Healthy Options 5/6/26: Update: Lyme disease, tick-borne illnesses & how to avoid tick bites

Host/Producer: Rhonda Feiman Co-Producer: Petra Hall Technical Assistance: Joel Mann Healthy Options: For Well-being & Being Well This month: – The spreasd of new tick species and diseases in Maine & the Northeast – Prevention is the best medicine! Keep ticks from attaching. Create a barrier with clothes. Using permethrin on clothes & gear (embedded commercially, or sprayed on carefully). – Use repellants on skin (deet, picaridin, lemon-eucalyptus) – Essential oils not effective for very long & may cause skin irritation – Symptoms of tick infections for Alpha-gal syndrome, Lyme, Anaplasmosis, Babesiosis, Ehrlichiosis, Borrelia miyamotoi, Powassan virus & which ticks carry them – When doxycycline is used & most effective, & other treatments for tick illness – How soon can disease be transmitted after a bite (Powassan virus within 15 minutes!) Guest(s): Dr. Beatrice Szantyr on Lyme disease & other tick-borne illness, for an update on tick diseases & new tick species which are spreading here in Maine (& beyond), how we need to be tick-conscious to try to prevent tick bites, & the challenges in identifying and treating tick-borne illness. FMI: EPA info on effective repellents www.epa.gov/insect-repellents? EPA tool to find the repellent that is right for you www.epa.gov/insect-repellents/find-repellent-right-you EPA info on repellent-treated clothing www.epa.gov/insect-repellents/repellent-treated-clothing? University of Maine Tick Lab?- Protect Yourself from ticks & tick-borne diseases?(Identify a tick for free; $20 to ID diseases the tick may contain) extension.umaine.edu/ticks/ Tick testing Amherst MA. (tests for more diseases): www.tickreport.com Maine Tracking Network- Tickborne Diseases?Improving public health with better information: data.mainepublichealth.gov/tracking/home Columbia University Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center www.columbia-lyme.org/ Powered by patients. Home of Lyme Times and My Lyme Data: www.lymedisease.org/ TickEncounter  The University of Rhode Island Tick-borne Disease prevention Education web.uri.edu/tickencounter/ This article is brief enough for a patient to bring to a doctor’s visit for them to consider: The Management of Ixodes scapularis Bites in the Upper Midwest wmjonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/110/2/78.pdf ESPECIALLY FOR MEDICAL PROVIDERS: VectorWise CME: “Empowering clinicians through vector-borne disease education – free, virtual, accredited CME” vectorwisecme.org/ LymeCME: “Free, Evidence-based, AAFP-Accredited Courses that Physicians Can Trust” lymecme.info/ About the host: Rhonda Feiman is a nationally-certified, licensed acupuncturist practicing in Belfast, Maine since 1993. She primarily practices Toyohari Japanese acupuncture, using gentle and powerful non-insertion needle techniques, and also utilizes Chinese acupuncture and herbology. In addition, Rhonda is a practitioner of Qi Gong and an instructor of Tai Chi Chuan in the Yang Family tradition. The post Healthy Options 5/6/26: Update: Lyme disease, tick-borne illnesses & how to avoid tick bites first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.