HOT SPOT: Lyme Disease in Duxbury
As soon as she woke up, Sue Coombs knew something was wrong. I couldnt put my left leg down. There was so much pain in my knee, I couldnt walk."
The date was June 23, 2006. Doctors couldnt give the Standish Shore resident a clear diagnosis she was told she might have everything from Lupus to Fibromyalgia to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. When Lyme disease was suggested, Coombs primary care doctor was skeptical because she didnt have the telltale signs a bulls-eye shaped rash, with a red dot the bite site. An early blood test also turned up negative.
They said it was in my head, youll be fine, just rest, she said. Even her own brother, a doctor himself, didnt believe she had Lyme Disease.
Through it all, the pain persisted.
I was kept awake at night by spasms, she said. You wanted to shriek with pain.
Eventually, Coombs found a Cape Cod-based doctor who put her on a course of high-dose antibiotics, and she began to heal. After being a slave to the disease many wouldnt acknowledge she had, Coombs took her last pill this year on July 4.
The entire ordeal was a long, painful, frustrating journey. And as Coombs discovered, its a journey she shared with many of her neighbors in the Standish Shore neighborhood and other parts of Duxbury.
Many residents in more wooded areas of Duxbury have contracted the disease and that number is growing. In 2001, there was only one reported case of Lyme Disease in Duxbury, according to statistics kept by the Duxbury Board of Health. The numbers grew at an alarming rate from there: eight cases in 2003, 16 in 2004, and 33 in 2005. So far in 2008, there have been 23 reported cases and July is typically the month with the highest incidence of Lyme, according to the CDC.
In 2005, there were 331 cases of Lyme reported in Plymouth County, according to statistics from the Department of Health. The county-wide average incidence rate per 100,000 people is 70. Duxburys incidence rate is 228.
The problem is concrete enough that Duxbury town officials put out feelers to the State Department of Health.
Will Lapsley is an intern with the Duxbury Board of Health, and when he applied for the job he knew Duxbury was looking to try to disseminate more information about Lyme Disease. Lapsley, a public health graduate student from UMass-Amherst (originally from Plymouth) has been working with the town to increase awareness.
Lapsley pointed out that since ticks cannot be controlled with pesticides the way that the Plymouth County sprays for mosquitoes, prevention is really the only way to control the diseases they spread.
What Im trying to get across most is the idea of personal prevention.
Lapsley has been putting up information posters on hiking trails and on the golf courses in town. Duxbury held a forum on Lyme Disease last fall at the Duxbury Free Library that was attended by local residents, and state and county officials. Lapsley is planning two more forums this summer: one at the senior center at 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 5, and another at the library Aug. 7 at 6 p.m.
From: http://duxburyclipper.com
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