Lyme Disease comes up often on this blog, because it’s a growing problem coast to coast in the US. While it’s mainly associated with the North East, there are pockets of Lyme Disease all the way to the Pacific with new counties testing positive for it in their local tick populations each year. An estimated 300,000 Americans get Lyme Disease annually (that’s ten times the number of people who actually get tested for Lyme Disease, meaning there’s hundreds of thousands dealing with the illness who don’t even know it!). With the increasing number of cases, make sure you have ongoing immune support from colloidal silver.
This summer is predicted to be a very bad one for Lyme Disease. Why? Two reasons. The first is that it’s been a comparably mild winter, which means that pests like ticks and mosquitoes do a better than average job of surviving.
The second is that mice boomed last summer, and they’re an excellent vehicle for ticks. Mice don’t remove ticks the way other mammals do, they transmit Lyme Disease readily, and the way our current relationship with nature is set up, it’s very hospitable for mice and puts them right up against humans (fewer predators, patches of forests rather than dense old growth, and dream homes overlooking it all). So the mice population one summer strongly predicts ticks the next, and that means this year might be bad.
What can you do? Get your yard ready. Keep mammals out of it with fences and natural barriers (like rocks) so that ticks don’t transfer easily into your yard (and to you and your pets!). Ticks range in size and can be pretty small, so even if you’re doing the recommended tick checks for you and pets after each outing, you should still be familiar with and know symptoms.
The telltale bullseye rash is well publicized, but makes up only a small number of cases these days. Plus, there’s a bacteria closely related to Lyme Disease that never presents a bullseye rash. Instead, watch for ongoing fatigue, fever, and general malaise. Pain or stiffness in joints is also a good sign (Lyme Disease causes lots of inflammation in joints, and if prolonged, organs, so eat an antioxidant rich diet during and after to help compensate). Headaches that accompany those symptoms can also indicate Lyme Disease.
Because Lyme Disease is newly spreading, getting diagnosed and treated varies in difficulty depending on where you live. Be sure to communicate that you suspect Lyme Disease and advocate for yourself! And if you ever pull a tick off your skin (or your pet) bring it in to get tested.
Don’t forget to keep immune support going all throughout the spring and summer with colloidal silver (especially if you enjoy the outdoors, even if it’s just your own backyard!).
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