Rarity of Lyme disease in Texas belies its danger

04/15/99

By Ray Sasser / The Dallas Morning News

After I watched the five-foot rattlesnake crawl across the McCulloch County pasture last week, my respect was rekindled for nature's own land mines. Spring turkey hunters in particular have a healthy respect for rattlers. Turkey hunters do a lot of traveling in the dark to sneak within calling range of roosting gobblers. They often sit down in cover that's liable to harbor venomous reptiles.

I would never diminish the potential risk of encountering a diamondback or any other species of poisonous snake, but ask yourself this question: How many people do you personally know who have been bitten by a poisonous snake?

For most of us, the answer is zero. Here's another question for you. How many people do you know who've been bitten by a tick? The answer is virtually every person who's spent an appreciable amount of time outdoors.

I'm not suggesting that ticks are more dangerous than rattlesnakes but, given the choice, Hunter Johnson might trade the easily diagnosed trauma of a snakebite for more than three years of misery he suffered as the result of a tick bite.

Hunter Johnson is 9. He lives in Cedar Park, an Austin suburb, with his parents, David and Lisa Johnson. According to his parents, Hunter is feeling pretty good these days. That wasn't always the case. Hunter has Lyme disease, believed to have been contracted by a tick bite at the family ranch nearly three years ago.

Lyme disease is an insidious illness that ebbs and flows, often leaving the victim to suffer flu-like symptoms. If diagnosed early, the disease can be defeated by antibiotics. The problem, said David Johnson, is that many Texas doctors don't know how to diagnose Lyme disease or how to treat chronic cases.

Hunter's own doctor treated the child for 30 months without diagnosing Lyme disease, even when the Johnsons insisted that's what Hunter had. The parents even showed the doctor a photograph of the so-called "bull's-eye rash" left by the tick bite on their son. The rash doesn't always occur and it's not always in the form of a bull's-eye, but some form of rash is a classic indicator for Lyme disease.

Hunter got so sick, he could not attend school. He was in the doctor's office twice a month.

"We had doctors tell us that Lyme disease does not exist in Texas," said Lisa Johnson. "I finally found two books on Lyme disease and started calling everybody I could locate who was mentioned as an authority. I found a doctor in Connecticut who's treated more pediatric cases than anyone. He diagnosed Hunter almost immediately."

Despite the length of his illness, Hunter responded to a treatment of intravenous antibiotics that cost about $6,000 a month. Every 60 days, the Johnsons fly to Connecticut for a checkup. "We continue to say our prayers," said David Johnson.

The Johnsons are doing more than praying. Both David and Lisa have resigned a number of voluntary community jobs and formed the Texas Lyme Coalition. They hope to make everyone, including physicians, aware of the Lyme disease threat. They've set up a Web site at www.txlyme.org.

Also, a new interactive Web site, Lymevaccine.com , provides the latest information about Lyme disease.

May is National Lyme Disease Awareness Month. On May 15, there's a Dallas-Fort Worth area Lyme Disease Foundation Community Education Seminar. The time and site have not been finalized, but those details will be posted on the Texas Lyme Coalition Web site.

In the meantime, said Dr. Pete Teel, an entomology professor at Texas A&M University, Lyme disease is present in Texas, and doctors often do a poor job of diagnosing it. Julie Rawlings of the Texas Department of Health said Lyme disease has been reported in Texas since 1986.

"There are about 70 confirmed Texas cases a year," Teel said. "Many physicians never see a case of Lyme disease. Because the symptoms vary, Lyme disease is often mistaken for other ailments."

Teel's advice is to protect yourself from ticks by judicious use of insect repellents and insecticides. If you are bitten, carefully remove the tick by grasping it as close to the head as possible and pulling gently until the tick releases from the skin. Wipe the bite with alcohol. Place the tick in a vial with a moist paper towel and store it in the refrigerator.

If you begin to suffer suspicious symptoms, the tick can then be tested for Lyme disease or any other tick-borne disease.

Below is a letter to the editor that I sent after reading the above article:

Dallas Morning News Letters to the Editor for Wednesday 04/28/99 Lyme disease Re: "Rarity of Lyme disease in Texas belies its danger," April 15. Ray Sasser's article was a sight to behold. Lyme disease is in fact underreported in Texas, both by the medical community and by the press. It is a tragedy that the family had to travel to Connecticut to obtain treatment. There are many fine physicians in Texas who are fully qualified to treat Lyme disease; they are simply discouraged to treat it. Both my wife and I suffer from Lyme disease. We have found an angel who has seen us through thick-and-thin. However, employers and insurance companies don't like the cost, and put up every roadblock they can think of to thwart treatment. R. JAMES MARTIN, Euless