WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:28.160 In other news, with spring starting earlier and warmer weather lingering deeper into the 00:28.160 --> 00:35.040 fall, the tick season is expanding. Wisconsin is already a hot spot for ticks in the U.S., 00:35.040 --> 00:40.640 second in the nation, after some locations on the east coast, and with the deer tick prevalent 00:40.640 --> 00:47.440 across the state, cases of Lyme disease are also on the rise. Spiking already this month ahead of 00:47.440 --> 00:55.360 last year, and 2024 marked a record of nearly 2,500 Lyme disease cases in Wisconsin. Could 00:55.360 --> 01:01.200 that be surpassed this year? Researchers at Gunderson Medical Foundation are staying on top of the 01:01.200 --> 01:06.480 disease. Dr. Eric Saban leads the research there, and he joins us now. Thanks for being here, Dr. 01:08.080 --> 01:14.880 Happy to do it. How alarming is it that the tick population is growing in with it, cases of Lyme 01:14.880 --> 01:24.400 disease? Well, I think that it's not going away, and I think that as a disease in our region, I 01:24.400 --> 01:29.280 think we should get pretty comfortable with the idea that it's a threat that will probably become 01:29.280 --> 01:34.800 more common over time, especially when you figure in changes to weather and how often people are 01:34.800 --> 01:40.480 outside doing outdoor recreation. Seems like a thing that's going to be with us going into the 01:40.480 --> 01:46.160 future. And so, what should people do about that? I know that you have said that, you know, 01:46.160 --> 01:50.560 prevention is better than a cure, so what's the best prevention here? 01:50.560 --> 01:55.760 Generally speaking, be aware that if you're going outside and you're going to be in a place 01:55.760 --> 02:02.560 where ticks might be real simple things. Wearing long sleeves, long pants, tucking your pants into 02:02.560 --> 02:07.040 your socks, wearing bright clothing so you can identify ticks when they get attached to you and 02:07.040 --> 02:11.200 remove them before they have a chance to attach to your body, and getting in the habit of making 02:11.200 --> 02:15.360 sure that you look for ticks that might be attached to your skin after you have been out in the woods 02:15.440 --> 02:20.240 or out in a place that there might be a lot of ticks. We know that if you remove these things 02:20.240 --> 02:24.720 from you before they've had a chance to attach to a lot of the transmission risk of Lyme diseases 02:24.720 --> 02:29.600 very, very low or negligible. So we recommend people be very vigilant to that sort of thing 02:29.600 --> 02:35.840 before they once they come back in from a recreational outing. If you do contract Lyme 02:35.840 --> 02:42.160 diseases, is there a cure for it? There are exceptional treatments. We've been using antibiotics 02:42.240 --> 02:47.600 for a very, very long time. Yes, people can be cured, but it's a pretty serious illness and a lot 02:47.600 --> 02:53.520 of folks and certainly has no limits on its ability to produce misery in those who get it. But yes, 02:53.520 --> 02:58.320 we can usually treat people very effectively, especially if we catch the disease early. 02:58.320 --> 03:01.840 So what are some of the kind of worst symptoms of it? 03:03.920 --> 03:08.240 The ones that patients have told me are the most disturbing are the ones that involve the joints, 03:08.240 --> 03:13.040 and I've had patients that have very significant problems with their mobility and very significant 03:13.040 --> 03:18.880 joint pain going into months, sometimes almost a year. And for people who are otherwise 03:18.880 --> 03:23.680 real active or at a real active phase in their life, it can significantly disrupt their quality 03:23.680 --> 03:31.520 of life to a major degree. So does it matter if it is diagnosed and treated early versus later? 03:31.520 --> 03:39.040 The way that the disease operates is that it produces inflammatory reactions in the human body 03:39.040 --> 03:43.920 that have a tendency to progress, change, and worsen over the course of time if the infection 03:43.920 --> 03:48.960 is not treated. Generally speaking, it's better if you take care of it sooner rather than later. 03:48.960 --> 03:52.640 Lots of the cases don't get recognized until weeks or even months of the 03:52.640 --> 03:58.800 lapse than at that point the symptoms have oftentimes been much more dramatic. But generally speaking, 03:58.800 --> 04:03.520 it's a good idea to try to get antibiotic treatment for people very soon. And you have 04:03.520 --> 04:09.200 a tendency not to then progress into the real serious joints or cardiac or neurological complications 04:09.200 --> 04:17.040 after that. How would you know that you had it early? Well, there are certainly tests that 04:17.040 --> 04:22.800 we can use. A lot of things in medicine depend on clinical context. And so that starts with 04:22.800 --> 04:27.600 somebody seeking care and bringing up the idea that they may have been outside or may have had 04:27.600 --> 04:31.600 tick bites or may have been exposed to ticks. And then it relies on the part of the health care 04:31.600 --> 04:37.760 provider to recognize that it's in our area. And it has a pretty diverse array of presentations. 04:37.760 --> 04:42.000 So you combine, you know, the right place at the right time kind of risk back to profile with 04:42.000 --> 04:46.160 the person presenting with the right features of the illness. And at that instance, you know, 04:46.160 --> 04:49.760 you take action and give people treatment. A lot of times you can prevent things from getting 04:49.760 --> 04:53.840 much worse. So has research developed good tests to diagnose Lyme disease? 04:54.640 --> 05:00.320 I'm biased. I think that the testing can work and can be effective in some circumstances, 05:00.320 --> 05:04.320 but it has a lot of limits by virtue of how it works. Most of the present testing is based on 05:04.320 --> 05:10.240 immunological reactions through a process we call serology. And there are pros and cons to that. 05:10.240 --> 05:15.920 Those tests have advantages and that they can show us immunological reactivity and recognition, 05:15.920 --> 05:20.880 but they also can be very difficult to interpret. They don't behave so to speak the way that a lot 05:20.960 --> 05:26.720 of other serological tests do because it's a strange disease. And we don't really have tests 05:26.720 --> 05:30.480 that I think are colloquial as well understood as something like a pregnancy test. You know, 05:30.480 --> 05:35.360 pregnancy test doesn't leave much doubt about what the result means. The problem with Lyme 05:35.360 --> 05:40.480 disease testing in current uses is that it's just simply not that straightforward in a lot of cases. 05:40.480 --> 05:48.000 It can be ambiguous. And so in that instance, if the results are ambiguous, should a patient 05:48.000 --> 05:55.040 ask to be treated anyway? I would suggest that any patient have an individual discussion with 05:55.040 --> 05:59.280 their provider and make some decision-making on what makes sense for the risk benefit, 05:59.280 --> 06:04.400 pros and cons scenario. You should always be forthright with your doctors about what 06:05.040 --> 06:10.880 you think is going on and healthcare practitioners should be attentive and mindful of what patients 06:10.880 --> 06:15.120 might have experienced. In medical school, they told me you can't diagnose what you don't think 06:15.120 --> 06:20.160 of. And a lot of times things that are not being considered are diagnoses that can get missed or 06:20.160 --> 06:26.000 delayed. So in this region, on the part of patients know that it's out there and on the part of 06:26.000 --> 06:31.200 practitioners know that it's a thing that people can walk into the office with. And if the circumstances 06:31.200 --> 06:37.040 makes sense and favor treatment, go ahead and do it. Give it a try. I know that your lab helped 06:37.040 --> 06:42.960 develop the first Lyme disease vaccine for dogs. How far are we from a vaccine for humans? 06:45.440 --> 06:51.120 There have been vaccines for humans. The original Lyme rex vaccine was offered for a while and 06:51.120 --> 06:56.640 then taken off the market. There have been other attempts at developing similar vaccines. There 06:56.640 --> 07:01.760 are pros and cons to the different vaccine strategies being used, both in animals and in humans. Our 07:01.760 --> 07:08.400 hope and our work is trying to find a effective, protective vaccination that can be used in humans 07:08.400 --> 07:12.800 that would function in more or less the same sort of way as a vaccine that a person might get 07:12.800 --> 07:18.720 one time or even perhaps once a season and then provide protection going into the whole rest of 07:18.720 --> 07:24.960 that year or that season. Some progress has been made on that. Lots of dead ends. It's a hard area 07:24.960 --> 07:31.600 of work. Well, thank you for doing that work. Dr. Saban, thanks for joining us. I appreciate it. 07:31.600 --> 07:32.320 Thank you very much. 07:33.120 --> 07:43.200 Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Good luck with that garlic muster. 07:44.480 --> 07:49.440 Yeah, it's a mask. They told me to get goats and goats or goats wreck things. Pigs are easier 07:49.440 --> 07:56.080 to fence than I think. How many pigs do you have? We have four now, probably piglets in the next 07:56.080 --> 08:01.520 two weeks. You know, we might have as many as another eight or 10. It really depends. They're 08:01.840 --> 08:07.200 small pigs. They're hair pigs called coonies. Cooney coon pigs. They're delicious. They're actually 08:07.200 --> 08:13.200 not raised.