Lyme isn’t the only risk from ticks
Excerpted from The Cape Cod Times ( Posted: 06/06/2010 )
When Susan Finnegan didn’t get better after being treated for Lyme disease, the Brewster woman knew something else was going on.
She experienced “extreme fatigue,” burning pains, fevers, chills, sweats and shortness of breath.
“You feel like you can never breathe in enough air,” Finnegan remembered.
Further testing revealed she had acquired a malaria-like illness called babesiosis. It was transmitted by the same type of insect that had given her Lyme disease — the deer tick.
Babesiosis is one of several tick-borne illnesses afflicting residents of the Cape and Islands.
Although small in number compared to the 4,000 Lyme disease cases diagnosed in Massachusetts annually, cases of babesiosis are increasing rapidly, and nearly half of them occur in Barnstable County.
There were 51 cases of babesiosis reported in Massachusetts in 2008, a 34 percent increase over the year before, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Barnstable County accounted for 25 cases and Dukes and Nantucket counties together had six
For the full article: http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100606/NEWS/6060335
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