LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING

• This picture, albeit not necessarily one of the best, was taken in the Fall of 2007.

This is the face of lyme disease. Such is the case for most people with lyme. They don't LOOK sick, so are they just all fakers??

It is More than likely at the time of this photo that I had the following symptoms going on:

• Numbness in more than one extremity
• Tongue lesions and/or sores in my mouth
• Extreme fatigue upon a full nights sleep and requiring a long day nap
• Eye pressure due to encephalitis-(inflammation of brain tissues)
• Gall bladder pain from gall stones
• single or double ear infection
• vision issues
• memory difficulty and word finding issues
• brain fog
• vertigo

Sound familiar? I used to think that people that had these issues on a daily basis that actually fessed up to it were.... HYPOCHONDRIACS!

Now I am fighting the fight. Unfortunately just over 2 years later, the list above is exactly the same, minus the gall bladder, (because I had it surgically removed), but with new and exciting symptoms, such as difficulty swallowing, tongue numbness and very poor balance.

Here are the promised steps for PREVENTION- to keep you and your family from harms way while roaming around in the great outdoors :

• Perform frequent, thorough tick checks
• Wear light colored clothes
• Tuck your pants into your socks
• Put clothes in the dryer for 30 minutes to kill ticks
• There are products for the skin containing DEET
• There are products for the clothes containing Permethrin
• There are clothes which protect against ticks

That is pretty much it. If you SEE a tick on you, STEPS to FOLLOW:

1. Do not burn or use any substance on the tick
2. Do not grasp, squeeze or twist body of the tick
3. Grasp the tick close to skin with tweezers
4. Pull tick straight out
5. Use antiseptic on the skin
6. Disinfect tweezers
7. Wash hands thoroughly
8. Always see a physician for possible diagnosis, testing and treatment
9. Improper tick removal increases chances of infection

Had I known these facts in 2000, I would probably not be telling them to you today. The lyme disease variety I have is neuroborrelia. That basically means that the Borrelia Burgdorferi (lyme bacteria) host on my brain stem and cause neurological damage. The damage that the BB cause, without treatment, could eventually lead to ALS, Alzeimers disease, MS or Parkinson's Disease. More on this fascinating deadly bacteria another time.

To Wellness~

MA