October 2017
THE SECOND SEASON
I can honestly tell you that I have no idea how or when I got Lyme disease. It was over 25 years ago. We had just come back from a winter vacation. We had gone to one of those places that was cheap, warm and third world. Back home, I woke up with a red rash covering my entire body and had trouble walking down the stairs due to painful joints. My doctor at the time had no idea what I had, but he was a former US Army physician and took the typical military approach. He pumped me full of the baddest antibiotics he could find. Overwhelming tactical response. He sent a blood sample to the CDC in Atlanta. They sent back a written shrug of the shoulders. Have no idea, but keep monitoring. The symptoms went away. Or so I thought.
A few years later, I was telling my story to a surveyor client. His response? “Oh, that explains a lot.” Hmmmmm. That felt like something other than a compliment.
So how do I know I had Lyme at that time? As you can imagine, we as wetland and soil scientists are constantly exposed to ticks. They are walking on arms, legs, hair, and other areas. In search of the perfect sucking spot. Most of the time, we find them before they have had a chance to attach. But not always.
The classic spot is the back of the upper arm. You don’t see it. It is covered by the tee shirt. When you wash, you may not rub soap and cloth over the spot. And it was there that I found the tiny tick that had been attached for several days. Eventually, they itch. But, by that time, they have probably been there for 48 ours.
So I get tested. By this time, 10 years after the shock and awe antibiotic application, I had a different doctor. Much more laid back. When the test came back he said, “You don’t have Lyme, but you have had Lyme. You have all the antibodies in your blood.”
I asked the obvious. “Does that mean I won’t get Lyme again?” His response was a shrug. That appears to be the answer to a lot of tick borne diseases.
The same scenario has repeated itself. I have gotten to the point of not worrying about it unless I see the obvious rash, which to date, I never have.
As we now know, there are a lot of tick borne diseases besides Lyme. Most have nasty effects on the human body. So, I have not adopted any philosophy that, with ticks and their onerous ejections, that I am an iron man. I faithfully spray the DEET and check myself after thrashing through forests and fields.
It would be worthwhile for folks to invest in some of the tick removers that have been developed. They are cheap and easy to use. Some swear by simple tweezers or tick keys. The slickest method seems to be the tick twister, where you literally turn the twister around the tick and it detaches itself without spitting fluid back into the skin. The key is to not squeeze the tick body so it pushes the fluids back into your body, along with the diseases.
Some of the larger construction companies now have a policy that if you have a tick attached, no matter how long you think it has been there, go to a doctor, get it removed and tested. That way, if the disease develops, a paper trail for workman’s compensation has been laid.
Which brings me to the real topic of discussion. Here in New Hampshire, we have found there are two seasons of the tick. The first, and one that everyone knows, is the spring. Ticks are out before the snow totally melts. I have one person in this office that is like the canary in the mine shaft (which drops dead when the carbon monoxide gets too high, alerting the miners to skedaddle out of the shaft). He is a tick magnet, and we always know when the ticks first come out, because he is the first to be picking them off his beige pants.
Powerlines are particularly good area to collect ticks. Walking thorough the low shrubs, you look down and see a black glob on your pants that is literally hundreds of tiny ticks. We call them tick bombs, in mixed company. In the field, we call them something else, as we try to brush them off.
The second season is late fall into early winter. Most folks get lulled into a sense of complacency, because most of the ticks, by mid-summer, have dried up or been eaten or have just disappeared. Yes, a walk through a field of tall, uncut grasses may gather you a few friends, but the forests are relatively safe.
Not so when we get into October. The first really cold days seem to wake the little guys up. They are out in force. They are in all the standard places, clinging to dead grass, on stems of low shrubs, or dropping from the limbs of saplings. Time to get out the DEET again.
So, as we leave summer and enter into the shorter days, cooler nights, and frosts, be sure to check yourself for ticks. We are entering the second season.
In My View” is an opinion article that will be posted to you once a month. It is my view of wetland and other environmental issues that will or may affect your business or organization. It will sometimes give you updates on new rules or legislation that has recently passed. In other cases, I will discuss legislation that is “in the works” at our state capital. As the name would imply, it is my view of what this rule, legislation or change means to you. I am constantly meeting with clients, friends and local regulatory officials who are asking me what this rule means or what that piece of legislation does. For that reason, I am sending this out to associates of GES who might care to have this information. I will not be political, but I do reserve the right to be opinionated. If you do not wish to receive further articles, let us know by a “reply to”, and we will delete your name. If you know of someone who might want to receive future articles, just send this on to them and copy us. We will add them to the distribution list. If in the coming months there is a topic, law, rule or regulation that you would like me to discuss, let us know. If I feel that I am competent to say something about it, I will discuss it in the future.
That concludes this Months article. Each past article will be stored on our website at HYPERLINK "http://www.gesinc.biz" www.gesinc.biz or Google: Gove Environmental Services, Inc. I hope this will be of value to you.
Jim Gove
jgove@gesinc.biz
603-778-0644 ext. 15
603-493-0014