Lyme disease increasing in N.C.

We need to get this done, at least in the urban area, cuz in our area, if you fire off a gun in your city, you can get hit with a $25,000 fine!

Of course, I do NOT want to hear gunshots ringing out around our home, if I live in the city limits, that's dangerous too, but yet, I do not want to risk my live [i]either[/i] just stepping out my front door, because the neighbor's next door think it's their [i]right & their PRIVILEDGE[/i] to lure wild deer and especially bucks during mating season to their yard and mine, just so they can see them and collect their antlers for profit!
We got people in our area who leave salt blocks out for the deer year-round! The animal control has told people it's OK to do that, but no ma'am it's not*
That's what is happening in Asheville now. I just spoke to a lady who was gardening and she told me how she works for someone in Arden and has seen 14 deer in someone's yard at a time! That's highly dangerous to the drivers in our area, the pedestrians, the children who play in our parks, our pets, etc.
Did you KNOW there was NO vaccines available now for humans and have not been for almost 6 years? Even if you got a vaccine for Lyme Disease, now it wouldn't be effective in fending off the disease, as it's expired in your system!
I'm tired of dealing with this situation. I thought dealing with bears was bad, but this is far worse. As long as you are not feeding the bears they won't come around!
And they won't run into your car either, as bears are rather smart animals. And bears do NOT carry diseases like Lyme Disease. Also bear are not out during the winter months, but deer are around our property and near our streets YEAR ROUND! :(
It's not a safe situation. If we are always forced to pay taxes on nearly EVERYTHING we buy in the state of North Carolina, then I EXPECT this state to start doing things to SAFEGUARD our lives, not put them at risk!

I don't understand why a state like NC which has one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country, Duke Hospital would insist there's no Lyme disease here.I just read that someone in Weaverville, the same county we reside in now, had contracted Lyme Disease. I also read about another Asheville resident who's son got so sick with it, he could hardly see and was bed ridden.I'm wondering if that lady in Asheville ever had her son play at ball park in the South Asheville area for kids. In South and East Asheville both, there's TONS of deers running about.Deers don't carry Lyme disease? What? Are you kidding me? That could well be how it's spread so quickly as deer can cover miles of territory in a single day!The residents of Biltmore Forest, which is in south Asheville, had to end up "culling" the deer, i.e. killing them, because it was causing so many problems.And trust me, you do not want to run into a single deer with your car, let alone two! We often have 4-5 deer at a time running across our driveway because we live near a sort of wooded area. But even worse, we have a neighbor on the street only a few hundred yards away who insists on feeding the deer! So naturally we have deer problems.Being an avid gardener, I'm now afraid I've contracted the disease as I had that bull's eye rash months ago, and now all the classic symptoms, fatigue, headaches, joint pains.. I was having a feeling that my heart was racing months back and now I see that's one of the symptoms.Someone tell me something though. They used to have a vaccine to prevent Lyme Disease back in the early 2000's. WHY wouldn't a pharmaceutical company NOT want to keep creating a vaccine for such a prevalent and horrible disease? This I don't get. I know Lyme Disease is epidemic up in Connecticut and maybe that's where the victims of Lyme Disease need to head or to contact a doctor up there.I'm guessing no doctor in Connecticut is going to tell you that Lyme Disease does not exist anywhere but the northeast, as it was named after the town of Lyme, Connecticut for there were so many cases there.And the longer you wait, the worse your symptoms become and the worse your health, including meningitis and even blindness! That's horrible... so obviously people have died from meningitis, and so Lyme Disease, if left unchecked, can sometimes lead to death!So feeding the deer can become not only a public nuisance, but a public menace!We need to hire NEW animal control officers who INSIST that people not only remove foodstuffs, like piles of corn, apples, etc, to attract deer but also SALT BLOCKS. We got someone only a few hundred yards from this ball park in South Asheville who INSISTS on leaving a salt block out year-round so they can collect antlers off the male bucks, who are in themselves, dangerous to be around, especially during mating season.And contrary to some people's opinion, the deer don't ever go away! I just saw a huge deer by the side of a busy twisty road. The deer was large, its shoulders were at least 4 feet high! I'm guessing it was a buck, who had already lost his antlers for the year (they fall off eventually after mating season), but if you were to hit that creature with your car, on a busy, narrow 2 way street you could easily be killed or swerve to avoid him and end up running into someone head-long and kill them off instead!It was only a mile or so from the ball park too and hundreds of people come to that park on a daily basis in fall, spring and summer!Asheville, wake up! You got a definite problem here, and certainly a safety concern for the WHOLE TOWN of Asheville, not just Biltmore Forest!Yes, they are "pretty" creatures, but they are also DANGEROUS creatures to have around humans, for the reasons I listed below.Anyway.. the animal control PLUS the Asheville Police Dept. will do NOTHING to protect you either! We had two huge bucks with their antlers LOCKED together in combat right outside our home right near Christmastime and when we called the animal control, a dispatcher for the APD (asheville Police dept) refused to give us their name but instead INSISTED that "if we walked outside our house, the bucks would run away!" Wrong lady, very wrong and APD you ought to FIRE that person, they are putting people's lives in danger! Did they even offer to come out to our home, and try scare the wild bucks with at at least 8 point sets of antlers each? No way! We were trapped in our home for hours, and needed to go to work also.You print on all your police cars, that the APD is here to serve and protect, but WHOM are you protecting, giving out that advice? The deer?Those two bucks could have easily come over and gored us to death! There was a little doe standing right next to the bucks at the time, so obviously is WAS mating season! And that was right after a heavy snowstorm too!Just got back from a clinic in town and the doctor told me that contracting Lyme Disease here in NC was extremely RARE! Wrong! And they REFUSED to give me ANY antibiotics whatsoever! That was weird. Even the nurse, was LAUGHING about the whole incident.. claiming it was "astounding" but hey, it's not YOUR life that's being put in danger, it's ours! You think that's "funny". The nurse didn't even know how to spell Lyme Disease! This place is for the birds! Honestly NC, you give yourself a bad name with the way you conduct business and your lack of concern for people's safety. It makes me cringe to think that many of those kids in that ballpark could be exposed to Lyme Disease and not even know it.I know there's deer down there, because we've been there a few times and seen deer running around, when there was not a ball game going on. I have even seen piles of deer excrement right near the baseball fields, right outside the fence!Hundreds of parents bring their kids, many of them small kids to this field! There are girls playing ball at the park too, so it's not just your sons you need to worry about! I love children and hate to think that Asheville wants to pretend there's NO health menace concerning these deer and people who lure them to their yards so they can "see them, because they're pretty" or to collect their antlers and hundreds of parents don't have a clue there could be a potential deadly health risk to even taking your kid to a popular ballpark!We've even been told by the NC Wildlife Commission it was perfectly LEGAL to feed wildlife including deer, but there's a ordinance (law) against doing so if it creates a public nuisance.Well, this is not a nuisance people! This is putting people's lives & their very health at risk! Considering all the taxes we pay in the state of NC, you'd think they would conduct themselves differently and try to protect our lives, not keep putting it at risk!

Some states are using feeding stations for deer. Over the stations hang pesticide infused cloth strips that rub against the ears of the deer while they feed. Also you can place toilet paper tubes with cotton that has pesticide on it around the area. Mice and other small animals that carry ticks use the cotton to build nests. Something must be done. The animals do not have enough habitat due to over-building. Deer usually stay in one area to forge for food, rather than roam.

I treat my yard in spring and again before fall. I have had Lyme Disease, STARI, and Rocky Mounted Spotted Fever. I am almost homebound from illnesses before ones caused by ticks. My yard is fenced in back, and on one side between me and the woods.

I carried out my trash, and picked a few strawberries from volunteer plants about 10 feet from my back steps this past week. I just found my second tick of the year - attached, and have begun antibiotics yet again to try to ward off another illness.

Representatives need to act to do something, and the Medical Board needs to remove restrictions from physicians who are not allowed to treat Lyme Disease long-term, before it is too late.