The Maine Legislature last month approved LD 597, An Act To Inform Persons of the Options for the Treatment of Lyme Disease, after considerable debate on the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease, a condition that is becoming more prevalent in Maine and throughout the United States.

Lyme disease comes from a bacteria spread through the bite of an eight-legged deer tick, and it manifests in flu-like symptoms, such as fever and chills, muscle and joint pain, headaches and exhaustion.

Now as law, LD 597 mandates that health-care providers who order a laboratory test for Lyme disease provide the patient with a copy of the result of the test, and instructs the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention to provide information on its website regarding alternative treatments for the disease.

The controversy regarding the law stems from the difficulty in diagnosing Lyme disease, and a disagreement among some patients and the established medical community on how to treat it. Mainstream medical opinion – the tract endorsed by the Maine CDC – calls for a short-term regimen of antibiotics to kill the bacteria that causes Lyme disease. Most infectious disease specialists also contend that Lyme disease can be misdiagnosed in patients that have similar symptoms with no known cause.

But some doctors – and their patients – say symptoms can persist after the initial round of antibiotics, so a longer-term regimen is necessary. Some patients have also been frustrated with what they feel is mainstream medicine’s refusal to broaden the view of Lyme disease. In some cases, the patients say, Lyme disease goes undiagnosed by doctors who rely too much on an antibody test that is unreliable. That is why the law forces doctors to give to patients the test results, which state the test’s unreliability.

Outside of this debate, it is clear that Lyme disease is a growing problem. According to the Maine CDC, in 2005, there were 670 cases reported. In 2011, that number grew to 1,011. Reports also show that ticks are heading north and inland.

So the bad news is that it is becoming easier to come in contact with ticks and the debilitating disease they carry. The good news that Lyme disease is fairly easy to prevent with a few precautions. Experts suggest wearing heavier clothing when walking through the woods or fields, or even after being out in the yard. They suggest tucking pant legs into socks to prevent ticks from getting on the skin, and to check yourself thoroughly after being outside. There is also insect repellant that will take care of ticks.

While doctors debate how to deal with the rise in Lyme disease, the best course is to not become a patient at all.

“The best way to prevent these tick-borne infections is to find them early and remove them,” Kate Colby, a Portland-based field epidemiologist for the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Infectious Epidemiology Program, told Current Publishing recently.”The best thing is prevention using insect repellent and generally being aware when you’re outside in Maine, particularly now that the summer is here and everybody is enjoying the outdoors.”

– Ben Bragdon, managing editor