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The Lyme Times
Paul Lavoie, MD
By Suzanne Fratus
When I first met Paul Lavoie, I thought
he had to be a nut. How could a tick bite
30 years earlier still be causing such serious
health issues for me? Little did I know that
I had just met one of the most influential
persons in my life.
The first year and a half of treatments
was miserable. Each change of medication
knockedme down again and again. I almost
quit. Although those around me could see
definite improvement in my functioning,
I became discouraged and feared that my
quality of life might never again be worth
the effort I had to expend daily just to live.
Sure, after treatment I could get up from a
chair and walk down a flight of stairs on
my own. But when I compared where I was
with other 35-year old women, my life was
Paul Lavoie diagnosed the first case of
Lyme disease on the West Coast. A pioneer
physician, veteran pilot, amateur singer and
generous mentor, he died of pancreatic
cancer in 1993 at the age of 60.
JP Lavoie photo
FromThe Lyme Times #12, April 1994
Dr. Lavoie was a specialist in rheu-
matology and internal medicine in
private practice in San Francisco since
1973. He held several medical teaching
appointments, including Clinical
Professor of Medicine at UCSF. An
active board participant of national,
state, and local organizations, he was
a Founding Fellow of the American
Rheumatology Association.
In 1977, Dr. Lavoie diagnosed the
first two cases of Lyme disease in
the far-western United States. He
subsequently played a major role
in both the treatment and research
of Lyme disease, often bridging the
gap between the clinician and the
bio-medical community. He treated
hundreds of patients with Lyme
disease, and contributed 25 pub-
lished papers on aspects ranging from
laboratory diagnosis to clinical ap-
proaches. Lecturing widely, he par-
ticipated in special Lyme disease con-
ferences at both the NIH and CDC.
The Pioneers
still a train wreck.
I thanked Paul for his efforts and told
him that I was going to quit taking the
Lyme medication because I wasn't making
progress fast enough. I was sure that there
must be other disease processes going on.
Paul took time to explain
how the various medi-
cations could only in-
terfere with the bacteria
when it was replicating,
and since Lyme was a
very slow replicator it
took long than other
diseases. In the end he
left the decision up to me.
I decided to stick with
oral antibiotics - to give it
more time. That decision
saved my life.
Gradually, even I could
see there was undeniable
progress. In the meantime
I read everything I could
get my hands on about
Borellia
. Soon my
one hour appointment with Paul became
mini lessons in Lyme and other tick-borne
diseases. I was excited to exchanged names
and numbers with other patients in the
waiting room. I began to interview them
in depth about their health histories and
treatment plans..
"This can't all be Lyme disease." I said
to Paul. "There's more here," he told me as
he launched into a quick lecture on co-in-
fections.
Paul was getting heat from the local
rheumatologists and the pressure was on.
Suzanne Fratus, who has written her personal recollection of
Dr. Lavoie, seated with IGeneX president Nick Harris at a Lyme
conference in 2008.
as a Swiss student came back. [I said to
myself], “Willy, these are spirochetes!” The
slide showed long slender forms, a little bit
curved, and they were only in the mid-part
of the tick. Nowhere else. There were so
many people who said, “That is impossible
Willie. You can’t get spirochetes out of hard-
bodied ticks.” [But from my work on] re-
lapsing fever ticks from Africa, I knew what
a spirochete looked like. The Belgian Congo
and Kenya are hot spots for relapsing fever.
Even Livingston [the African explorer and
Scottish missionary] was exposed, and he
called it “tick fever.”
Willy says he remembered Hellerstrom’s
paper and couldn’t help thinking that he
had found “the long-sought causative agent
of
erythema migrans
and possibly also of
Lyme disease.”
Within weeks, Alan Barbour was cul-
turing the spirochetes, and European re-
searchers were looking for spirochetes in
European ticks. Spirochetes were found
in ticks in California and Oregon. There
are now over 10,000 publications on Lyme
disease listed on the National Library of
Medicine website. The spirochete was even-
tually named for the man who discovered it
though he has said he has never been sure if
he is happy about it.