Kennebunk town manager and his wife educate public on Lyme disease

By Laura Dolce, seacoastonline.com:
ldolce@seacoastonline.com

KENNEBUNK — The number of Lyme disease cases in Maine tells a story of its own: the reported cases in York County jumped 62 percent between 2007 and 2008, with the increase statewide climbing an astounding 645 percent between 2000 and 2007.

Those numbers prompted state Rep. Ed Legg, D-Kennebunk to sponsor LD 1709, a bill created to foster better awareness of the disease that has already garnered bipartisan support.

But the numbers only tell part of the Lyme disease story. It's the people affected by the disease who bring those numbers to life, one story at a time.

Joanne Tibbetts is one of those people. The Scarborough mother of three daughters and wife to Kennebunk Town Manager Barry Tibbetts first got bitten by a tick 15 years ago when looking at houses in Alfred.

"I had no bulls-eye rash," she said. "I looked on the CDC site and I was told I had nothing to worry about."

As time went by, though, Tibbetts started to experience what she described as migrating arthritis and ... Read more>>

See also: Chronic Lyme Disease patients: 100% are XMRV positive