

Bruce F. Bauman

Baltimore

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