Letter: Beware of infected ticks

Graphic by Lori Deaton

Tick-borne disease numbers are rising. Remember to take tweezers in a baggie in your pocket while hiking or just walking through one of our beautiful parks. If you see one attached, never touch it with your fingers; if you have a small, cut you can get Lyme disease.

If you have an oak tree in your yard, they are tick magnets, so spray your doormats. They attract squirrels and small critters that carry ticks.

Send the tick out to be tested; never let a doctor throw that tick out. This disease could cause you to be suicidal and have to go on disability because you can’t think. It gives you dyslexia, and your life slowly dies before your eyes. It breaks up marriages and destroys families.

I just read that Newsweek has an article out now describing this horror. See “The Quiet Epidemic” and please ask your representatives and senators to give North Carolina free tick testing, an accurate tick count and education in the schools.

Insurance does not cover chronic Lyme. It’s very expensive annually just to survive, and there is not an accurate Lyme test.

— Jan Dooley
Asheville

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