Focus – Opinions and Features

by Jennifer Shea In 2016, I had a flu-like illness with a sudden onset of neck and back pain. I suspected Lyme disease, so my physician ordered the two-tiered test. It was negative. Thus began a two-year quest to find the cause of my unrelenting neck pain and a growing list of... Read More »

By Meghan Ward As a young, adventurous girl, I loved exploring the outdoors and its beauty.  I grew up on Long Island, where the threat of ticks is high and playing in the woods did not reduce my chances of being infected. Around the age of seven, I was bitten by a tick and... Read More »

Phyllis Mervine prepared the following remarks as public comment to the federal Tick-Borne Disease Working Group. Due to phone connectivity problems, however, she was unable to deliver them herself. Therefore, at April 27’s online meeting, they were read to the panel by... Read More »

By Julie Starling The other night, as I soaked in an Epsom salt bath, I found myself missing my Siberian husky. We lost her in February, at age 12.5 years, to lymphoma. During my years of treating Lyme, she would barge in on me during my baths, whimpering. She knew how painful... Read More »

by Kris Newby In 2002, my husband and I became seriously ill after a vacation to Martha’s Vineyard. It took ten doctors and a year to discover the root cause: We’d been bitten by unseen ticks harboring the parasites that cause Lyme disease and babesiosis, a... Read More »

by Sandra Berenbaum, LCSW, BCD While the world deals with COVID-19—how to be safe, how to protect our citizens and essential medical workers, and the politics of it all—my thoughts go to the kids with tick-borne illness, PANS/PANDAS, neurotoxicity from mold, and other related... Read More »

By Daniel A. Kinderlehrer, MD Brad’s parents brought him to see me when he was eleven years old. He was scratched by a cat at age two and developed enlarged lymph nodes in his neck. As a toddler, he began experiencing episodes of inconsolable crying and rocking. By age five, he... Read More »

Phyllis Mervine gave the following public comments via telephone, during the recent federal Tick-Borne Disease Working Group meeting. The single most important thing the Working Group can do right now for the Lyme community and all the patients suffering with Lyme disease is to... Read More »

Mira Shapiro delivered the following public comments at the recent meeting of the federal Tick-Borne Disease Working Group in Philadelphia. My name is Mira Shapiro. I am here today on behalf of LymeDisease.org. I am also a chronic Lyme disease patient and a biostatistician. My... Read More »