To the editor:
One of the many real life negative side effects of global climate change is a recent explosion of tick-born illness in southern New Hampshire.
As a life-long resident of the Granite State I never saw the Lyme disease-carrying deer tick until about six years ago. Now, even when using various precautionary measures, I find ticks crawling on me almost every time I return from a walk in the woods. And even with treatment my dog, as a tick magnet, brings these unwelcome guests into my home.
In early August after seeing red swelling and an apparent bug bit behind my right knee, I went quickly to the Milford Medical Center, where a Lyme disease-literate doctor gave me a preliminary diagnosis, which was confirmed after $1,300 of lab testing. I was put on twenty-one days of antibiotics, which hopefully will stabilize my problem.
I then read the hopeful yet frightening book “Raising Above Lyme Disease” by Julia Greenstan, an Amherst NH doctor who treats this very challenging problem holistically and who refers to ticks as Mother Nature’s ‘dirty needles’. But the guy in the White House continues to say global climate change is a hoax. Meanwhile I’m being bugged by a new reality.
In fact having Lyme disease really ticks me off.
Mike Beebe
Lyndeborough