Lyme Disease? Travel to US to treat Australian Tick Bourne Illness (ABC)

14 May, 2010 1:15PM AEST
Lyme disease?
By Pam MacIntosh

Natalie and her three year old daughter Matilda have been diagnosed with the disease

According to the Health Department Lymes disease does not exist in Australia but for Natalie Young of Coffs Harbour it certainly does.

Natalie and her three year old daughter Matilda have been diagnosed with the disease via tests carried out in the United States but are frustrated and fearful of ongoing medical implications because they cannot get a confirmed diagnosis of the tick-borne disease in this country.

This is because a large section of the medical fraternity believes it does not exist in Australia.

Stephen Graves, the director of microbiology at the Hunter Area Pathology says "Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that is transmitted to patients by the bite of an infected tick".

He says people will usually "get an early skin reaction and depending on the patient it can be an acute illness and they get over it or it can go on to become a chronic illness where they get involvement of the joints and heart and neurological system and people can even finish up with a chronic fatigue syndrome type illness associated with chronic Lyme disease".

Apparently in North America and Europe it is quite a common disease but in Australia there is a big there is a question mark over whether it is even here or not.

Dr Graves says "there are two schools of thought about Lyme disease. There's the majority school of thought that it doesn't occur here but of course one should keep an open mind one may be wrong, the other school of thought of which there are few proponents are that it does occur here, so when you are in this particular situation it's hard for the patient because they've got one group of Dr's who think this and another group of Dr's who think that. But clearly they've got something wrong with them, if it's not Lyme disease its something else and it needs to be diagnosed and it needs to be treated, so I have a great deal of sympathy for them".

Natalie believes she contracted the disease through being bitten by hundreds of ticks when she worked as a National Parks and Wildlife Service officer.
She says the signs first appeared 6 to 8 months after she was bitten in 2002 with aching in her joints followed by anxiety attacks.

As a bush regeneration officer with national parks she continued to be bitten by ticks and following the birth of her daughter her symptoms became more apparent.
Natalie is finding it difficult to find paediatric treatment for her daughter and it seems they may have to go to the United States to seek assistance."

Quoted from: http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2010/05/14/2899629.htm?site=northcoast