I carefully read Reid and colleagues' article, [1] copies of which had been sent to me by two physicians who had previously tried to convince me that I did not have Lyme disease.

I can testify from my own experience that "inappropriate use of health services ... and substantial disability and distress" can result from seeking a diagnosis of late or chronic Lyme disease. A preliminary talley of the medical expenses I recently incurred in pursuit of such a diagnosis comes to $3500. My primary care provider, acknowledging inexperience with Lyme disease, deferred to specialists in neurology, infectious diseases, rheumatology, and orthopedics. Each of these specialists declared confidently, after enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and Western blot tests, spinal taps, radiography, and two magnetic resonance imaging scans, that I didn't have Lyme disease-or anything else. After 2 years, I received neither diagnosis nor treatment. The only prescription was for Lodine.

Clearly, my "use of health services" was in some sense "inappropriate." And I was still suffering substantial disability and distress. So I began researching the subject myself. Before long I found Donta's report on tetracycline for chronic Lyme disease [2], which I took to my primary care provider. He wrote me a prescription for tetracycline. By the time I received the copies of Reid and colleagues' article some 10 days later, my symptoms had remarkably improved.

Today, after 6 weeks of treatment, I feel robust and pain-free. The only remaining symptom is peripheral neuropathy, which is probably associated with the monoclonal gammopathy that was first detected about 5 years ago.