Hudson Valley Parent

HVP June 2015

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16 Hudson Valley Parent ■ June 2015 By KELLY AURIEMMO I magine your 4-year-old pulling a tick off herself. Very scary, right? Many of us have been there, and this happened to me, too. For some reason, my youngest daughter is a tick magnet! It happens so much, she pulls them off without flinching. However, she has never developed the classic bull's eye rash. She never got a fever. She never complained of joint pain, headaches or any of the other common symptoms associated with Lyme disease. So we thought we were in the clear. That year at her annual exam, I asked my pediatrician to add the tick borne illnesses to the standard blood test that they give. Guess what? Her labs lit up like a Christmas tree! Yup. She had Lyme! And not one symptom! Lyme disease and the other tick borne diseases — Babesiosis and Anaplasmosis (sometimes mistakenly identified as Ehrlichiosis) — are very prevalent here in the Hudson Valley. They all usually surface with similar symptoms: a bull's eye rash, fever, chills, fatigue, and muscle pain or soreness. However, as in my daugh- ter's case, there were absolutely no symptoms. So do not assume that no symptoms equals no disease. Dr. Richard Ostfeld, an Interna- Ticked off How to protect your family from this Hudson Valley pest

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