Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
posted
They may be an itty bitty state compared to most.. but their tick problems are super duper! And their Lyme advocates are wonderful and VERY hard working!
Check out the story here.. and ICK... check out the number of ticks! YULK.
You can click on the upper right "contact" button and send a few lines to thank them for printing this article.
And note this:
"One year later, Heishman, her husband and her four youngest children, ages 7 to 13, are all diagnosed with and suffering from Lyme disease."
posted
So, the dog gets treated with preventive course of abx after tickbite, but the people do not. What is wrong with this picture?
Posts: 8430 | From Not available | Registered: Oct 2000
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valymemom
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 7076
posted
Thanks for posting this article, Tincup. I sent the paper an email.
Posts: 1240 | From Centreville,VA | Registered: Mar 2005
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5dana8
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 7935
posted
Thanks Tincup
I have alot of family in DE- MD area and all are in denile and don't want to hear about it.
I will send this article to them. Hopefully one of these days someone will listen before anyone gets sick.
My dad has been picking ticks off his dog and still doesn't believe that you have to use tweezers!
-------------------- 5dana8 Posts: 4432 | From some where over the rainbow | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I am in phone contact with this family, as they live only a short drive away from where I live. It is amazing that a whole family can be affected, but, the world needs to wake up and see tick borne diseases are awful and quite common.
Posts: 719 | From Delaware | Registered: Jan 2006
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Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
posted
Thanks for writing to the paper and sharing your thoughts here. It is very important we support those who do put our info in the paper.
The middle and lower end of the Del-Mar-Va penninsula has been documented as having the highest rate of Lyme infected ticks (in a study which included 21 different sites) across the country.
The rate of infected ticks there.. and this was several years ago.. was over 81 percent! That is over 2 times the national average.. beating out PA, NJ, NY, CT and other highly endemic areas!
Problem is..
1. They only report a VERY minimum number of cases of Lyme.. BECAUSE..
THEY CAN'T FIND what they aren't looking for!
And......
2. The Del-Mar-Va penninsula in one of the most prevelent DUCK's UNLIMITED areas! (Literally and figuratively).
Da ducks down dare don't know a cotton pickin' ting about Lyme!
lymemomtooo
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 5396
posted
Even DE could do more. You forget the #1 reason it is not a high priority..
It is about tourist dollars..You do not want to scare away the hundreds of thousands that come and spend their vacation money.
And Assateague warns of mosquitos and tells you to get some good repellent but not sure they mention the ticks..Haven't been on their web sites in a long time.
They do have naturalists telling virgin crabbers how to chicken neck and not get hurt from the crabs but did not hear a tick discussion.
And I may have missed it since I was not one of the green crabbers and walked away early.
I think I may have seen something about ticks when in Chincoteague..
And previously have seen "colored water" warnings at some of the DE (Bay Side) stops. Think it explained red tides or blue green algae..
Probably the mold ghru helped to educate them some.
Posts: 2360 | From SE PA | Registered: Mar 2004
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Ann-OH
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 2020
posted
Here's the article: Season of ticks
By Christina Weaver Special to the Coastal Point
``We counted 142 ticks on Mopsy,'' said Dr. John Maniatty of the Ocean City Animal Hospital. Mopsy is our 12-pound shi-tzu.
My husband and I had another six ticks between us. All resulted from what we thought had been a pleasant walk near the freshwater pond off Hickman Road in Ocean View.
On the walk, we congratulated ourselves for taking advantage of the countryside around us as we took note of a snake watching us from deep in the grass, three gray herons flying away and an ominous white luminescent skull that we surmised was from a deer. We didn't notice the ticks until the next morning.
Emily Heishman, who has lived in rural Sussex County most of her life, discovered a tick on her back in the spring of 2005. She removed and promptly forgot about it. After all, people who live in the country are used to tweezing off the occasional tick. One year later, Heishman, her husband and her four youngest children, ages 7 to 13, are all diagnosed with and suffering from Lyme disease.
``The pain I feel in my shoulders is so excruciating it is hard to describe,'' she said. ``We were all healthy, active people. We try hard to have good days but it is difficult to watch your kids when they are tired, have headaches and even limp because their joints hurt. And we are not unusual. You would not believe how many people have Lyme.''
The words ticks, deer, Delaware and Lyme disease have unfortunately become integrally connected. The problem is so serious that on June 2, the Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) issued a Lyme disease Health Alert to the medical community. A Health Alert conveys the highest level of importance and warrants immediate action or attention.
Despite Lyme being the most commonly reported vector-borne disease in the United States, with an incidence in Delaware among the top 10 states, the DPH indicates that it remains largely underreported and undiagnosed.
``The word `vector' means carrier. Just as the mosquito is the vector for malaria, the tick carries the bacterium for Lyme,'' said Charles Hatch, a graduate of the University of Delaware and a retired medical entomologist who lives in Bethany Beach.
He continued, ``In this area, the tick that causes most of the problem is the Ixodes dammini or deer tick. Ticks are arachnids, not insects, meaning they have four pairs of legs. They have three life stages: larva, nymph and adult. Each stage requires a single blood meal from three different hosts and the whole cycle takes about two years.''
The blood meal of choice for larva and nymphs (respectively described as the size of a grain of sand and the period at the end of this sentence) are white-footed mice. The adults prefer white-tailed deer but all will feast on human or dog blood if provided the opportunity.
The problem happens when the tick a human is bitten by has been infected by a bacterium from one of its previous feeds. According to a 2004 report by an entomologist with the University of Delaware's Cooperative Extension, the risk of being bitten by an infected deer tick is greatest in the summer months of June and July when the nymph stage is active.
About 25 percent of the deer ticks in Delaware (depending on where they are found) are infected with, and able to transmit, Lyme disease.
The bacterium causing Lyme is called Borrelia burgdorferi. It is a spirochete, which means it has the capacity to cause immediate symptoms and then appear dormant for months or even years while it quietly invades organs throughout the body, including the brain, nervous system, joints, heart, liver and kidneys.
Sometimes an infected tick also carries other pathogens. Heishman was actually co-infected with three types of bacteria that altered the typical appearance of the disease and made it harder to diagnose.
Indeed the trouble with Lyme disease is that very often it is not typical. For example, the most common sign of early disease is a rash around the site of the bite, sometimes with a bull's-eye appearance, called erythema migrans.
But according to the DPH Health Alert, this only occurs in 60-80 percent of patients. (Other research indicates that the percentage of infected people who present with a rash is as few as 35-59 percent).
Also, early symptoms may or may not include malaise, fatigue, fever, headache, stiff neck, muscle and joint pain and/or enlarged lymph nodes. Sometimes patients think they have had the flu and others notice nothing unusual at all.
Even the blood test for Lyme is not cut and dry. In its Alert to the medical community, the DPH notes: ``Key point: Just because you cannot find evidence of Lyme disease in the laboratory, does not mean it is not there ... Diagnosis is largely clinical.''
Lyme disease has been called the Great Mimic because as the disease progresses, the symptoms again vary considerably from patient to patient and thus the possibilities of causation multiply. The one common thread with Lyme is the number of body systems affected and the frequency of changing of symptoms.
Some of the first diagnoses Lyme patients have been given include juvenile arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis, irritable bowel syndrome and early Alzheimer's. But the worst, according to 27-yearold Albert Driver, who had symptoms for years before being properly diagnosed, was being called ``a hypochondriac.''
His mother, Sue Driver, subsequently founded the Delaware Lyme Disease Support Group, which can be reached by calling (302) 996-9065.
Emily Heishman, who is active in the Support Group, believes that it is essential that if you think you may have been bitten by a tick or have hard-to-diagnose symptoms that are not responding to other treatment and resemble Lyme, you should go to a physician who has developed a real interest in the disease.
This is because, while all physicians agree that the appropriate treatment for a person who has the classic signs of initial infection and who has a positive blood test is antibiotics, not all agree on their use or the amount and strength of the antibiotics for less clear cut and for chronic cases.
Indeed, in Heishman's experience, very few physicians are aware of testing for co-infections that, if present, may respond better to different antibiotics.
The longer the bacteria are in your body, the less likely the disease will be curable. Likewise, heavy doses of antibiotics may remove the evidence of bacteria from the blood but the effects of the disease remain, leading to a long-term, chronic condition.
This can become financially problematic for many patients when they find their insurance companies are no longer willing to pay for the necessary prescribed medications.
The one thing about Lyme disease upon which everyone agrees is that prevention is the best cure. Charles Hatch devoted much of his career to preventing malaria in Africa. He calls Lyme ``devastating in its chronic condition.''
He was shocked to hear how stupid my husband and I had been on our recent walk, totally oblivious to the dangers that lurked in the very undergrowth we walked through. These are some common sense preventative tips:
* Tuck your pant legs into your socks and your shirt into your pants (not shorts and sandals like I wore).
* Wear light colored clothing. Dark ticks are more easily spotted against a light background.
* Apply insect repellents containing DEET (n,n-diethyl-m-toluamide) to clothes and exposed skin, and permethrin (which kills ticks on contact) to clothes to help reduce the risk of tick attachment. (These chemicals can be used safely on children and adults but should be applied according to Environmental Protection Agency guidelines to reduce the possibility of toxicity.)
* Upon returning home, remove clothing and wash or put it in the dryer for 30 minutes to kill any ticks. (Remember how small they are)
* When you get in from the field, shower and inspect your body thoroughly. Especially check groin, navel, armpits, head and behind knees and ears. Have a companion check your back, or use a mirror.
* Inspect children and pets at least once daily for ticks.
* When hiking stay in the middle of trails.
* Clear brush from around your premises and keep grassy areas mown.
If you do find a tick, don't panic. Hatch noted that if you find and remove the tick within 36 hours, it is most unlikely you will become infected. Using a pair of fine-tipped tweezers, grasp the tick body as close to your skin as possible.
Pull in a steady upward motion until the tick comes out. Be careful not to squeeze or twist the tick body. Then apply an antiseptic to the bite area and wash your hands with soap and water.
One is cautioned against using the old methods of applying Vaseline, nail polish or a lit match to the tick to try to remove it. These don't work and may cause the tick to inject its abdominal content, where any pathogens reside, into your body.
What you do next is up to you. Those involved with Lyme may recommend a preventative course of antibiotics, just in case. The general thinking, especially if you promptly removed the tick, is to watch the bite area and the rest of your skin over the next month and if you get a rash or get flu-like symptoms, see your doctor.
My husband had no symptoms and did nothing. I had a bit of a local skin reaction so had the blood test. It came back negative so I, too, was untreated. Mopsy, however, was prescribed a preventive course of antibiotics.
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
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