Since at least one person slammed me for my first diary post, I will post something of current importance to me.
Dr. Richard Horowitz wrote a very long book on chronic illness, specifically Lyme and other infections (co-infections) that can be transmitted by a single tick bite. If you do not know anything about this issue, you should. The number of cases has been vastly under-reported (even the CDC admits this) and the fact that sufferers have been either ignored or dismissed has made this a crisis.
There are various reasons for the lack of useful therapy, usually tied to money and politics. But for those who think chronic Lyme is not real, I dare them to spend a day with me and tell me my difficulties are "all in my head" or relate to some other diagnosis which has even less to support it than the Lyme/Babesia diagnosis has. If it wasn't for the ability of people in my shoes to converse with each other, I don't know how many of us could survive, let alone get better.
Dr. Horowitz may perform an invaluable task -- or even tasks -- via this book. First, he changes the conversation about Lyme to one of chronic health problems in general. He calls the whole gamut of health problems Multiple Systemic Infectious Disease Syndrome (MSIDS). That is, I think he is getting at why many of these conditions mimic each other. They affect your immune system, your thyroid levels, your adrenal glands, your hormones. Other doctors found evidence of problems like this in myself but neither they nor I put together that these things form an overall coherent picture and all of these aspects need to be improved for me to get better.
Second, he provides a questionnaire that allows the reader to take an inventory of their health situation. The survey allows you to assess the likelihood that you have been exposed to Lyme (and/or co-infections). The test taker needs to get at least 46 points to think the probability is high. I took it online first and got 82; when I could write in my own personal book copy (and better keep track of answers), I got 90. Think that's high? Nope. Versus some I am a piker. One poster told me she got 138 points! Yet I wonder if even the 138 walks better than I do.
Finally (at least thru the first part of the book), Dr. Horowitz provides a map matching up complaints with possible problems and suggestions for diagnostic tests to demonstrate the source of a specific medical complaint. I am hoping to photocopy these pages, take them to my own general doctor, and we can match what is indicated and what could be tested if the information is not already on my chart. That is, if you have Candida in your digestive system, antibiotics won't make you a lot better. The same can be said of a B-12 deficiency. Or adrenal fatigue. Or hypothyroidism. And so on.
The Washington Post seemed to slam this book and I think the reviewer not only had zero experience with this kind of health problem, she lacked sufficient intellect and/or empathy to make sense of the book (which has a great number of references, making it far more than a collection of one doctor's observations). When a reviewer becomes alienated like that, the writer can take it out on someone else. Moreover, Dr. Horowitz is one of the brightest minds working in a hostile situation because this is a politicized disease -- so it was pretty easy for this "journalist" to find "reason" to complain. If you know someone with ANY chronic condition, suggest they take a look at this book or read it yourself. I have definitely rethought aspects of others' diseases and my own chronology based on just the limited amount that I've read. I have also recently had a few chances to hear him speak (webinar, YouTube -- for example). I even think it is possible that people who suffered/died in the past of various ailments may well had Lyme, like my own grandmother.
(I have an undergraduate journalism degree and saw a resentment become mockery directed at myself when participating at a history conference as a grad student; the reporter was over his head and resented that he didn't understand that even historians have "shop talk" that he wouldn't understand easily. I became one of his targets, perhaps because I actually tried to help him.)