3 ms·

Someone with even a remote familiarity with the practice of medicine would not refer to Lyme disease, one of the great imitators, as 'trivial'. The rest of your

Someone with even a remote familiarity with the practice of medicine would not refer to Lyme disease, one of the great imitators, as 'trivial'. The rest of your post, though forceful, similarly suffers from having no idea what you are talking about. Regarding the length of time from the onset of low-risk chronic diseases (unpleasant though they may be), you are right that this is a problem but dead wrong about the cause. The problem is overspecialization and undercoordination. An inherent idiocy in the practitioners would be an easy problem to remedy; the truth is much more pernicious.

Alex3917 17y ago
"Someone with even a remote familiarity with the practice of medicine would not refer to Lyme disease, one of the great imitators, as 'trivial'." The fact that it is an imitator makes it easier to diagnose, because a competent doctor will test you for it whenever you have unexplained symptoms. While it's true that the blood tests aren't very accurate, most of the problem is that doctors just don't get people tested in the first place. And even for chronic lyme that is undetectable because it supposedly forms cysts within the cells, there is a new test up to 50x more accurate than the standard test being developed that you can have access to if you're willing to be part of the trial group.
- sailormoon 17y ago
  The fact that it is an imitator makes it easier to diagnose, because a competent doctor will test you for it whenever you have unexplained symptoms. That is a very unfair thing to say, IMO. You cannot just do unlimited blood tests for everyone who might possibly be at risk of $something. Lyme disease is notoriously hard to diagnose and also very rare. It is unfortunate that the case you referred to turned out the way it did. Our medical knowledge is far from perfect, and no doubt it was a learning experience for everyone involved. But it's going way too far to call the doctors "incompetent". If anything it is our entire medical system that remains "incompetent" and calling out individual practitioners is very unfair.
  - Alex3917 17y ago
    "Lyme disease is notoriously hard to diagnose and also very rare." It's probably one of the most common, if not the most common, systemic diseases. Any time you have multiple symptoms that can't be explained, lyme is pretty much the first thing a competent doctor would test for. Sorry, but any doctor who heard the list of shooter's symtoms and doesn't instantly think lyme is incompetent. And it's really not that rare, even in absolute terms. Off the top of my head I can think of five friends who have gotten it, and those are only the ones I know of.
    - sailormoon 17y ago
      I can think of five friends who have gotten it, and those are only the ones I know of. According to Wikipedia, "the ratio of Lyme disease infection is 7.9 cases for every 100,000 persons". So either you have a staggering number of friends, live in some kind of hot zone ground zero for the disease, or there's some other factor at work. any doctor who heard the list of shooter's symtoms and doesn't instantly think lyme is incompetent You talk like Lyme is a solved problem. I do not believe this to be the case. There is a lot of controversy over the condition and it is one of those diseases that people seize upon to explain symptoms they believe themselves to suffer, regardless of medical fact. Have a read of this: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/17/magazine/17LYMEDISEASE.html http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/17/magazine/17LYMEDISEASE.htm...

Alex3917 17y ago

"Someone with even a remote familiarity with the practice of medicine would not refer to Lyme disease, one of the great imitators, as 'trivial'." The fact that it is an imitator makes it easier to diagnose, because a competent doctor will test you for it whenever you have unexplained symptoms. While it's true that the blood tests aren't very accurate, most of the problem is that doctors just don't get people tested in the first place. And even for chronic lyme that is undetectable because it supposedly forms cysts within the cells, there is a new test up to 50x more accurate than the standard test being developed that you can have access to if you're willing to be part of the trial group.

sailormoon 17y ago
The fact that it is an imitator makes it easier to diagnose, because a competent doctor will test you for it whenever you have unexplained symptoms. That is a very unfair thing to say, IMO. You cannot just do unlimited blood tests for everyone who might possibly be at risk of $something. Lyme disease is notoriously hard to diagnose and also very rare. It is unfortunate that the case you referred to turned out the way it did. Our medical knowledge is far from perfect, and no doubt it was a learning experience for everyone involved. But it's going way too far to call the doctors "incompetent". If anything it is our entire medical system that remains "incompetent" and calling out individual practitioners is very unfair.
- Alex3917 17y ago
  "Lyme disease is notoriously hard to diagnose and also very rare." It's probably one of the most common, if not the most common, systemic diseases. Any time you have multiple symptoms that can't be explained, lyme is pretty much the first thing a competent doctor would test for. Sorry, but any doctor who heard the list of shooter's symtoms and doesn't instantly think lyme is incompetent. And it's really not that rare, even in absolute terms. Off the top of my head I can think of five friends who have gotten it, and those are only the ones I know of.
  - sailormoon 17y ago
    I can think of five friends who have gotten it, and those are only the ones I know of. According to Wikipedia, "the ratio of Lyme disease infection is 7.9 cases for every 100,000 persons". So either you have a staggering number of friends, live in some kind of hot zone ground zero for the disease, or there's some other factor at work. any doctor who heard the list of shooter's symtoms and doesn't instantly think lyme is incompetent You talk like Lyme is a solved problem. I do not believe this to be the case. There is a lot of controversy over the condition and it is one of those diseases that people seize upon to explain symptoms they believe themselves to suffer, regardless of medical fact. Have a read of this: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/17/magazine/17LYMEDISEASE.html http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/17/magazine/17LYMEDISEASE.htm...