Boothbay Region Health Center

Primary Care Health Center serving patients on the Boothbay, Maine peninsula and beyond

Boothbay Region Health Center
185 Townsend Ave • Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538 Phone: (207) 633-1075  • Fax: (877) 492-1491

info@bbrhc.org
(Please don’t use this email for Personal Medical Information)

How to Prevent Lyme (& Other) Tick-Borne Diseases

Notes from 3 Tick Talks by Paula Jackson-Jones

Paula Jackson Jones, Co-Founder of Midcoast Lyme Disease Support and Education in front of her information display

Friday, June 14th was “Tick Day” on the Boothbay Peninsula. Paula Jackson-Jones, co-founder of MidCoast Lyme Disease Support & Education gave three talks about how to prevent tick bites and what to do if you have a tick encounter. Paula spoke to staff of the Boothbay Region Greenhouses, then staff and volunteers at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, and then wrapped up with a public talk at the Community Center. In each case, Paula spoke briefly about her own experience of getting 5 different diseases from a single tick bite, and going thru 22 medical providers with diagnoses ranging from Chronic Fatigue and stress, to Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinsons before she was correctly diagnosed by providers 23 and 24. Since regaining her health, Paula has dedicated herself to educating others about how to prevent tick-borne infections and how to get correctly diagnosed and treated if you DO have a tick encounter. You can download a summary of Paula’s talk here.

As a community we can:

1. Take local control of our primary health service.

2. Establish a patient-driven primary care practice model

3. Increase access and use primary health care services appropriately.

4. Make both individual and community-wide choices that will result in improved health status.

1. Get a higher percentage of the population into an ongoing relationship with a primary care provider.

2. Reduce perhaps by half the number of unnecessary Emergency Department and Urgent Care visits.

3. Achieve a demonstrable improvement in the health status of the community.