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Re: Lyme Disease Thread I started

From:

Rob Gibbs

Reply-To:

Rob Gibbs

Date:

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 10:37:10 -0400

I've been following this thread with great interest.  It's great to see 
this discussion on this list. 
I work for the Montgomery County Parks as project leader for the deer 
program and virtually every complaint phone call about deer eventually 
comes to me.  Lyme disease has become the biggest concern of many 
callers in the past few years and I have heard a lot of horror stories 
from Montgomery County residents similar to what has been shared on this 
thread. 

 I wanted to add two things.

1) The bottom line on treatment is - don't expect your doctor to be up 
to date on Lymes disease questions. Some certainly some are, but from 
the stories I hear the vast majority are not.   If you spend a lot of 
time in the field you need to learn the symptoms and be on the look out 
for them.  If you believe that you have Lymes, insist on treatment for 
it.  If your doctor will not treat you, find another doctor.

2) Before you trade off  your binoculars and take up stamp collecting 
you need to know about keeping ticks off of you.   Maybe most birders 
know about this already but if you don't you should.  Deet will work to 
repell ticks, but only for an hour or two (despite what the can says) so 
it must be re-applied often to be effective.    The best repellent for 
ticks is permethrin based products.  These can only be applied to 
clothing while you are not wearing  it and it must dry for at least two 
hours before you wear the clothes.  But once applied it will last from 2 
to 6 weeks and through a couple of machine washings.  The chemical bonds 
to the fabric and it kills ticks.   I have found ticks that crawled up 
my leg and attached to my skin but when I found them several hours later 
they were stone dead.

You can get these at most outdoor stores. Walmart carries a brand called 
REPEL permanone - though it does not last as long as some of the others.

So read up on Lymes to suppliment your doctors knowledge,  treat those 
clothes, and keep on birding!!!!!

Rob Gibbs
Damascus, MD







Helen Horrocks wrote:

>--- Maurice Barnhill <> wrote:
>  
>
>>I don't think I'll go that far, but I doubt I'll
>>complain about the cold 
>>during the winter any more.
>>
>>    
>>
>Don't count on the cold weather.  A deer tick attached
>to me several years ago at Vaughn WMA in the month of
>February. 
>
>Helen Horrocks
>Ijamsville, Fred. Co., MD
>hlh_37~at~yahoo.com
>
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