Staying grounded while recovering from Lyme disease
This video on YouTube gets up close and personal, a fascinating view of how ticks transmit the coinfection babesiosis.
Check out the tiny size of young ticks, or nymphs. Wow. No wonder infected people often never see them.
Then learn what happens once the parasite gets inside the human body. Symptoms can include drenching sweats, fatigue, and muscle aches. Click here to read a story from the New York Times about the potential impact of babesia on the spleen.
Noted on YouTube:
Special thanks to Rick Smith at The University of Rhode Island for narration; Rick’s brother was recently diagnosed with Lyme disease. To learn more about Tick Bite prevention, please visit http://www.TickEncounter.org
It’s not just places in the U.S. where people are told, “No lyme here.”
In this video posted on YouTube from Australia’s “Today Tonight” (aired 13 February 2012), a government health official says people with lyme in Australia most likely got infected elsewhere.
Patients interviewed say otherwise.
Note: For those not familiar with lyme at its worst, I must warn you that the interviews are graphic examples of the suffering inflicted by persistent lyme disease.
See another “Today Tonight” lyme report about a 3-year-old infected with lyme here.
And here’s research on coinfections in Australia.
For more information on lyme down under, visit the Lyme Disease Association of Australia.
If you haven’t seen the compelling and award-winning lyme documentary “Under our Skin” by Open Eye Pictures, check out the trailer above from YouTube. It doesn’t seem to be streaming for free any more but see below for info on how to buy it or arrange a screening in your area.
Through interviews with people living the nightmare of chronic lyme as well as the doctors and researchers deeply committed to helping them recover, you’ll learn about this hidden epidemic.
It’s all here, from the shameful treatment of many patients by some in the medical establishment who deny the very existence of persistent lyme to the inaccuracies of testing and the impacts of this insidious illness on individuals and families.
You’ll also hear success stories from people who found health again thanks to lyme literate doctors. If enough people see this film, maybe we can attain the long overdue public awareness and action this health crisis deserves.
To buy the DVD, find out about screenings in your community, or to sign up to host a screening, visit www.underourskin.com.
UPDATE: The sequel, an Academy Award runner up, is now available! PLEASE SHARE ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND EMAIL. We need this information to reach beyond those already impacted.
Seems like years since I’ve heard a Hall and Oates song, but this interview on YouTube sure caught my eye. I’m so glad famous people like Daryl are sharing their personal lyme stories.
Notice how his symptoms gradually built up until the day he crashed and couldn’t ignore them any more. If more people knew about how often lyme—”the great imitator”— is mistaken for other things, they could get on the path to good health sooner.
Also take note: he’s recovering – you will, too.
I’m very lucky to have wonderful neighbors. One of them, Marilyn, called me the other day to say she’d seen this segment of “Monsters Inside Me” on Discovery’s Animal Planet. It explores the case of a Lyme patient who was not recovering, and her doctor’s discovery that she had babesia caused by the parasite Babesia microti. Marilyn knows I’m being treated for Lyme and wanted to make sure I knew about this co-infection. She got the message: Lyme patients with babesia need treatment for that along with Lyme in order to recover. I’m also lucky to have a Lyme literate doctor who checked me for co-infections at the start because I had soaking night sweats, a key symptom; my treatment is going well. Babesia can also cause the spleen to rupture; read one patient’s story here. The good news is, babesia can be treated. But first it has to be diagnosed. Please, share this video to help get the word out. And if you want lots more information on babesia symptoms and treatment, see this video by Dr. Robert Horowitz of the Hudson Valley Healing Arts Center in New York.
You’ve probably read that ticks carrying lyme disease and other infections can be the size of a poppy seed. Sure, you’ve seen the seeds adorning muffins. But this video PSA with Katie Seeley makes you stop and focus on just how tiny they truly are.
It’s important to know what you are looking for, so that when you check yourself or your kids for ticks, you’re looking as closely as humanly possible. Someone I know pulled a speck from his skin with tweezers thinking it was just a minute scab, until he looked at it up close and saw tiny legs waving at him.
Indeed, these ticks are so small that I missed the one that reinfected me when it first latched onto my thigh. Despite my fanatical body check (I was recovering from a previous infection, so believe me, I was motivated never to be bitten again), the infinitesimal tick eluded me until it had been embedded in my skin for a couple of days and caused some irritation…by which time it had transmitted its dangerous cargo, causing my health to crash again.
Remove an infected tick soon after it bites, and you may well never be infected. Seek proper treatment right away if you are infected, and by most accounts you will feel great soon. Miss the infection for some weeks, months, or years—and you could be in for a world of trouble beyond anything you ever imagined.
So check out this video, and mind Benjamin Franklin’s words: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Lymenade, which produced this video with And What Productions, is no more. But the group’s creative work to get the word out about the lyme epidemic lives on. Learn more in the videos following “Poppy Seed,” above.
And to see a New York Times video on how a tick sticks to the skin, click here.
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