House Concurrent Resolution 5- Proponent Testimony

HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 5- PROPONENT TESTIMONY JERI CARSON FEBRUARY 25, 2015 House Health and Aging Committee

Chairwoman Gonzales, Vice Chair Huffman, Ranking Member Antonio, and members of the House Health and Aging Committee, my name is Jeri Carson, and I am the mother of a young adult who battled Lyme Disease for many years. I am here to voice strong support for House Concurrent Resolution 5, a resolution to urge the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to take action to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of Lyme disease.

Madam Chair, allow me tell you my story. When my daughter was about 5, she was bitten by a tick just before we travelled to Florida. When a red line began to run from the site of the bite on her head down her neck, we took her to the ER, where she was given 10 days of oral antibiotics. The red line went away; but after that, she began to show symptoms of a vague illness every 4 weeks or so—nausea, sometimes with vomiting, sometimes not; sometimes with fever, sometimes not; achy joints off and on. Visits to doctors resulted in many x-rays for the joint pain, but not much else. Her health gradually declined, until about the age of 10, her headache was constant and severe, she could no longer read or do much school work, and she had days when it took hours after waking until she felt strong enough to get out of bed. Doctors could not find anything. A friend in Beavercreek, whose daughter had recently been diagnosed with Lyme Disease, recognized many of the same symptoms and suggested testing by a lab that specializes in Lyme Disease testing. Fortunately, our doctor at the time agreed to order the test. It came back positive, and our doctor recommended we find someone who specialized in treating Lyme disease. For the next several years, we travelled to Pennsylvania every three months to see the specialist, because we couldn’t find anyone in Ohio who had much experience with Lyme disease. A doctor in Ohio eventually signed for IV antibiotic treatment, and my daughter finally began to improve. We were fortunate that we had no trouble with insurance covering treatment—maybe because my daughter had the positive test results—but we did have to pay for that one test and it was pricey. Others have not been so fortunate.

Five years of undiagnosed illness, five years of treatment, and most of that had to be out of state. Ohio residents deserve better. A young woman I mentored went to Wright State Medical School, where she was told not to worry too much about Lyme Disease, because it doesn’t exist in Ohio. Notice this map from http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/maps/interactiveMaps.html. It shows which counties have confirmed cases of Lyme disease. The map is dark in Pennsylvania, right up to the Ohio border. I think that represents a lack of information in Ohio that leads to underreporting. The ticks don’t just stop at the border. People in Ohio are suffering, and we need your help.

For this reason, I stand before you and strongly ask you to pass this Concurrent Resolution sponsored by Representative Patterson and Representative Ruhl. No one should have to suffer from Lyme disease without having a proper diagnosis, or fight to receive treatment for a child’s suffering. Thank you for listening to my story.