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MDs should get Lyme disease training

Re: “Lyme disease needs research,” June 14. Thank goodness for people such as Elizabeth May and David Cubberley, who are fighting the apparent denial that Lyme disease is alive and well.

Re: “Lyme disease needs research,” June 14.

Thank goodness for people such as Elizabeth May and David Cubberley, who are fighting the apparent denial that Lyme disease is alive and well.

I am not sure why diagnosis of Lyme disease is so laborious in B.C. Several years ago, I was bitten by a tick when working in the bush and soon developed a frozen neck. I received an incorrect diagnosis from the walk-in clinic I attended before leaving the next day for a vacation in the U.K., where I received a quick and correct diagnosis by a physician who was familiar with the disease, since he had seen it in Scotland.

Two weeks of treatment with doxycycline did the trick and I was cured.

I would recommend that all general practitioners who have not yet been given training in recognizing Lyme disease receive it as soon as possible and be more willing to prescribe doxycycline at the first signs of the disease. 

Brian Tetlow

Victoria