Lyme Disease

Infectious deer ticks, which cause Lyme disease, are plentiful in the rural and heavily wooded areas of Burlington County, where the number of reported cases of the disease doubled last year, according to health officials. In New Jersey, the number of cases reported to the Department of Health grew from 327 in 1987 to more than 1,400 in 1988 - an increase of more than 300 percent. Nationally, the number of reported cases abruptly jumped from a 1988 level of about 1,500 to 6,000 in 1989.

Ticks can be a distasteful topic to discuss over lunch. At a Lyme disease conference Wednesday at the Holiday Inn in Lionville, Harvard University professor Thomas Mather seemed to enjoy the potential for making his audience squirm. "Before we begin," Mather said, "(the last doctor) left a bottle of ticks somewhere, so if anybody sees them, please bring them back to the front. " Some of the hundred people in attendance - doctors, veterinarians, nurses, pest control operators and county officials from the five-county Philadelphia area - chuckled nervously.

Stephanie Sharp said she thought her aches and pains were due to all the running she did last summer. In the morning, she would work out with her Central Bucks East teammates. In the evening, she would train for AAU meets with her teammates on the Ambler Olympic Club. "I was all achy and pain-y," Sharp said. "I thought it was part of being really, really tired. " What caused her problems turned out to be Lyme disease. Sharp thinks she was bitten by a tick at a party at her house right after school ended in June.

Milton Wolfe was perfecting his tennis backhand and leading an otherwise robust life at age 69 when he contracted Lyme disease in September of 1988. A year later he was dead from pneumonia. His wife of 39 years believes Lyme disease made her once-healthy husband too weak to fight that infection. Shirley Wolfe said she was frustrated and confused over his death. She was one of about 80 people to attend a Lyme disease seminar Tuesday evening at the Horsham Township building on Horsham Road.

The good news about Lyme disease is that it can be cured. The bad news, health professionals fear, is that more and more cases may be going undetected. Lyme disease is transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected deer tick. The infectious disease was named after Lyme, Conn., the town where it was first identified in 1975. Outbreaks of the disease usually occur between March and October, with the peak period during June, July and August, when the tick is most abundant in the state.

Seven years ago, Hans Liu thought he had Lyme disease figured out. He was studying medicine at Yale University then. Like other doctors there, he considered Lyme disease a local Connecticut problem that would remain a curiosity to the rest of the United States. Now, Liu has almost daily reminders of how wrong he was. Liu, acting director of Thomas Jefferson University's Division of Infectious Diseases, said at a symposium yesterday that he fields nearly a call a day from people with questions about the disease.

If you plan to spend time outdoors this summer, the county Health Department urges you to bundle up. Wear long sleeves. Tuck your pants legs into your socks. Light-colored clothing is best. The reason: blood-sucking deer ticks. The danger: Lyme disease. "People really need to do these things," said Gary Gurian, director of the department. "The incidence of Lyme disease here is relatively high. " The often-misdiagnosed disease, which can bring skin rashes, headaches, fevers and, in later stages, arthritis and heart disease, continues to be a public-health problem, he said.

A surprising number of dogs in area shelters have been exposed to the bacteria that cause Lyme disease, according to a recently completed study. The study involved 176 dogs from shelters in Philadelphia, Delaware and Chester Counties. They were tested in 1986 for exposure to the disease, which is spread by tiny deer ticks and has become increasingly common in the Philadelphia area in recent years. Nearly 19 percent of the Philadelphia dogs in the study had antibodies to Lyme disease, while 41 percent of the Delaware County dogs and 26 percent of the Chester County dogs had been exposed.

Here's a show that will make your skin crawl. Hundreds of ticks scamper through "Lyme Disease: In Our Own Backyard," tonight's Target New Jersey subject at 8 on New Jersey Network (Channels 23 and 52), and by about 8:15, you'll be feeling them on your arms and legs. Almost invisible deer-tick nymphs are the major transmitters of Lyme, an illness that's very hard to diagnose because its symptoms are so much like those of other diseases. People with Lyme disease complain of intense headaches, stiff joints, numbness, partial paralysis, random pain, vision problems, forgetfulness or fatigue.