Join us at the Bremen Library on Thursday, May 24th at 7:00 when our featured speaker will be Paula Jackson Jones, president and co-founder of the Mid Coast Lyme and Disease Support & Education group.
The non-profit was formed by two women who had survived Lyme and tick-borne disease and who wanted to forge an easier pathway to resources for others suffering from the disease. From education to physician referrals and support resources, MLDSE is a 24/7/365 year round, all volunteer non-profit whose mission is to raise awareness, foster education, advocate for change and provide support to those afflicted by Lyme.
Paula Jackson Jones is the President and Co-founder and survivor of late stage neurological Lyme disease that was complicated by four co-infections. Misdiagnosed for years by 23 doctors and specialists, she demanded to see a provider who knew more about Lyme, began treatment and is now 4 years in complete remission. She travels all over Maine and New England, sharing her story and helps guide people to much needed resources.
Article Living with Lyme | Patients say it's real after being misdiagnosed for years Author: Vivien Leigh "Imagine living with a disease that causes serious health problems but not knowing that you are infected? Many patients spend years misdiagnosed only to find out that they have Lyme Disease."
MLDSE's President and Co-Founder Paula Jackson Jones shares her own personal story to deliver HOPE to others afflicted by Lyme and tick-borne disease, that there is help available and that they too can get get better.
Midcoast Lyme Disease Support & Education (MLDSE)
are pleased to host Dr. Carrie Werner ND and Melanie Clarke as their
guest speakers at their Brunswick Lyme Support meeting Wed May 2 from 6-8pm at Mid Coast Hospital.
Werner and Clarke are pleased to speak on the opening of their new clinic:
Riverside Healing Center, a patient- centered, holistic practice, will open their doors May 3rd, seeing patients Monday-Thursday.
Supporting patients on their journey to optimal wellness is of the
utmost importance to the practitioners at Riverside Healing Center.
Patients will be provided with full naturopathic care, extensive lab
work both conventional and functional testing, herbal, nutrient and
homeopathic supplements, reflexology, reiki and feet reading.
Dr.
Carrie Werner is a Naturopathic doctor and midwife. Carrie spent two
and a half years in Honduras as public health volunteer in the Peace
Corps. Having always felt a call to medicine, her time in Honduras
helped Carrie to decide to attend Naturopathic medical school to combine
her budding interest in natural healing therapeutics with her call to
medicine.
Carrie attended the National University
of Natural Medicine in Portland Oregon where she earned her Naturopathic
medical degree and completed an apprenticeship in Naturopathic
midwifery. After completing her medical studies Carrie moved to
Melbourne, Australia where she owned and practiced at Your Natural Path
for 5 years. Carrie moved back to America in 2014 to meld her practice
of naturopathy and midwifery. Carrie is passionate about empowering her
patients in their healthcare and is dedicated to supporting them in
their journey to optimal wellness. She is committed to meeting people
where they’re at in their journey and providing support that fits into
their lifestyle. She and her patients work in partnership to achieve
their goals through a variety of treatments including diet, nutrient
therapy, neurotransmitter balancing, botanical medicine and homeopathy.
Melanie
Clarke is a reflexologist, medical scientist and chef. Melanie has
always had a fascination with the science and art which makes up the
body and her 10 years of work experience in biochemistry as a medical
scientist gives her a very unique perspective of the body and its
internal workings. She received her Diploma of Reflexology from the
Australian School of Reflexology and Relaxation (ASRR) in 2008 and
started in private practice creating Assisting Soles as well as teaching
reflexology for 5 years. She moved to Maine in 2014 and continued her
reflexology practice. Melanie believes everyone has an amazing ability
to heal themselves and given the encouragement and space, everyone can
develop their skills to thrive.
Could Lyme Disease Be The First Epidemic of Climate Change By Aislinn Sarnacki, BDN Staff • Updated:
A public warning and call to
action, the new book “Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change,” by
investigative journalist Mary Beth Pfeiffer, sheds light on a tick-borne
disease that recently has emerged to infect hundreds of thousands of
people in the United States each year.
Lauded by well-known authors and
conservationists, including Jane Goodall, Jane Alexander and Bill
McKibben, “Lyme” officially hits bookstore shelves on April 17. The book
challenges mainstream medicine and prevailing perceptions of the
complicated disease.
“There’s a problem with how we manage Lyme
disease,” Pfeiffer said in a recent phone interview. “People need to be
aware that we have a long way to go before we get to the point where we
can adequately diagnose and treat Lyme disease and other tick-borne
diseases.”
Lyme disease derives its name from where
it was first diagnosed: Old Lyme, Connecticut, in 1975. Caused by the
bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, Lyme disease is transmitted to humans
through the bite of infected blacklegged ticks, also known as deer ticks, which has been expanding its range in the U.S. and other countries over the past decade.
In Maine, black-legged ticks became
increasingly common in the late 1980s and early 1990s, starting in the
southern and coastal regions of the state and spreading north and
inland. Coinciding with the spread of these ticks, reports of Lyme
disease in Maine began to increase during that time, reaching an
all-time high in 2016 with 1,488 cases of new Lyme disease infections
reported by Maine to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
Pfeiffer first became interested in Lyme
disease in 2012 as an investigative reporter for a Dutchess County, New
York, newspaper, the Poughkeepsie Journal. She planned to write one or
two stories on the topic, keeping the coverage fairly local.
“At the time, I was unaware of the
controversies surrounding Lyme disease,” she said, “and I was unaware of
the ability of the disease to get as advanced and out of control that I
subsequently discovered it to be. In short, I thought it was this
pesky, common disease. Not a big deal.”
It wasn’t long before her initial view of
Lyme was shook to its foundations. The more she researched the problem,
the bigger it became.
With the intentions of writing a book on
the topic, Pfeiffer took an early retirement from the newspaper business
in 2015 and devoted herself to investigating Lyme. In her research for
what became a 304-page book, she read approximately 300 scientific
papers on the topic and interviewed medical researchers, health care
professionals, wildlife biologists and entomologists around the world.
She also gathered stories from people from all walks of life who had
been affected by Lyme.
“[Lyme] has been in the environment for
millions of years. That we know.” Pfeiffer said. “But it really exploded
just as climate change was getting to the point where we were noticing
differences in temperature, differences in snowfall, differences in the
length of growing seasons and so forth.”
“I ultimately concluded that it was the
first major epidemic to move about the planet as a result of climate
change,” Pfeiffer said, well aware that some readers may disagree.
While climate change is at the heart of
many of the narratives in the book, Pfeiffer spins off this theme to
touch upon many different facets of Lyme disease, from its biological
makeup to groundbreaking research being done to find better ways to diagnose and treat the disease.
“Basically mainstream medicine frames
Lyme disease as easy to diagnose and easy to treat, and it’s not,” she
said. “There’s a lot of evidence that it’s not.”
“[Lyme disease is] called the great
imitator because it presents in so many different ways that it’s hard to
pin down,” she said. “It can cause depression. It’s been associated
with strokes, pains in your joints. It’s rashes. It’s numbness and
paralysis. It can go to the heart. It can affect vision. There are so
many ways it causes disability and symptoms in people.”
While it’s impossible to write a book
about Lyme disease without much of it being scary and discouraging,
Pfeiffer does attempt to insert messages of hope, especially in the
final chapter. Optimistically titled “A Lyme-Free World,” the chapter
contains information about how people can protect themselves from ticks and describes research being conducted to develop anti-Lyme and anti-tick vaccines.
Also in this final chapter, Pfeiffer
expresses the opinion that more funding should be allocated to Lyme
disease research. And to illustrate her point, she compares the $1.1
billion in federal funding apportioned to research the mosquito-borne
Zika Virus in 2016, to the $2.7 million in federal grants awarded to
research on Lyme that same year.
“This isn’t about which disease tops the
other as a public health calamity,” she wrote in the chapter. “It’s
about whether responses to each are proportional.”
“There are two options to curb Lyme and
tick-borne disease,” she continued. “First, get rid of or, more
practically, sharply reduce ricks. Second, stop them from infecting
people. We are a long way from reaching either of those goals. It is a
problem of will, not ability. Science has tackled bigger problems and in
less time.”
“Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change,” will be available for sale at bookstores on Tuesday, April 17.
Join MLDSE at the Bremen Library on Thursday, April 5th at noon for a second in a series of Brown Bag lunches featuring Paula Jackson Jones, President and Co-founder of Midcoast Lyme and Disease Support & Education. A survivor of late stage neurological Lyme Disease and co-infections, Paula will share her journey from misdiagnosis by 23 doctors and specialists to remission and how MLDSE travels state wide, raising awareness, fostering education and sharing free resources and supports with patients and their families Bring your lunch. Beverages and dessert will be provided. FMI: 529-5572
Hey folks ~ Come on up/down/over to the Augusta Civic Center March 30-31 and April 1st for the State of Maine Sportsman Show ~ and be sure to stop by our #MLDSE booth for information and education about prevention and tick borne disease. We will be giving a presentation each day so check out the schedule and maybe we'll see you there!! This event has something for outdoors enthusiasts of all ages!! For more information including the schedule of presentations: https://www.facebook.com/events/156404435063900/?ti=cl
Tune in, Knox and Waldo county listeners, Monday morning (March 26 8am) as MLDSE's own Paula Jackson Jones will be sharing Lyme education, prevention and resources on the Chris Wolf show hosted by Maine Coast tv. The Chris Wolf Show is broadcast live every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 8:00 – 9:00 a.m. by Maine Coast TV on http://www.mainecoast.tv/chriswolfshow/ The Chris Wolf Show is also broadcast live in Knox County on Channel 7 Time Warner Monday, Wednesday and Friday and at later times during normal programming. It is also broadcast live on Belfast Community TV, Channel 2, in Belfast Maine. If you miss the live stream of a particular Chris Wolf Show, approximately one week after the broadcast it will be available below on the Recent Chris Wolf Shows section. Radio Broadcast: The Chris Wolf Show audio is also broadcast live on WRFR FM 93.3 Rockland and 99.3 Camden/Rockport as well as audio streaming on the Internet at http://tunein.com/radio/Radio-Free-Rockland-933-s14055/.
Midcoast Lyme Disease Support and Education will be at the Warren Free Public Library this Saturday, March 24th from 1-2pm for an information talk about Lyme Disease covering prevention to available resources if one is bitten and exposed to a tick-borne disease.
Warren Free Public Library 282 Main Street Warren Maine 04864 207-273-2900
Due
to the inclement weather (nor'easter) slated to hit Maine Wed evening,
MLDSE is cancelling their March 7th Lyme Support meeting. The
speakers from Scarborough Integrative Health ~ Dr Jill Mahoney MD, Dr
Jacob Aguiar ND and David Aronson LCSW ~ will be at the April 4th
Brunswick Lyme support meeting from 6-8p so mark your calendars!
"Founded by two women, the local organization has gained international recognition.
Have you heard the backstory on Midcoast Lyme Disease Support and
Education? Two local women who suffered from the disease made an
organization that now connects Mainers to resources all over the
country." ~ Coastal Journal, Midcoast Spotlight on Business
Please NOTE change in location for this meeting only! Downeast
Medicinals is our Guest Speaker and hosting our meeting at their
storefront location (located just before the Wiscasset bridge) at 25A
Route 1 in Edgecomb, Maine. If you have any questions, please feel free contact us. All are welcome to attend this meeting.
