Doctors take 6 months to diagnose Lyme disease

The usual ‘doctors failed to diagnose my child’ story from the Daily Mail. The headline says it all:

Schoolgirl may be paralysed by disease that mother diagnosed on internet after doctors left baffled for six months

The 13 year old girl with a chronic headache, vertigo and photophobia was finally diagnosed with Lyme Disease.

‘She was diagnosed with Epstein-bar virus [her mother says], without the glandular fever. Then meningitis, then the psychiatrist comment was the best one.

‘They even suggested it could be a clot or a tumour at one point, which was worrying.’

All sensible differentials one might think. Lyme disease is very rare (see below) and without a history of a characteristic rash, bites or travel to more prevalent regions, most doctors would not consider it as a differential diagnosis – but that wouldn’t make a very good headline.

Incidence of Lyme disease (a little out of date!)