Inger Svendsen is one of at least a dozen people in Eureka Springs who are living evidence of the fact that Arkansas was wrong to deny the existence of Lyme disease in the state until earlier this year. Svendsen, was diagnosed with Lyme disease 17 years ago.
“I got a tick bite out at our property in the country, and became very ill soon afterwards,” Svendsen said. “I had several tick bites because we had bought property and were out in the woods a lot. Ticks were just a normal thing. I was aware of Lyme disease. My aunt from Connecticut had it. She had it reoccur. I had heard Lyme was making its way here and I was aware of the symptoms. But I didn’t have the classic bullseye ring that is often an indicator for Lyme disease. That is usually the first sign for the people who get it.”
When she became ill, she had given birth to her first child three months earlier. At first, she thought she was just tired from being a new mom.
“What I first noticed is I was extremely fatigued,” Svendsen said. “I couldn’t even make a peanut butter sandwich, I was so tired. The next thing was migraines. Finally, I went to get up one morning and all of the joints in my body hurt. I couldn’t get up. That is when we went to the emergency room.”
At the emergency room, they tested her for lupus and other diseases and did sonograms of her heart. She said Dr. Craig Milam diagnosed her with Lyme disease based on the blood tests and started her on antibiotics.
“I was on antibiotics for eight weeks and the antibiotics were successful,” she said. “It has not reoccurred.”
While she has been healthy, there were consequences to catching Lyme disease.
“I do have some residual arthritis and I think it has had an effect on my heart,” she said. “I’ve been very fortunate so far to keep it at bay. While it has not reoccurred, I understand it lives in my bloodstream and can reoccur. I know several other people with Lyme disease here. I don’t know anyone who has died of it, but it can kill you if it works its way to your heart and brain. I was fortunate that seventeen years later all I have is a little arthritis, predominantly on the right side of body. I was a dancer for 25 years, and can’t do things like I used to. I just teach now.”
Svendsen said she thinks it is sad that it has taken the public health agencies so long to admit the Lyme disease exists in the state, which has meant people who came down with it faced many barriers to getting properly treated. She said she was surprised at the naiveté of the Arkansas Department of Health for claiming Lyme was the only state in the country, other than Hawaii, that didn’t have Lyme disease.