| JWissmille 2004-10-24, 2:08 am |
| http://www.app.com/app/story/0,21625,1080308,00.html
Lyme disease a growing threat across the nation
Published in the Asbury Park Press 10/14/04
By NAOMI MUELLER
STAFF WRITER
When Ellen Salinas' doctor diagnosed her with Lyme disease 18 years ago, the
Manalapan woman said she didn't know what he was talking about.
"I had never heard of it," said Salinas, who, at the time, had been
suffering from flu-like symptoms including lackluster energy, sore muscles
and joints, and an upset stomach.
Salinas' unfamiliarity with Lyme disease was not unusual. After all, at the
time of her diagnosis, the Manalapan woman said she was one of only a
handful of New Jersey residents who had been diagnosed with the tick-borne
illness.
Today, New Jerseyans, as well as residents across the country, are much more
familiar with Lyme disease, currently considered one of the fastest growing
infectious diseases in New Jersey.
Although most frequently associated with a bull's eye rash, as few as 50
percent of people infected with Lyme disease develop a rash. Other symptoms
include a fever, fatigue, headache and muscle or joint pain. If untreated,
Lyme disease patients may develop arthritis, aseptic meningitis, facial
palsy, motor or sensory nerve inflammation, inflammation of the brain and,
in more rare cases, heart problems.
In the more than 13 years since the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention in Atlanta began tracking Lyme disease, more than 26,000 people
have been diagnosed with the disease in New Jersey alone. It's a number
experts believe represents as few as one-tenth of the total number of people
who actually contract the disease. New Jersey ranked third in the nation in
Lyme cases last year, with 2,887 reported to the CDC that year.
Why the dramatic increase? No one really knows.
Yet experts attribute at least part of the climb in Lyme diagnoses to what
they say is an increased awareness of the disease by both patients and their
doctors.
CDC epidemiologist Stacie Marshall said she believes the growth of the
nation's deer population and the suburbanization of the country's population
into heavily wooded areas, where ticks tend to live, has also caused the
increase.
"People are simply having more contact with the ticks that can transmit Lyme
disease, even in their own back yards," Marshall said. "People really enjoy
having that sort of forested, outdoorsy ecology right around. There's just
more chance to have more contact."
Although 95 percent of the 23,763 new Lyme disease cases reported to the CDC
came from Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Maine, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania
and Wisconsin, the disease is spreading even farther.
Pat Smith, president of the Jackson-based Lyme Disease Association, said she
has received telephone calls from residents of states she never imagined
would be stricken with the disease.
"Now you can find them almost everywhere," said Smith, who listed Vermont,
Maine, Texas and Florida as areas with few to no Lyme cases years ago. "It's
really incredible."
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