Lyme disease misdiagnoses increasing
According to a report released on June 15 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an increasing number of patients in New York and the rest of the United States who have confusing medical symptoms are being diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease. They are also being prescribed dangerous, expensive and ineffective treatments. There have been cases in which patients have died from septic shock after being given the wrong, long-term treatment of intravenous antibiotics. For other patients, the misdiagnosis results in a dangerous delay of the treatment necessary to address the patient’s true underlying medical condition.