Lyme Disabily Victory in MD

A patient worked for Montgomery County inspecting Dams. She got Lyme disease, a very bad case with neuroborreliosis and all the trimmings. She was awarded temporary disability on the basis of this diagnosis. The county lawyers refused to continue ongoing disability. They sent her to an Independent Medical Examiner, an infectious disease doc of the IDSA, who sent a report claiming she did not have chronic Lyme disease and was not disabled. The patient has severe cognitive dysfunction, which has improved a little with oral antibiotics. She has an abnormal brain MRI showing white matter disease and she has a markedly positive Lyme serology by IgeneX. I wrote a detailed report to the county disability judge discussing the Lyme disease controversy as it now exists and how it affects this patient. Today I saw his judicial order. The patient is to receive full disability payments, a SPECT scan and a neuro-psychological evaluation. These are things which the county had refused to allow until this point. The judicial system in Montgomery county MD has said that chronic Lyme is real, that it may be a legitimate workers comp issue which can cause serious disability deserving of compensation. This may be a legal precedent which can impact on future cases.