MOUNT VERNON — Lyme disease cases in Knox County are on pace to top last year’s number, and the stories from those who have contracted the infamous disease are shocking.

On July 28, Knox County Public Health Commissioner Zach Green told the Mount Vernon City Council that there had been 92 confirmed cases between April and June of this year.

In comparison, by the end of June last year, there had only been 65 confirmed cases.

With the uptick of cases on the minds of many Knox Countians, Marie Troyer and Sarah Reed shared two perspectives on fighting Lyme disease and how to avoid it.

Motherly instincts

They say a mother knows best. Those words could not be more true for Marie Troyer, a Lyme disease survivor, and her son.

“I knew it was happening, he was having a really hard time getting up in the mornings, and he was usually up and bouncing and smiling,” Troyer said. “He had headaches and just some vague pain.”

Troyer said she took her son to the doctor a few different times, but Lyme disease wasn’t the first conclusion.

It’s common for Ohio doctors not to think a patient has Lyme disease initially. (Read more about that here in our own Dillon Carr’s battle against Lyme disease.)

“They finally tested him and said that his vitamin D and iron were low, so they gave him both of those to use, which made a little bit of a difference, but not very much,” Troyer said.

“But then one morning, he woke up and he refused to walk. He said his legs hurt so much, and they’re shaky, and he can’t walk.”

Like any parent, Troyer rushed her son to Knox Community Hospital, where they recommended testing for Lyme.

“I said, ‘What? I know these are not the typical Lyme disease things that he’s having,'” Troyer said. “But the doctor said it could be, so he tested, and the test came back positive.”

Troyer’s son took amoxicillin for two weeks, which she said hardly helped her son’s pain at all.

With the amoxicillin not working, Troyer went back to a rheumatologist and left with a doxycycline prescription and a recommendation to see an infectious disease specialist.

“His pain had improved a lot, and his headaches were so much better,” Troyer said. “Then the infectious disease [specialist] said that he should continue doxycycline for four weeks.”

Troyer’s son’s four-week prescription is almost up, but she says he is doing a lot better as he hiked 14 miles this past weekend in West Virginia.

“[After his upcoming appointment] I plan to give him natural cat’s claw and grapefruit seed extract,” Troyer said. “When I had Lyme back when I was in my 20s, it was not well known at all, and I ended up in bed for three years. … Then, I did the natural, and that really helped.”

In terms of staying healthy today, Troyer takes the natural supplement combination once a year; otherwise, she has trouble walking at times.

She’s hopeful a holistic approach will help her son too, and get him back to his normal bouncy and smiley self.

Sarah Reed’s survival story

Like many people in Knox County, Sarah Reed lives in a wooded, rural part of the area, surrounded by deer.

Ironically, right before Reed shared her story, she had come in from her garden and done a “tick check.”

About a year ago, similarly to Troyer’s son, Reed was having severe headaches and pain in her neck.

“I have a cousin who had just had a tick bite, and she sent me a picture of the ring around it,” Reed said. “That was the day before I went to the walk-in clinic, so I asked if we could test for Lyme disease, and they said, ‘Oh, sure.'”

While Reed’s doctors didn’t experience a reluctance to test for Lyme like Troyer’s did, she did note the existence of that medical reluctance.

“I’ve had people tell me, and maybe not in our county, but in other places, other states or cities, that doctors have been reluctant to test because they think it’s still in New England,” Reed said.

Reed got tested around Day Four of her experiencing symptoms, and the doctors told her it would take a few days to see the results.

During those waiting stages, Reed went to the hospital because things only got worse.

“I ended up spending about 25 hours at the ER, and they [the doctors] were wonderful,” Reed said. “I can’t say enough good things about our hospital; they ran every test in the book because they wanted to rule out a stroke or meningitis because of my head and neck.”

When Reed was hooked up to numerous IVs, the Lyme test came back faster than expected. Doctors prescribed doxycycline, and three weeks later, the infection cleared.

Fast forwarding to now, Reed still experiences fatigue and muscle aches, something she’s still learning to navigate.

“I have to learn to pace myself, and I’m just not good at that,” Reed said. “So, when I start to feel tired, I have to learn just to take a day of rest or just not go whole hog crazy, like I like to do.”

Reed does many things to stay protected today.

From treating specific outdoor clothes with permethrin spray to taking a shower immediately after being outside, it all helps give her some peace of mind.

“I wear my permethrin-infused pants, I tuck my socks into my pants, I spray my socks and my shirt, and I tuck my shirt in, so that is my outdoor garb,” Reed said.

“And no matter how silly I look, I don’t care because I think that it is really important to do.”