Lyme Disease Is On The Rise, It's Hit A Burb Near You, And It's Really Ticking People Off!

You wake up to major flu symptoms: fever, chills, fatigue, nausea--you can't get out of bed and if you do, you're dizzy and wondering what's going on. After several days of amping up your vitamins, taking salt baths, and opening the windows of your home, they are not getting any better. Erring on the side of caution--or on the side of paranoia--you go to Urgent Care, but they find nothing and send you on your way. You continue to see doctors, get test after test, and still no diagnosis; until you see one and she asks, "Have you been tested for lyme disease?" After a routine test, you are indeed diagnosed with the disease, and after basic anti-biotic treatment, you are back to normal. 

This is the plight of lyme disease today, a malady considered on the rise in North America. 

Some consider lyme disease as that which one contacts in the deep woods, but that's simply not the full extent of it, which is characterized by debilitating joint pain and neurological problems. Many long-term sufferers have spent years in treatment (for the wrong thing), have suffered financially from extensive time away from work, and have maintained a loss of several years of their lives in unnecessary pain and confusion. 

The number of disease-carrying tics have increased tenfold over the past twenty years due to migratory birds and warmer climate; and thus now people are running into them not only in the backwoods but also in their backyards, according to the Globe and Mail. What has exacerbated this issue is the lack of seriousness with which doctors have taken lyme disease, and thus often overlook it when it comes to routine patient diagnoses. Moreover, it's often the case that the tick bite doesn't reveal itself with a rash, which is often understood as the warrant for being diagnosed with lyme. 

The main point of all this is, if you are feeling persistent flu-like symptoms and have visited numerous doctors all of whom don't understand what's wrong (and haven't tested for lyme)l, then it's plausible you have the disease. 

Here are some tips to prevent bites from disease-carrying ticks.

1. When in the woods, walk in the centre of paths and avoid dense areas with fallen trees.

2. Use 30% DEET insect repellent on exposed skin

3. Treat all shoes, socks, pants, and shirts and boots with insecticide permethrin

4. Shower after being in the woods to wash off and find ticks before they bite you.

5. Remove all ticks immediately before they bite you.

6. Check pets (dogs, etc) for ticks after being outside.

7. Treat it like you would sun exposure: protect yourself.