The York Daily Record
June 14, 2006

Lyme Disease Taking a Toll

By: Tom Joyce

When Gail Sheffer and her family first moved to their home in Wellsville 12 years ago, the rural location was a big selling point.

Sheffer loves animals and wanted to raise some in a farm setting. She's also intensely interested in organic gardening, and she wanted to cultivate a big garden of her own. Unknown to her, however, the setting exposed her and her family to the ticks that spread Lyme disease, a particularly insidious health disorder that's been proliferating in York County's rural areas.

For nearly 10 years, Sheffer suffered through migraines, panic attacks, sinus infections, periodic abdominal pains that took her to the emergency room, and chronic fatigue that prevented her from getting out of bed for long periods.

Her husband and her two daughters, even her dog, suffered symptoms of their own before finally getting a correct diagnosis and subsequent treatment. Now Sheffer is co-chairwoman of the York Lyme Disease Support Group. She only wishes she had more chance to work in the garden that brought her to Wellsville in the first place.

"The garden is really tiny now," she said. "I don't have a lot of energy to do much gardening anymore."

As Lyme disease sufferers, Sheffer and her family are part of a growing population in York County and in Pennsylvania. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the first reports of Lyme disease in the state came in 1984, with four reported cases. In 1991, there were 995 cases reported statewide. By 2005, that number had grown to 4,042.

In 2005, the last year for which figures are available, York County had the fourth-highest incidence of Lyme disease in the state, with 386 reported cases. By contrast, there were 17 reported cases in 1991.

In May 2005, several state lawmakers and Lyme disease activists from the county were so concerned about the disease's increasing local presence that they organized a conference on the subject at Susan P. Byrnes Health Education Center in York, attended by about 200 people.

Now that more than a year has passed, we're once again in the season where the disease is most likely to be transmitted, according to Karen Forschner, chairwoman of the Connecticut-based Lyme Disease Foundation. In late spring and early summer, the ticks that spread the disease are active, but they're not yet full-grown and thus easy to miss.

The disease itself is easy to miss, Forschner said, because it manifests itself in an array of symptoms, many of which resemble the symptoms of other disorders. For that reason, Lyme disease activists are constantly struggling with two goals on the state and national level: educating physicians to recognize it and persuading insurers to cover it.

State representative Bev Mackereth, R-Spring Grove, one of the organizers of last year's Lyme disease summit, said she's determined to stay involved with the issue, for the sake of people throughout the county and the state.

"Sometimes it takes a little bit of a push," Mackereth said. "And if we back off, I'm afraid it will fall apart."

Robin Rohrbaugh is head of the Healthy York County Coalition, which has also been involved with the issue. She said that York County has some events planned to deal with the local Lyme disease problem.

In October, Wellspan Health is planning an education program for physicians within its system to help them recognize and treat Lyme disease. Rohrbaugh said the Healthy York County Coalition is also planning another Lyme disease summit like last year's, but with more of an emphasis on medical education.

Things haven't been moving so easily on the state level, according to state representative Merle Phillips, R-Sunbury, who was at last year's Lyme disease summit in York.

Phillips sponsored a bill that would establish a Lyme disease task force with the state Department of Health and would require insurers to provide coverage for all Lyme disease treatment prescribed by a physician. His bill passed in the state House of Representatives a year ago. But it went into the state Senate's Banking and Insurance committee, which has not released it for a vote.

State senator Gib Armstrong, R-Lancaster, chairman of that committee, could not be reached for comment.

"I send (Armstrong) information almost every week about the problem," Phillips said. "But he just sits there and doesn't move it."

Sheffer said she eventually found a doctor who diagnosed her disease. But that wasn't until she got a referral from a support group in Gettysburg, where she eventually went after conducting a lot of her own research.

"A lot of patients are going undiagnosed because they don't know enough about Lyme disease," Sheffer said. "Neither do the doctors they're going to see."

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