[at-l] Lyme disease diagnosis vs mis-diagnosis?????

["FannyPack - David Atkinson" <at_l96@hotmail.com>]

Below is any excerpt from an e-mail from the mother of a 2000er NOBOer, BTW: 
the 2000er with the sore jaw is Sunny & she hiked with her father, Rascal 
supported by her mom, Ruth & brother, Jason...  Rascal, also hiked in 
98GA2ME & is a good friend of Nomad aka Hooty's dad...

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excerpt follows:
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-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Behrens [mailto:rascal_babyruther@hotmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2000 2:24 PM
Subject: Off the Trail

As you can see from the subject line, this message is to let you know that 
we are back home.  Jennifer got sick about 10 days ago - her left side of 
her face became numb and had a lot of pain in her jaw so we took her to a 
dentist.  He told us it was a medical problem after taking x-rays and 
banging around on her teeth and finding nothing.  So we went to an MD, but 
she told us she probably just ate something that was hard to chew (like beef 
jerky) and made her mouth sore or was an abscess on her tooth - just to wait 
for 3-4 days and it would centralize in the tooth affected.  I asked her 
about the possibility of Lyme disease since she had been bitten by 3 ticks.  
She assured me it wasn't.

We waited a couple of days to see how she felt, but all she wanted to do was 
sleep and was cold all the time.  After a few days while she couldn't hardly 
eat because she couldn't open her mouth, we finally decided to end our hike 
to get her to a doctor back home.  She got a Lyme disease test and a 
comprehensive blood test on Monday (we got back home Sunday night).  She got 
the results on Tuesday which showed positive for Lyme disease.  She has an 
appointment tomorrow to see where we go from here.  If caught early enough, 
it can be treated with antibiotics, but we don't know what "early" means.
<<snip>>>

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My question is:
is Lyme disease that hard to diagnose???
or is it simply a matter of testing for it?

From the acct above it seems that this family was very frustrated with a 
medical problem that doctors didn't seem to take very seriously..  Also from 
posts to this list about Lyme disease & articles in the news about Lyme 
disease, it seems to be potentially a quite serious situation, tru or 
false???

Feedback form the doctors & lay persons is definitely appreciated...

NOTE: I will post an update on the Sunny's condition....

- FannyPack
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