Results 1-20 of 29 for lyme disease segment:6099950

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

Regina Doherty: Notwithstanding the arrows being thrown around with regard to particular institutions, how would one conduct a test for Lyme disease if there were no antibodies? The witnesses have spent the past number of hours explaining that one will get a diagnosis if one is testing for the disease itself or the body's reaction to antibodies. How can somebody go to Timbuktu and get tested and receive a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

...test examines stimulated cells, the two tests seek different things which may have come from the same source. There will always be some tests which are slightly divergent. Another spirochetal disease is very similar to Lyme disease and has three phases. We screen for this and do two other tests afterwards. Quite frequently we have divergent results because each test examines different...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

..., if I phone a general practitioner with a strong positive result for somebody with a facial nerve palsy, which is one of the neurological manifestations which comes on reasonably early in Lyme disease, it will be sent to the reference laboratory. I know it will take three weeks to come back so I will suggest the patient is treated so the Lyme disease will be treated as early as possible....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

Dr. Bartley Cryan: One can get positive Lyme disease serology with rheumatoid arthritis or autoimmune conditions. Many conditions make it very difficult for one to diagnose anything serologically. In the reference laboratory in which I worked, if we had a positive test for Lyme disease, we tested for three or four other illnesses to exclude them because one can have cross-reacting...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

Dr. Paul McKeown: I should clarify for Deputy Doherty that when I spoke about chronic Lyme disease I meant that there are chronic conditions. In terms of chronic seronegative Lyme disease, the human body is designed to fight off alien substances, including infections. One of the ways it does this is through antibodies. My feeling is that if somebody has an infection, they must mount an...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

Brendan Griffin: Can I go back to my constituent and tell her there is no way that if she is positive for Lyme disease, the labs in Ireland would have missed it on foot of the tests that were carried out? Could I confidently say that is what the witnesses are saying to her here today?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

Catherine Byrne: If someone goes away and is told he or she has Lyme disease, he or she can have the diagnosis corrected here. Is that correct?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

...Cryan: The two Deputies asked what the reaction will be where someone gets a diagnosis abroad and returns to the country. Generally speaking, where someone has a diagnosis of an infectious disease from abroad, the treating physician and-or GP will redo the tests, serologies, etc. here. The person will be treated exactly the same as anyone else. In the UK roughly 15% of Lyme disease is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

...causes of those conditions. If a treatable cause can be found, the onus will be on the neurologist and the investigating doctors to exclude as vigorously as possible all treatable causes. Lyme disease, being one of the treatable causes, would be vigorously pursued by the neurologist and the investigating doctors. It is not that the patient wishes he or she has Lyme disease; it is that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

...mentioned international conferences. There has been quite an amount of debate, both verbally at conferences and in the literature, about this whole subject. Following a diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease, the scientific basis for protracted antibiotic therapy for this poorly defined condition is non-existent. When it becomes existent. the treatment, modification and management of it will...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

Dr. Darina O'Flanagan: I will pick up on the issue of following the science. I wish to comment on two trials that have followed up patients who have been treated for Lyme disease and that have compared them with healthy controls. One of the studies, a Slovenian study, shows that the symptoms after treatment at six and 12 months were the same in the treated group as the control population....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

Dr. Darina O'Flanagan: It is important, when speaking about chronic Lyme disease, that we differentiate between people who have been treated for it and those who have not because, obviously, those who have not been treated for it can go on to develop the chronic complications referred to, be it neuroborreliosis or arthritic manifestations. There is a danger in labelling people who do not...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

Brendan Griffin: I thank the delegates for attending. I have received a letter from a constituent on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry who believes she contracted Lyme disease when hiking in Killarney National Park. Kerry is one of the counties identified as high risk in that regard. The experience of the person in question has been absolutely appalling. Despite undergoing numerous tests in Ireland,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

Regina Doherty: ...out the results are negative. Is there a common reason for this? I may have misunderstood an earlier response, but, as I understand it, according to Dr. McKeown, there is what is called chronic Lyme disease. However, according to Dr. Cryan, there can be no such disease if there are no antibodies. If antibodies are detected, there is such a thing as chronic Lyme disease. If antibodies...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

Billy Kelleher: ...between the accreditation systems in Germany and Ireland? Is the laboratory in Germany acting independently? Many people have told us that they were diagnosed in Germany as having chronic Lyme disease. Is it the view of the delegates that the accreditation system in Germany is not up to scratch or that some laboratories there are acting outside internationally accepted accreditation...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

...Bonner: In regard to the difference in numbers, I will let Dr. Darina O'Flanagan deal with that. The difference to the diagnosis Dr. Cryan referred to relates to the total number of cases of Lyme disease, whereas I am discussing notifications which relate to neuroborreliosis, a very specific neurological complication of it. Dr. O'Flanagen will talk to that. Dr. McKeown will explain the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

Dr. Paul McKeown: I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to respond. I will discuss the toolkit first. It was an initiative developed between the European Centre for Disease Control, ECDC, which is the equivalent of the CDC in the United States of America. It is an overarching infectious control forum for the member states in managing infectious diseases. Across Europe there are a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

Regina Doherty: ...if my questions have been asked by previous speakers. I was struck by the differences between the figures provided by Dr. Bonner and Dr. Cryan on the number of patients who were diagnosed with Lyme disease last year. Will the witnesses explain the difference between their figures? Both Dr. Bonner and Dr. Cryan suggested that Lyme disease is underdiagnosed. Why is that the case? Is it...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

Dr. Bartley Cryan: I will deal with the easiest question first. Redwater disease in cattle is caused by an organism called babesia, which is common in this country and is spread by the same tick that causes Lyme disease. A different version of the disease found in New England is much more serious. Humans can contract babesiosis and the literature records in the order of five or six cases...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Prevention and Treatment of Lyme Disease: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Dec 2014)

...the results compared. This is done on an ongoing basis in all areas. All the medical staff in the department undergo full continuing medical education and so forth. Teaching and knowledge of Lyme disease are widespread in medicine. As I stated, I work in an area where there are four highly active neurologists for adults and one for children. In many cases, they want to find a...