Pediatric Tickborne Disease Specialists

Dr. Charles Ray Jone

Dr. Charles Ray Jones is the world’s foremost expert on tick-borne diseases in children. Scientific writer Pam Weintraub wrote about him and his young patients in A Feeling for the Organism (Lyme Times #32).

"As the eighties passed, the children coming to Jones’ practice presented with increasingly severe disease. Often unrecognized and untreated by other physicians, they had progressed beyond the initial, arthritic symptoms of his first patients, manifesting not only the sweep of problems meticulously recorded by Steere, but many others as well. “I found the disease could impact almost any organ of the body, or the whole body, in systemic fashion,” says Jones. While many patients presented with rash and arthritis, of course, cognitive and neurological symptoms were increasingly prevalent. Some patients were blind, some so fatigued they could not sit or walk, and some violent, or apparently autistic, or paralyzed by the sudden eruption of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD.) Depending upon where the spirochetes gravitated in the body, and what particular strain of bacteria was involved, presentation could be gastrointestinal, neurological, cardiac, dermatological, arthritic, urological, ocular, or a combination of these. There might be just a single symptom, such as a severe, unending headache, or a multitude of symptoms, so that a child’s entire body was wracked by pain." To download story, click here.

Dr. Jones’ clinical acumen and extensive experience with over 10,000 young patients led him to the practice of continuing antibiotic therapy until all symptoms resolve. His paper titled Rationale on Long Term Antibiotic Therapy in Treating Lyme Disease may be downloaded by clicking here.

Dorothy Pietrucha, MD

Dorothy Pietrucha, MD, a pediatric neurologist, presents an overview of diagnosis and treatment with case histories in a paper, Neurological Manifestations of Lyme Disease in Children, on LymeNet. To download this paper, click here.

Ann Corson, MD

Ann Corson, MD, board certified family practitioner, has a full time Lyme and tick-borne disease practice in Chester County, PA. She has worked with Drs. Joseph Burrascano (Long Island, NY) and Charles Ray Jones (New Haven, CT) in their offices on grants provided by ILADS. Her interest in pediatric Lyme took off when her son was diagnosed with Lyme after a long illness. You can read his story beginning on page 33 of the special Children’s Education issue of the Lyme Times, #45. Click here to download.

Dr. Corson shares her slideshow on pediatric Lyme disease. View by clicking here.

Dr. Corson also made a slide presentation to a group of psychiatrists. These slides emphasize neuropsychiatric presentations of Lyme disease and include case studies of three teenagers. Click here to view.

Psychotherapist Sandy Berenbaum, LCSW, BCD

Psychotherapist Sandy Berenbaum, LCSW, BCD, has devoted much of her career to children and adolescents with Lyme disease. She is the Mental Health Editor and the Children’s Editor of the Lyme Times. Read her story Kids and Lyme Disease – How It Affects Their Learning, which describes the problems and offers both practical and therapeutic solutions. Click here to download.

Read Berenbaum and Cohen’s paper, Lyme Disease - a Psychotherapy Perspective on the role of the psychotherapist in helping children with Lyme disease by clicking here.

Read Berenbaum et al’s 1999 handbook on Treatment of Adolescents with Neuropsychiatric Lyme Disease by clicking here.

Read Marcus Cohen’s 2006 in-depth interview with Sandy Berenbaum and Lyme Disease Association President Pat Smith by clicking here.

Psychiatrist Virgina Sherr

Pennsylvania psychiatrist Virgina Sherr has treated children with Lyme disease. She also happens to be a prolific and talented writer who has contributed many stories to the Lyme Times. Read her poignant story of a teenager with Lyme disease who ended up in a juvenile detention unit before she met Dr. Sherr, and another young man who was in jail. Both of these young people, Dr. Sherr laments, “ have lost any idea of what they really are like, what they are capable of, or who they could be. They do not remember and have lost track of the person they started out to be.” Click here