Marc Bonnot and François Vannson have just embarked on a somewhat special hunt. The two UMP deputies have tabled a bill aimed at combating ticks. These mites, which are rampant in our forests and in 65 countries, teaches us Christine Mateus in The Parisianare at the origin of a pathology as strange as formidable, Lyme disease.
Chronic fatigue, rheumatic pain, migraines, the multiplicity of symptoms very often leads to misdiagnosis. Multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease are regularly mentioned by doctors when faced with such clinical pictures.
And for the patients, it is a therapeutic wandering in the form of an obstacle course that begins. Martine Lejot is an example. In the columns of the daily newspaper, this 48-year-old woman says that the first symptoms appeared at the age of 8 and that the correct diagnosis fell… in 2011! Between the two, she lived through hell: every simple gesture became an ordeal because, she says, the disease “hits everywhere”.
It is therefore to better prevent, diagnose and treat this disease that parliamentarians have seized their colleges. “Sick people who are moreover very probably underestimated with 5,000 cases officially recorded in 2012”, notes the journalist while “nearly 1 million patients (are) treated in Germany”, indicates the text. For their part, the associations note that the screening test used in France would be unsuitable.
Despite these arguments, the proposal was rejected by the National Assembly. But the government promises that an expertise will soon be launched and that the future health law will provide solutions. While waiting for them to be implemented, everyday life reminds us of simple gestures to prevent walks in the forest from ending in a nightmare: “Wear closed-toe shoes as well as a long-sleeved shirt that fits well at the wrists and a long trousers tight at the ankles”.
