Patricia Smith, President of the Lyme disease Association, discusses the difficulty of diagnosing and treating Lyme disease.
Patricia Smith, President of the Lyme disease Association, discusses the difficulty of diagnosing and treating Lyme disease.
Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)
“Patients are certainly facing a lot of problems getting diagnosed and getting treated. Those problems stem from the fact [that], first of all, even 43 years into Lyme disease, there’s still a lot of problems with recognizing Lyme disease. The testing is probably about 50% accurate (the test that’s being used now, the 2-step test).
Physicians aren’t always diagnosing Lyme, and so, patients can’t get diagnosed [easily or in a timely manner]. If it takes a long time for diagnosis, then it takes a longer time for a patient to get treatment. [In the] meantime, that bacteria [are] in their body replicating. Therefore, this is very problematic.”
