Letter from Maureen Dill

Tick-borne Illness Continues to Rise

It’s about time. We’ve been trying to sound the alarm for more than four years, when we found it necessary to “educate” our physicians about the threat of tick-borne illnesses. At my sister’s insistence, one doctor at a local hospital investigated the possibility that her ailment might be due to a tick bite—in particular, anaplasmosis. After learning all about it, he contacted her to inform her that she indeed did have anaplasmosis. Fortunately, she didn’t develop the Alpha Gal syndrome, which would have endangered her health with a meat and/or dairy allergy.

Well, it’s finally happening. At the top of today’s news on every major news channel was word of the tick illness that causes Alpha Gal syndrome, with a report that more than 490,000 people across the U.S. are infected! In recent months, the Centers for Disease Control and Mayo Clinic have been reporting on these tick-borne illnesses in the news and on social media, and last year it was said that more than half a million people in the U.S. have Lyme Disease—another tick-borne illness. The news report indicated that Lyme infections are higher than the numbers of people with HIV/AIDS and cancer!

Based upon our experience locally, veterinarians are more knowledgeable about this problem than are local physicians.

Maureen Dill
Morris