Local health groups, Hawkesbury man say public education on Lyme disease is needed

With the return of spring, an often-misundersood illness is getting some more attention in Eastern Ontario.

Local health agencies are joining a Hawkesbury man in calling for better awareness of Lyme disease.

The illness is not very common in Eastrn Ontario, but the ticks which carry its infection could be becoming more common in the region due to climate change.  

Linda Cleroux is the program coordinator for infectious diseases at the Eastern Ontario Health Unit.

She said the Health Unit is currently seeking to educate the public about Lyme disease. The campaign is similar to one undertaken against West Nile Virus, which is also carried by insects.

Currently the EOHU does not keep statistics about infections or diseases that have less than five confirmed cases a year.

However, Cleroux said Lyme disease is present in Eastern Ontario and there have been confirmed sufferers in the region.

"We have information on our website, people can call the health line, we investigate any suspect cases and we provide physicians with information. We remind them that if they suspect something, they should be testing and asking questions," she said.

A misunderstood condition, says sufferer
George Pawlus, who is a resident of Hawkesbury, says he suffers from Lyme disease and at one point was bed-ridden by symptoms, receiving antibiotics into his bloodstream through an intravenous pump.

He is trying to educate people about this little-known illness, which is treated with antibiotics.

Pawlus said he first started having health problems around 2006 and visited many doctors. He says he suffered from bouts of blurry vision, memory loss, motion sickness, cramps, ringing in the ears, joint pain as well as hives and constant fatigue among other symptoms.

While Lyme disease is usually signaled by a reddish bite mark with a white ring, like a bulls-eye, Pawlus did not remember having such a mark. One difficult aspect of Lyme disease is that people sometimes develop symptoms many weeks or months after a bite, making diagnosis more difficult.  

In Pawlus' case, Canadian doctors' first diagnosis was Fibromyalgia - another mysterious illness believed to be caused by either genetics, stress or sleep disturbances.

However, Pawlus said he was not satisfied with the diagnosis as it did not address many of his symptoms.

He later hired a specialist doctor in New York City whose diagnosis was Lyme disease.

According to Pawlus, blood tests found evidence of Lyme bacteria in his blood and MRIs have shown white-matter brain lesions, which can be signs of Lyme infection.

Pawlus has since had the diagnosis confirmed by several private clinics in the United States and devoted much time and money to learning more about the illness.

His basement contains thousands of pages of information about the illness and he works alongside the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation as "a kind of local information centre" for fellow sufferers.

He has also attended rallies on Parliament Hill and hopes to organize a meeting in Hawkesbury to screen a documentary about the illness.

He believes Lyme disease is chronically misdiagnosed in Canada and said doctors are often hesitant to prescribe large doses of antibiotics which are required to treat the bacterial infection.

"We do have a problem with some medical professionals, some of them don't recognize it," Pawlus said.

"The Great Imitator."
Jane Lyster, director of health protection with the Leeds, Grenville and District Health Unit, said Lyme disease is a growing concern in Ontario.

It is believed that climate change is causing a migration of the ticks further north, above locations in New York State where they were known to reside.
According to Lyster, the Brockville hospital encountered about seven cases of Lyme disease in 2008. The Health Unit has also made presentations to outdoor groups, hunters, firefighters and other community agencies in the area.

"We've been aware of it for a long time, but in terms of it being in our area, I would say it's been the last two years," she said. "Thankfully the ticks are not yet endemic to our region."

Pierre Campeau, who works with Canadian Blood Services in Nothern and Eastern Ontario, said people with Lyme disease are deferred from donating blood until they are no longer taking antibiotics.

However, as is the case with much of Canadian Blood Services' screening, a lot of it depends on what donors are willing to divulge or know about themselves, Campeau wrote in an e-mail.

"Canadian Blood Services is not aware of any cases of transfusion-transmitted Lyme disease in Canada. However, as a precautionary measure, people with Lyme disease are deferred from donating blood until they are asymptomatic and no longer taking antibiotics.  Potential donors are asked many questions during the screening process that are designed to ensure the safety of the blood supply.  If a donor is not feeling well, is under a doctor's care or is experiencing neurological problems, they are also deferred."

Some of the precautions recommended by the EOHU include the use of insect repellent, wearing long pants while walking in the woods and checking pets for ticks and fleas. "Animals tend to go off the beaten track and can bring ticks into the home," said Cleroux.

The EOHU also provides a service for mailing insects to a research lab if a suspicious tick is found.

According to Cleroux, there is no specialist in infectious diseases in the Eastern Ontario region but Eastern Ontario residents send about 20 ticks per year to the National Microbiology lab in Winnipeg.

In 2007, the EOHU operated a campaign of "active surveillance" with Ontario's Ministry of Health, combing local forests and looking for ticks.

However, no Lyme-bearing ticks were identified and the program was cancelled.

"We do have cases of Lyme disease in Eastern Ontario, but it doesn't mean that it was acquired in this region. People could have been hiking in New York State, for instance. You can never be certain," Cleroux said. 

Lyme disease was first discovered in the 1970s and in recent years has been the subject of public education campaigns in Ontario, southern British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

THIS WEEK ONLINE:
See a sound a slide show featuring George Pawlus, discussing living with Lyme disease. It also features images of a group on Parliament Hill campaigning for greater Lyme disease awareness.