Topic: Lyme victim Ross Burton warns others to cover up
CaliforniaLyme
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Published: August 23, 2007 12:00 am
With woods 'crawling with ticks,' Lyme victim warns others to cover up
By Nate Rice , Correspondent Gloucester Daily Times
Ross Burton was chopping wood in the back yard of his Lanesville home, off Washington Street, when the deer tick latched on to him, though he didn't realize it until later.
"It's very possible you don't know that you've been bitten - I didn't," said Burton.
Burton contracted Lyme disease as a result of the bite.
And the disease spurred Burton, 60, president of Lanesville Community Center, to organize a forum on preventing tick-borne diseases tonight at 7 at the center on Vulcan Street. The forum is sponsored by Lanesville Emergency Action Preparedness (LEAP), the Gloucester Health Department and the community center.
"We need to have a forum on Lyme disease," said Burton, a business services consultant and husband and father of three. "Very few people know that there's Lyme disease all over this area."
A few days after he was bitten, Burton had a fever of 101 that lasted for days. On June 11, he went to his physician. Blood tests and a Lyme disease test were conducted, but the Lyme test came back negative. Four days later, a rash in the shape of a bull's-eye appeared on the side of his upper body. Another five days passed before Burton went to Addison Gilbert Hospital emergency room to find out what was going on. Another Lyme disease test was conducted, and this time the result came back positive. When he was finally treated, he had been sick for a month.
"I didn't realize what Lyme disease was," Burton said. "I wasn't really smart about protecting myself. I really didn't know we would have Lyme tick disease around here."
Burton hopes the forum will help others avoid his mistake.
"I think it's education; people need to know what to do and how to protect themselves," Burton said. "The best thing to do is to protect yourself and not get it."
Symptoms of Lyme disease are fever, flu-like symptoms, a bull's-eye-shaped rash and muscle pain. Burton said the pain ranks right up there with the pain of breaking a bone.
"The fever is the dead give-away," he said. "The pain that I had in my neck and lower back, I thought I had kidney failure."
Burton said the pain was so excruciating he didn't sleep the three nights before being diagnosed.
Now that Burton is aware of the presence of the disease, he has taken the appropriate precautions before working in the woods. He bought a painter's suit with elastics on the bottom to keep ticks out and wears it every time he works outside now.
Sunny Robinson, Gloucester's public health nurse, supports the idea of the forum and will be in attendance.
"We at the Gloucester Health Department are certainly aware that this year the woods are crawling with ticks - a certain percentage of those ticks carry Lyme disease," Robinson said. "We at the Health Department are very interested in doing as much prevention education as we can."
Robinson stressed that people need to know how to protect themselves against the disease.
"The most effective response to Lyme disease is to prevent it, and every person has it within their power to prevent themselves from getting Lyme disease," said Robinson. "The strategies are simple, and we'll share them for people, pets and backyards at the forum."
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