Under Our Skin: There’s No Medicine For Someone Like You, directed by Andy Abrahams Wilson, is a modern day horror film filled with tiny monsters that just may come within a hair of destroying your life. The ‘monsters’ of Under Our Skin are the miniscule, but often lethal deer ticks that in many parts of the world carry Lyme disease or the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria.
In the early 1970s, a mysterious and debilitating illness was discovered among children living around the town of Lyme, Connecticut. Lyme disease, as it has come to be known today, is extremely difficult to test for accurately and more than tens of thousands of people go undiagnosed, or worse yet, are misdiagnosed.
Symptoms of Lyme disease can range from a simple rash, headaches, fatigue, cognitive confusion, memory loss and neurological problems, to extreme physical pain. Unfortunately for patients, Lyme disease sufferers are often misdiagnosed with everything from Rheumatoid arthritis, Fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, Lupus, ADHD, Chronic Fatigue, ALS and even syphilis. Lyme disease is commonly transmitted through the bite of a deer tick, but there is some evidence that Lyme can be transmitted through the womb to unborn children and even through sexual contact.
The Center for Disease Control admits that more than 400,000 people may acquire Lyme disease each year, a number ten times greater than AIDS and West Nile Virus combined.
Under Our Skin is a riveting tale of microbes, medicine and money, documenting the hidden story of the Lyme disease, one of the most controversial and fastest growing epidemics of our time. Perhaps the most shocking component of this modern day horror story is how highly politicized Lyme disease is in North America. This award winning documentary follows the stories of patients and physicians fighting for their lives and livelihoods, with interviews and personal accounts of the ugly reality of living with, and trying to get treatment for, Lyme disease.
Interviews include Mandy Hughes, a former marine trainer at Sea World who ends up with debilitating symptoms from her Lyme disease, Jordan Fisher Smith, a park ranger who experiences cognitive issues and fatigue after being bitten by a tick; and Dana Walsh, a crew member for U2 who is forced to quit her dream job after her Lyme symptoms get too severe for her to continue to work.
Under Our Skin also interviews various physicians and researchers from both sides of the Lyme disease debate, including the numerous Lyme-literate physicians who are persecuted for successfully treating Lyme disease patients with long-term antibiotics. Unfortunately, too many of the Lyme-literate physicians end up in court over their commitment to helping their patients recover from the disease.
Under Our Skin: There’s No Medicine For Someone Like You is a shocking wake-up call for anyone who lives near the forest or may have come in contact with ticks carrying Lyme disease. We highly recommend this brave film that dares to tackle a subject that so many in the medical field consider taboo.
Visit: http://www.underourskin.com/
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written by Carol , August 23, 2010