the Cost of Lyme Disease

A recent headline states,

 A 'hidden epidemic' in the US has ballooned into a public-health fiasco — and no solutions are in sight.

According to Business Insider,
             "A recent study goes beyond human suffering inflicted by Lyme disease to estimate the monetary cost of this "hidden epidemic," as some call it. Researchers sifted through the health-insurance claims of 47 million people and discovered a staggering financial burden incurred by tens of thousands treated for Lyme disease — possibly more than $1 billion a year in the US alone."

These costs could potentially be avoided by public education and, when presented with a tick bite, proper first treatment of at least 3-4 weeks of antibiotics. Unfortunately, most medical doctors in Ventura County will fiercely state that there is no Lyme Disease here and, when presented with a potential lyme case will, at best, prescribe a minimum antibiotic protocol of 2 weeks.  This may be due to the fact that the minimal tick testing done by the Public Health Department did not find Lyme spirochetes.

I spent a lot of money out of pocket while treating Lyme.  Insurance also spent a lot…  I haven't tried to add it up, but antibiotic prescriptions, a total of 5 different antibiotics over a nine month period, must have totaled many thousands of dollars.  And then the costs of diagnosing, treating, and tracking cancer for the rest of my life…  hundreds of thousands of dollars!

Lyme disease is now the most common vector born disease in the United States and Europe, with AT LEAST 300,000 new cases in the US each year.    Adding the lost productivity of those who are misdiagnosed and untreated for this debilitating infection, the societal costs of this disease are astronomical!