Ticks and Lyme Disease

Lyme-carrying ticks are now found in almost all Canadian provinces. At one time, they were only found in Ontario. They were once limited to areas along the U.S. Border in Southern Ontario such as, Point Pelee and Fort Erie. Now, the organisms can be found everywhere along the border.

Medical professionals are becoming more worried about the spread of the disease and feel there are so many more at-risk Canadians. Climate change seems to be a big reason the ticks migrate from the U.S. They are now found in areas in Southern Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, BC as well as, other areas that were never affected before.

In 2014, 500 cases of Lyme disease were reported in Canada. By 2020, medical professionals expect that number to rise to 10,000 infected people annually.

In order to be infected, a person would have to be bitten by a tick carrying Lyme disease. Ticks are normally found in tall grass, river valleys, forests and other natural environments. They require areas such as these to thrive. If you are living in the middle of a city, you are at a lesser risk of coming across a tick. Although, it is still a possibility.

Symptoms of Lyme disease come on slowly. A person may not realize they contracted the disease immediately. In the beginning, you may think that you have something minor happening to your body. You may experience sleep deprivation, hair loss and rashes at different times. Eventually, these symptoms, along with others, begin to happen more frequently. It can take years to be diagnosed. A series of blood tests are usually the way the diseased is diagnosed. Unfortunately, some people do not test positive immediately.

In some cases where a person is diagnosed quickly, they are prescribed a round of antibiotics and could recover fairly fast. In cases where it takes years to diagnose, some of the disease’s effects can be permanent, including neurological and cardiac damage. It could take several years of taking antibiotics to fight against any permanent or long-lasting damage. Even though some symptoms may seem irreversible, you have to keep on treating and not give up. Along with the antibiotics, there may be some naturopathic treatments that may help.

 

Symptoms of Lyme disease:

• -Bull’s eye rash
• -Fever
• -Headache
• -Fatigue
• -Loss of movement in one or both sides of the face
• -Joint pain
• -Severe headaches with neck stiffness
• -Heart palpitations
• -Shooting pains or tingling in arms and legs

If you suspect that you may have been in contact with a Lyme-carrying tick, seek medical help right away. Tips on avoiding the possibility of contracting the disease include, staying out of areas that ticks thrive in. Check yourself and your pets thoroughly if you have been in any of these areas.

Wear clothing that covers your entire body. Tuck your long pants into your socks or use tape around your pant legs to make a tighter seal. Use a bug repellent that contains DEET on your exposed skin and, you may want to double up on the bug spray and use permethrin to coat your clothes.

It is recommended that you remove a tick as soon as possible. If you are close enough to seek medical help in a timely manner, that is what is recommended. If not, you should do it yourself.

Educate yourself in advance so you know how to properly remove a tick. You need to make sure that you don’t just pull off the body and leave the head in your skin.

This Is What Lyme Disease Feels Like

Personal story by Molly NapolitanoIt’s a beautiful day — stunning actually — but I’ve been lying in bed since one in the afternoon. I’s now almost six and I’ve wasted yet another day thanks to Lyme disease.

In the last week, my joint pain has been getting worse and worse. Today, it feels like I’ve been hit by a truck. Every muscle hurts to touch. My hair started falling out in the shower. Most joints in my body are extremely painful. It hurts to open my hands or bend my elbows. It hurts to stand up because my right forefoot screams out in agony. My right knee, both hips and my neck are joining in on the fun. I have a horrible headache, but none of these pains are the worst of it.

I feel like the life has been literally sucked right out of me. The fatigue is overwhelming. I’m so tired that my eyelids struggle staying open — like they do when you’re listening to a boring afternoon lecture in a dark room. As tired as I am, the bitch of it is that during these cycles, I am awake during the night. I lay there tossing and turning, tossing and turning, trying not to wake my husband. I have grown to fear getting up to go to the bathroom because the walk (or should I say shuffle) to the bathroom is so painful. It’s not a pretty sight.

There’s also another side of Lyme people don’t often talk about — the anxiety, fear and depression that hangs a dark cloud right over your head. This doesn’t happen because you feel sorry for yourself — it happens because the bacteria gets into your brain. Lyme disease is a spiral-shaped bacteria called a sprirochete that looks like a cork screw. If you remember reading about people who went “crazy” and some who killed themselves when Syphilis (another spirochete) went undiagnosed, it was because these suckers drilled right their brains. Simply put, brains don’t like inflammation OR sprirochetes.

But this is my new “norm” so I deal with it. This is what Lyme disease feels like.

We “Lymies,” which is what we call ourselves, don’t like to share the truth with our friends because it makes us look weak. It’s not a disease people understand so we end up feeling alone and scared. We paint fake smiles on our faces when we see you and tell you that we feel fine. We add smiley faces and exclamation marks to text message so we “sound” good. We pretend like nothing is wrong… except you can’t hide from your partner. Sadly, he or she sees the truth about the torture this disease brings.

The hardest part about Lyme disease is that it constantly teases you. You feel better for a while and you think you’ve finally won the good fight. You do what you’re supposed to do: You eat well, you takes your meds and supplements, you exercise. You do everything your doctor tells you to do, yet it still comes back. And when it comes back, it comes back with a vengeance. You feel like the underdog boxer who is beating the heavyweight champion in the 11th round. It’s so exciting to be winning until the champ knocks you out in the 12th.

Lyme disease has a cycle. I think it’s different for everyone. I once went two full months when I felt really, really good. To feel “normal” again was simply amazing and I was so incredibly grateful. But I am mostly living a four- to five-week cycle of hell. The joint pain never goes away, but the intensity skyrockets during these periods. I don’t know if it’s the Lyme disease or one of the co-infections (Bartonella, Babesia, Ehrlichia, or Anaplasmosis) I got from the bite of a tiny tick that is causing my problems. All I know is that it sucks.

So I’ll do what I need to do to get through this. Hopefully, this terrible spell will only last a couple of days. I will lay low, sleep as much as I can and wait. Wait for the pain and fatigue to get better and, more importantly, wait for a cure.

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by Mike Crawford