COVERAGE: Waterdown resident Rob Manten looks over recent news articles on Lyme disease.

In three months, Rob Manten will mark an anniversary - but there won't be cause for celebration. In fact, for Manten, the third anniversary of being diagnosed with Lyme disease has only one silver lining: he's getting treatment for a disease that some doctors failed to recognize, that a standard test accepted in Canada failed to detect and that the Canadian public health system appears to regard as a minor problem.

The 42-year-old Waterdown man wants health authorities to drop their seemingly cavalier approach to the disease and recognize it for what he and many others say it is.

"It can be encountered anywhere in Canada," he warns. "It's not an epidemic, but it's present."

It took 10 months for doctors to diagnose Manten's illness, caused by a bite from a bacteria-infected deer tick, a spider-like insect that is often no larger than a poppy seed. In July of 2004, Manten and his family went tenting at the Brant Park Conservation Area near Brantford. One day, they noticed "a whole slew of ticks" around their campsite. Manten pulled one off his body and his wife, Janet, recalls pulling ticks off three of their four children as well.

The Mantens weren't overly concerned by the incident. They were camping more than 40 kilometres away from the north shore of Lake Erie and Long Point, which is the only clearly defined risk area for ticks bearing Lyme disease in Ontario, according to the website for the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health & Safety (CCOHS).

But the Mantens soon learned that was a big misconception. They now believe that ticks carrying the disease can be anywhere and they think the Canadian government has a responsibility to take the disease more seriously and devote more funds to researching its prevalence in Canada.

The Mantens are convinced that the statistics are skewed. A CityNews report in June of last year reported that, in New York State, there were 28.9 reported cases of Lyme disease per 100,000 people in 2005. According to the Ontario Ministry of Health, between January 1, 2006 and April, 2007, there were only 38 reported cases, equating to 0.3125 cases per 100,000.

Why the huge disparity when Ontario and New York share a border?

"Apparently, these ticks are being stopped at the border," Manten joked.

Clearly, he doesn't believe that, nor does he think it is logical for anyone else to believe it. He thinks the United States has a much better reporting system than Canada and he also suspects the numbers are artificially low because Canadian officials insist on having a positive on the ELISA test, the test most widely accepted in Canadian medical circles to detect Lyme disease.

The ELISA test is unreliable, Manten said. Ontario healthcare providers tested him three times over six months for Lyme disease. In each case, the results were negative. He saw 13 doctors before he had a correct diagnosis and that came only when a Western Blot test was done on his blood by a lab in the United States. Manten paid $300 US out of his own pocket for the test.

It was two months after the family's Brantford camping trip before Manten started to show any symptoms. He developed flu-like symptoms, including fever and nausea. Within two weeks of their onset, he saw his family doctor who prescribed a round of antibiotics for what he diagnosed as a sinus infection. But things got worse for Manten. He experienced a host of other symptoms, including migraines, dizziness, difficulty concentrating, a constant ringing in his ears, muscle twitching and fatigue.

Eventually the fatigue and failing cognitive abilities proved debilitating to the point that Manten, an environmental engineer for an Oakville/Mississauga consulting firm, was forced to give up his job in October, 2004. He qualified for short-term disability, but had to apply twice before being deemed eligible for a long-term disability through an insurance policy held by the company.

The family of six faced six months without any income at all. Luckily, Janet Manten was reimbursed by a friend in England, who had borrowed money from her 20 years ago. "It came right out of the blue," she said of her friend's offer.

Manten is still unable to work. He is currently on a three-month round of antibiotics that he takes intravenously at home five times a week. He also takes oral antibiotics and a host of vitamins and supplements. While he has seen "small improvements" in his health and feels fortunate to have found some capable and caring doctors at a private clinic in Mississauga, he continues to have headaches that are now less intense, and "non-stop" ringing in his ears. He continued to suffer from fatigue.

Manten remains hopeful that the aggressive IV treatments will make a difference when they conclude at the end of May. But he continues to feel frustrated that several months passed before he was diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease. The quicker it is tackled, he explained, the better the success rate in eradicating it.

A big part of the problem in diagnosing Lyme disease is its ability to mimic other illnesses. Called "the great imitator," it is often mistaken for arthritis, fibromyalgia, Raynaud's Syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, lupus, early ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Scerlosis or Lou Gehrig's Disease), early Alzheimer's Disease, Crohn's disease, and Meniere's Syndrome.

To further complicate matters, detection and testing is challenging. According to Health Canada, about 70 per cent of people bitten by a tick carrying the bacteria, will develop the characteristic "bull's eye rash" around the bite, but other sources peg the number much lower, at 30 per cent. Manten never developed the rash at all.

In many ways, Lyme disease seems shrouded in mystery. But organizations like the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation (CLDF) are helping to bring the disease to the forefront. So, too, are many victims of the disease, like Manten, who tell a frustratingly similar story, one that portrays many doctors and healthcare officials as reluctant to admit that the disease is as widespread as its victims believe.

Manten and his wife are convinced that the magnitude of the disease is being downplayed. They want people to sit up and take notice and learn more about Lyme disease and its symptoms. A good place to start is the CLDF's website at www.canlyme.com.