In one of the more bizarre explanations for a violent crime, the mother of a man accused in an Illinois church shooting that claimed a pastor's life Sunday says her son's personality changed after he was bitten by a tick several years ago.
The accused man's mother told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch back in August that her son, Terry Sedlacek, had a long illness that made him so sick he was given last rites in 2003.
Following the shooting, the reporter who wrote the
Post-Dispatch story
reflected on the man he met.
The case has focused new attention
on those who suffer with Lyme disease. In 2007, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 27,444 cases of Lyme disease in the U.S. Some of these cases result in aggressive psychiatric symptoms, or "Lyme rage."
USA Today reported:
Eugene Shapiro, a Lyme disease specialist at Yale University, said people do not get chronic mental illness from Lyme disease, but sometimes they are misdiagnosed and fail to get treatment "for the problems they really have."
"Lyme disease does not cause people to shoot people," he said.
Daniel Cameron, an internist in Westchester County, N.Y., where Lyme disease is common, said it can cause violent behavior. Cameron, president of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, said he has had many patients with Lyme disease who complain of psychiatric problems, including anxiety and aggression.
Make no mistake, Lyme disease is miserable. The public needs to learn more about how it affects its victims. Just look at some of the sad entries in this
Texas Lyme Disease Association support forum. In another forum,
someone wrote:
I feel extremely alone right now, like I have some weird condition that no-one else has, no-one else understands, and I have no way of communicating it to anyone, because what i go thru in my mind and emotions is beyond words or description, and it doesn't seem to match my diagnosis or any other known condition. I feel I have no desire to live, and not far from feeling suicidal.
There's a fantastic story to be done on the Lyme...
