RE: Fatal Lyme carditis presenting as fluctuating high-grade atrioventricular block
References
Milena Semproni, Richard Rusk, Terence Wuerz. Fatal Lyme carditis presenting as fluctuating high-grade atrioventricular block. CMAJ 2020;192:E574-E577.
https://tinyurl.com/ybhgtlnb
https://tinyurl.com/ycz96es9
https://tinyurl.com/ybbfaxtk
https://tinyurl.com/y7nu9ac5
I am glad to see that this case was reported.
Lyme disease is a very serious disease, hard to diagnose, and difficult to treat unless caught very early. That almost never occurs in Canada as confirmed by this published paper. https://tinyurl.com/ybhgtlnb
The requirement for the person to have been in a known endemic area as part of the diagnostic criteria is negligence. Ticks are found anywhere that birds fly as they transport these ticks everywhere, randomly. Likewise, the rash should not be part of the criteria unless it is present. Only a small subset of borrelia bacteria will cause any rash. https://tinyurl.com/ycz96es9 Only 18% of children studied in Nova Scotia with confirmed cases had any rash at all. The rash occurs much less that 50% of the time https://tinyurl.com/ybbfaxtk and of the rashes that do occur, only 9% take the over-imprinted 'bull's eye' form. https://tinyurl.com/y7nu9ac5
Canadian protocol and physician education for diagnosis and treatment is terrible and misleading. Patients and their experts have been trying to tell those who control all aspects of Lyme disease in Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), and the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease of Canada, for over a decade that we need to be at the decision making table but we have been denied, against all recommendations including that of the Canadian Institute of Health Research who acknowledge that true patient engagement is a must at every step of the way. Instead we have a clique of self appointed 'experts' connected to the Infectious Disease Society of America who deny scientific and medical ethic and whom now sit at every major level of policy making in Canada, provincially and federally, including at PHAC. It is officially a closed door policy to patients and their experts. They have monopolized Lyme policy across Canada.
My daughter has a permanent pacemaker from Lyme disease. Her heart needs the pacemaker despite treatment. She has never tested positive using the Canadian tests but tested positive at New York State approved testing, who have the most rigorous certification in the USA. Her initial cardiologist refused to accept the certified test results and in front of my wife and I told her to go home and quit being a stressed out teenage girl. We fired him. Luckily though another family physician she was referred right away to a Canadian arrhythmia specialist who spent an entire morning running tests. He said she would not survive without a pacemaker. Her heart would race up to over 150 beats per minute then suddenly drop to 30 beats per minute where she was barely conscious. But this occurred intermittently as much of the time her heart functioned relatively normally.
The Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation, through the help of a wonderful donor can now offer financial assistance to physicians wishing to take CME accredited courses on Lyme disease, borreliosis in general and coinfections.