It is again the time of the year: everyone is out and about, enjoying the sun & summer fun time! Many of us go about our most favorite outdoor activities - often close, or underneath the beautiful canopy of large trees. BEAUTIFUL!!!
I have enjoyed these moments since I was a kid, and always pretended to be Tarzan, or some other wild guy doing the wild thing! What I never really thought about were the bugs and crawlers that may end up biting or stinging me, except may be the wasps that got me good when I ran into their nest as an 8-year old.
Not anymore: recently I traveled to Brazil and ended up with a tick on my upper leg. Being not informed too well at that time about ticks & tick-bite related diseases I trusted the local doctor: “…not to worry!” We carefully pulled out the tick, and I kept climbing the rocks and enjoying the many other things in central Bahia.
Soon after this experience my Mom in Germany reported that she had some rheumatic fever attack. Her local expert-doctor related the rheumatic attack to multiple factors, but wondered whether she had been exposed to a tick bite in former years. She confirmed, and a blood test was indeed positive and indicative of a tick bite. However, the doctor chose a treatment with steroids that may have been completely wrong!
Why and how do I question the doctor’s expertise and knowledge?
Like Nick Naylor, spokesman for the tobacco industry asks a little girl at the school presentation about “Smoking”: “So - who is your expert with this?”, I started to ask myself: who IS an expert with tick bites, and who decides what is the right or wrong thing to do in this case?
When I watched Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, the tick bite issue itched me once again. Out of curiosity I started to talk to my personal “expert” near-by who knows about this topic from an up-close & personal experience: Christine Cibula. She got exposed to tick bites over a decade ago, and developed a serious case of Lyme Disease.
I refuse to list all the maladies that may come along with one tick bite, simply out of blissful ignorance and denial that all these things may be simmering inside my body. However, knowing that with global climatic changes more and more people are going to be exposed to ticks, it is almost imperative to get informed through experts, such as Christine Cibula.
Now, after eleven years of suffering, enormous medical costs, medical “mal-treatments” and other setbacks, Christine’s mission is to help other people with lyme disease by distilling all her experience and knowledge into a comprehensive product portfolio. As she points out: …time & timing to act is crucial to get the right treatment in order to re-establish and maintain a normal life again!” - and this is what her mission and new products are …
all about.
Christine’s new information products are like a “ticket for self-empowerment” - almost like an Erin Brockovich“Proof-Me-Wrong-First-Before-You-Tell-Me-What-To-Do” document for those people who possibly have lyme disease, but 1) do not know where to find a lyme-disease literate expert, and 2) how to talk to that same expert (normally the patient’s local medical doctor).
Over time Christine has developed a very healthy attitude about Living With Lyme: being a life-time optimist and enjoying an incredibly strong Motherly Love, she has discovered many ways to reestablish a rich and blissful life. Important assets to her daily routine are aquatic exercise and certain nutritional products to replenish her body.
I, for my part, certainly will not stop enjoying the woods because I refuse to live a life in fear. But you bet that I diligently check my body after every outdoor expedition - just in case I got hit by the silent monster-wave.
I also started to enjoy the same drink that Christine helps every day: a highly potent concentrate of the antioxidant-rich Brazilian Açai Berry. Even without having lyme disease, this tasteful drink has enhanced my performance as a videographer, scientist, and athlete - PLUS, since I love Brazil and this drink’s origin IS from Brazil - PLUS getting my tick bite in Brazil - I decided this is a story with a Happy End!
