Lyme disease season getting under way

By Matt Conn
For The Journal

Not garlic nor wooden stakes nor the ubiquitous cross will save you from the blood-sucking, disease-carrying tiny arachnids that could be lurking in your lawn, which would otherwise seem a safe place to roll with your children or read a book while smelling freshly mown grass.

Ticks may be small, but some of them can take you down with Lyme disease, which is most common from May through August and quite treatable, but in no way comfortable.

"I spent a month feeling as bad as I've felt in my entire life," said Dr. Steve Kirkhorn, who contracted the disease in late 2003.

Kirkhorn, who directs both the both the Occupational Health Department and the National Farm Medicine Center at Marshfield Clinic, had actually diagnosed Lyme disease in private practice when he lived in the St. Croix Valley.