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BULL’S EYE continued from page 29


These sources also offer


valuable information on how to protect ourselves by measures such as dressing properly, using DEET, and, importantly, inspecting our bodies for ticks after a day in the outdoors. A hot shower is also a good idea as ticks at the nymph stage are


only the size of a poppy seed and difficult to see. Since an attached tick typically


needs 24 hours of skin contact to prepare itself for engorging blood, its detection and removal within that window is critical in preventing the transmission of the disease. Should you find an embedded tick on yourself or your pet carefully remove it with tweezers and store it in a sealed container for testing. Since around 25% of Lyme victims don’t develop a tell-tale bull’s eye, saving the tick for testing is all the more important in determining the likelihood of having been exposed to infection. In a very positive recent


ENGORGED TICK


development, Lyme testing kits for home use are now available that detect if a tick is carrying the Lyme bacterium. Carried by most pharmacies, we should all have one of these in our medicine cabinets just in case. Going forward it’s clear that


REMOVAL


awareness and prevention are the keys to living with this new menace. The reality is that in a very short period of time our local woodlands, waterways, marshes and uplands have suddenly changed and may harbor Lyme. For those who are out there, especially us hunters and fishermen who spend countless hours doing what we enjoy most, Lyme disease must be taken seriously as it can change the course of the rest of our lives. In speaking with numerous


health care providers and other concerned individuals in our region, I was struck by the number of people who know of someone who has contacted Lyme some of whom are coping with its advanced chronic symptoms. We should not hesitate to expand our knowledge about it by exploring detailed information sources some of which have been mentioned in this column. On a closing note that explains


MYSELF AND SHILO, MY YOUNG LABRADOR RETRIEVER


46 BOUNDER MAGAZINE


my deep personal interest in this subject, my Uncle Frank, an avid


outdoorsman who taught me much, contacted Lyme while hunting in Nova Scotia back in the 1960’s before the disease had even been identified. But he didn’t know it, nor did his doctors recognize it, let alone know how to provide treatment. He suffered with it for years before finally being diagnosed and treated but never fully got over it. Years later in the early 1980’s I


attended a hunting retriever field trial in New York State with Shilo, my young Labrador Retriever. Although only mid-May, it was oppressively hot and I showed up in a pair of shorts. Later in the day a fellow American competitor approached me and said, “You’re not from around here are you”? At that point it hit me that I was the only person there not wearing long pants. While he didn’t refer to Lyme disease per se (it had only been identified a few years earlier) everyone living in the area knew that the lush spring grasses and vegetation lining the river banks were thick with ticks and that some were making people sick-----you had to cover up. Unlike my Uncle Frank, I was lucky that day. Today we are fortunate to know


about Lyme disease and to be able to take preventive measures as well as get testing and treatment when required. Lyme is here in the Ottawa Valley and surrounding areas. Be informed, be vigilant and continue to safely enjoy the great outdoors in good health.


www.bounder.ca


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