Looking at Lyme

A growing concern for industries and employees across the country is the risk of a tick encounter in the workplace. Both employers and employees can take important steps to raise awareness and reduce the risk of tick bites and tick-borne illnesses.

Sarah addresses safety in the workplace in these podcasts with Jordan Tesluk and Tim Tchida. Providing employees with a CanLyme Tick Removal Kit helps to ensure safe and timely tick removal, and testing ticks for pathogens can provide important information regarding potential exposure to those pathogens.

Show notes.

A growing concern for many outdoor workers across the country is the risk of a tick encounter in their workplace. Fortunately there are steps that employers and employees can take to reduce the risk of tick bites and tick-borne illnesses. Increased awareness is an important first step, and creating and implementing policies in the workplace helps keep employees safe and businesses running efficiently. In this podcast, Sarah is joined by Jordan Tesluk, a Forestry Safety Advocate for silviculture and consultant forestry in British Columbia.

• Read the full show notes!
• CanLyme Tick Removal Kit
• More on tick testing
• Mapping ticks in Canada

Ticks can be found in our backyards, parks and school grounds, and for thousands of Canadians, they can also be found in their workplace. Foresters, linesmen, landscapers, and tree planters are among the many outdoor workers who are at risk of encountering ticks in their day-to-day work. Even people who work indoors such as veterinarians and pet groomers are potentially exposed to this occupational hazard. In this podcast, we connect again with Tim Tchida, a business operator in the reforestation industry. He has been an industry leader in raising awareness about tick borne illnesses.

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When it comes to Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses, prevention is paramount! There are some basic steps you can take to protect yourself and your family, including applying insect repellent before going outdoors. Keeping a supply of insect spray near the door, in your pack and in your car makes that important step even easier.

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In this podcast, Sarah is joined by two Canadian women who have joined forces to create, research, and sell tick repellants made without harsh chemicals. Lisa Learning is an Indigenous entrepreneur and founder of AtlanTick repellent products. She joins us from Blockhouse, Nova Scotia. Nancy Thompson is her business partner and research collaborator. She joins us from Squamish, British Columbia. 

• Read the full show notes
• AtlanTick
• Dr. Nicoletta Faraone, Acadia University
• Behavioral responses of Ixodes scapularis tick to natural products: development of novel repellents
• Chemosensory and Behavioural Responses of Ixodes scapularis to Natural Products: Role of Chemosensory Organs in Volatile Detection

What can employers do to protect staff who work in the outdoors? In this flashback podcast, Sarah explores some answers to that question with Tim Tchida, Owner and CEO of Summit Reforestation in Smithers BC. When Tim first heard about Lyme disease, he never imagined getting the disease himself. Tim recalls first learning he had Lyme disease after receiving a positive Canadian Lyme test (western blot) following mild symptoms of the disease. As time went on, he realized how fortunate he was to receive a diagnosis in light of so many others who have found it very challenging to receive a Lyme diagnosis in Canada.

Read the Season 2 show notes.

This flashback episode is from season two! Sarah announces an Educator Resource for Lyme disease, and speaks with the lead resource developer, Lauren Hudson. Lauren is an educator and parent with a passion for science, life and for going into nature with her students and her family. She took a deep dive into the world of Lyme disease to help develop an educator resource to help other teachers both learn and teach about ticks and tick-borne illnesses. Lauren recalls her own journey of learning about tick-borne illnesses from members of the Lyme Education Awareness and Prevention (LEAP) team.

Lauren helped develop the Educators’ Resource as a tool to empower teachers to learn and teach others about ticks and tick-borne illnesses. The resource consists of three modules along with three activities per module and numerous slides and images to compliment the written material. The initial resource covers information about ticks and how to identify them, what people need to know before and after going outdoors, as well as the basics of Lyme disease. She points out that it can be used not only by educators in schools, but also in other settings such as outdoor education. It has also been designed to be accessible to diverse ways of learning and different learning styles.

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Get the Educator Resource

This interview with Dr. Ralph Hawkins is from season one! Dr. Hawkins has been treating Lyme patients in Canada for many years, gaining a wealth of knowledge about the disease. He recounts his introduction to the shortcomings of Lyme disease testing in Canada while treating a patient with a history of multiple previous tick bites, many common symptoms of Lyme disease, but a negative Canadian Lyme test. Dr. Hawkins had the patient’s blood tested at a University Lab in New York, revealing test band patterns consistent with Lyme disease. He referred this patient to Infectious Diseases colleagues for treatment, but quickly found out that the diagnosis of late stage Lyme disease is not generally recognized by the Infectious Diseases community. He was advised to not only drop this case, but to avoid other similar cases. The recommendation to avoid such patients sparked Dr. Hawkins’ curiosity and interest, inspiring him to dive deeply into the research and history of Lyme disease.

Dr. Hawkins walks us through the current testing protocols for Lyme disease in Canada, explaining why some patients with Lyme disease receive a negative test result. He explains the difference between current testing in Canada and tests done in other parts of the world, highlighting a test done in Germany that he often relies on when diagnosing patients, and touching on the approval process for such tests by Health Canada. Without better testing, Canadians with Lyme disease continue to fall through the cracks of the healthcare system. Dr. Hawkins refers to a recent analysis of Lyme diagnosis in Canada in which researchers speculate that in some areas, two thirds of Lyme cases go unreported. With this in mind he points out that, in light of the severity of untreated Lyme disease, a trial period of treatment for Lyme disease would be valid for certain patients with negative Canadian serology. Thank you Dr. Hawkins for walking with us down the bumpy road of Lyme disease testing and treatment in Canada!

In this flash back episode, Sarah explores the latest research on astrocytes, gut bacteria and neuroinflammation with scientist and medical researcher Dr. Francisco Quintana. Dr. Quintana is a Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He describes some of the causes of neuroinflammation including infection, tumours and auto-immune disease. So what does all of that have to do with astrocytes?  

Astrocytes are a type of glial cell found in the central nervous system. These cells were first described over 100 years ago and were given their celestial name because they are shaped like a star. Even though they are the most abundant type of cell in the brain, Dr. Quintana points out that we are just now beginning to understand their function. One of the important functions of the glymphatic system is in regulating the movement of fluids in and out of the brain. Once seen as having more of a supportive role in the brain, astrocytes are now understood to help regulate inflammation – an important finding in the study of diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimers and Parkinson’s disease. In fact, Dr. Quintana states that the astrocytes can, “boost and drive inflammation and that’s very important because, so far, we have no therapies to actually suppress those pro-inflammatory activities.”

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As Dr. Maloney says, “Research is our way out of this.” This is our kind of expert leading the way in the field. In today’s podcast, Sarah explores a comprehensive (and free!) online education program designed for healthcare professionals, which was founded by Lyme disease expert, Dr. Betty Maloney. Listen to this flashback interview with Dr. Maloney who became interested in Lyme disease when she realized that what she was seeing in her medical practice did not align with her medical training and scientific education. This led her to apply her clinical skills, listen carefully to her patients, and eventually help educate other physicians regarding Lyme disease. It inspired her to support patients through her work with the Minnesota Lyme Association.

Dr. Maloney describes the evolution of her training from all-day seminars to present day online CME-accredited (continuing medical education) courses available at LymeCME.info  The courses are an invaluable resource to physicians and the patients they care for as they are offered  online for free. She notes that despite the accessibility of these courses, many physicians are not aware that they exist. The CME courses are accredited in the US, individuals would need to research whether the accreditation applies to their profession and jurisdiction.

Read the show notes.