Category: Environment

After months of uncertainty, Trista and Ryan Sutter finally have some answers about his health.

During the May 25 episode of her podcast Better Etc., the former Bachelorette and her husband shared he has been diagnosed with Lyme disease.

“It’s been hard,” Trista said while looking back at their path to Ryan’s diagnosis. “It’s a really difficult thing to see the person that you love most in this world struggling. And he’s a big strong guy, and to see him get emotional and feel helpless in a way in that all I could do was really advocate for him. So, that’s what I did.”

While Trista informed her followers of Ryan’s medical journey in November, her spouse of 17 years said he actually started experiencing symptoms in early 2020.

“My body would just itch for no reason. I’d get some pretty severe headaches…swollen lymph nodes, nausea, night sweats, fevers, really really deep bone aches and muscle aches and joint aches, periods of extreme fatigue—almost paralyzing fatigue…. All things that I just had never really experienced before in my life,” he recalled. “I mean, I’ve done a lot of things that have made me tired, but this was beyond tired.”

After speaking with a number of doctors and undergoing a series of tests, Ryan still didn’t have clarity. It wasn’t until about a year into the investigative process that he received a diagnosis.

Ryan later learned he has a genetic predisposition that makes him more susceptible to toxins, which he said he’s exposed to as a firefighter. He also said he was dealing with mold in his body.

“On top of being exposed to mold, I was also dealing with these long days, exhaustion, dehydration, all these other things that weaken your immune system, products of combustion,” he explained. “So, my immune system was weakened, making it difficult to fight off infections, or what it seems like, allowing prior infections that my immune system had been able to sort of suppress and keep down to resurface. One of those infections was indeed Lyme disease.”

Ryan tested positive for Lyme disease. “I now essentially have Lyme disease,” he said. “It seems like that’s something that I will always have. It’s just that, now, I know and I can start to try to build back my immune system so I can fight it off. Again, Epstein-Barr I had shown that virus. This weakened immune system may have allowed that to kind of come back in. On top of that, COVID. So, I had the COVID virus, EBV virus and Lyme disease all were able to show back up. I don’t know which ones necessarily did and which ones didn’t other than Lyme disease.”

Now, “the major things” Ryan is addressing are Lyme disease and mold toxicity. For Lyme disease, he said he’s “responded well” to supplements and dietary changes. He also noted he has a “good team” supporting him.

“I truly believe that we’re on the right path now,” he continued. “I’m very thankful for where we are and for everyone who’s helped us get there, whether that’s doctors, our family support or even all the people that have written in on social media or in other avenues.”

Trista and Ryan also hope to use their platform to help other people in their health journeys. “For anyone out there who is struggling, keep up hope and keep advocating for yourself,” Trista said. “Never stop, never settle for an answer that you don’t believe to be true. Keep advocating, keep looking for answers. It’s your right. It’s your right to find answers and consult with different doctors.”

The Leslies — climate migrants — left California after four decades. This is the view from their new property in Vermont. (Ned Macksoud)

After more than four agreeable decades in California, my wife and I became climate migrants — highly privileged ones, to be sure — and moved to Vermont.

Our life in Marin County had turned into a tightrope walk.

In 2014, our savvy financial advisor, whom we’d acquired after a substantial bequest from my mother, told us we didn’t quite have the funds to build a new house. Leslie — yes, she’s Leslie Leslie — and I demurred. We tore down the house in Mill Valley where we’d lived for 31 years. It was beloved but it was shambly, and when we leveled it, we discovered it was filled with black mold.

In its place we built a new house, which, in addition to being sleek and beautiful, was environmentally state-of-the-art.

Designed by a skilled “green” architect, the new house had solar panels and radiant heat. Graywater, bioswales, a spectacularly performing induction stove — it oozed with environmental appurtenances. The ventilation system silently and meticulously cleansed the air, turning the place into an oasis during fire season. Compressed-bamboo framing made each room nearly soundproof and markedly increased the walls’ insulation capacity.

Outside, a glistening garden — the collaborative vision of Leslie and a landscape architect couple — consisted of 80% native plants and grasses, plus fruit trees and scores of David Austin roses. The property exuded tranquility, an antidote for the surrounding suburban bustle.

Many people who build a house end up bemoaning the experience. We didn’t. Creating a functional work of art was fundamentally pleasurable. We appreciated our perfectionist contractor and the skill of his craftsman workers. Leslie, an artist, wrote a Buddhist prayer of loving kindness and compassion on the roof and walls before they were painted over. In gentle reply, the painter added a faint white cross on a bathroom ceiling, which he also painted over. We all took pride in building something gorgeous.

I’ve written often about megaprojects — dams, bridges, concert halls, high-speed trains and Olympic Games — that almost invariably overshoot original cost and duration estimates, often by many multiples. As months passed and expenses mounted, I knew we were having our own little megaproject.

The house ended up consuming so much of our money that before it was finished, we understood we could not expect to live in it for the rest of our lives. From that point on, we felt as if we were merely borrowing the place, residing in it until we could no longer afford it, while it beguiled and occasionally seemed to taunt us with its suavité.

None of this detracted from the experience of inhabiting the house, but it induced a kind of detachment that prepared us for the end.

We lasted five years. In that time, the advance of climate change meant that each fire season was hotter and longer than the one before it. Then came the surrealistic orange-black morning in Mill Valley last September that looked like a solar eclipse, only more ominous, when ashes from nearby fires blotted out most light until close to noon. Soon after, we heard that insurers had declined to offer renewals to some homeowners in our area, and we knew it was time to sell, before the house’s value declined.

Our resolve was reinforced by serendipity, as Leslie’s close friend from college days told her he was selling a 5-acre plot in Woodstock, Vt., with a postcard-perfect view of a distant mountain. We can attest that on this verdant property, birdsong, not car traffic, is audible, and the Milky Way is visible at night. An expert contractor, our friend didn’t just sell us the land, he’s building us a new house on it — for a fraction of what the Mill Valley one cost and, we think, in half the time. Vermont’s lower cost of living and simpler regulations make this eminently plausible. In the meantime, we are renting.

We moved with more excitement than regret. We understand our enormous good fortune: Most people can’t afford to pick up stakes, no matter how dire the prognosis on home ground. We loved the Bay Area, and now, most likely, we will love another place, too.

We departed with gratitude for the kindnesses and thoughtfulness of many people we’ve known, with pain over dear family members and friends (and the neighbors’ dog we loved looking after) whom we are leaving behind, and with grief for the suffering and chaos that climate change has just begun to generate, emphatically in California and eventually everywhere.

We’re at the beginning of the diaspora, and we shudder at the thought.

Jacques Leslie is a contributing writer to Opinion.

A few weeks ago, Goudarz Molaei went on a research expedition to a wooded coastal area in southwestern Connecticut. Within minutes, droves of troublesome residents of the area were crawling across his coveralls. He was covered in ticks.

Molaei, who directs the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station’s tick surveillance and testing program, collected as many as he could and took them back to his lab. The final tally: more than 200 of the tiny, parasitic arachnids.

The experience was “quite disconcerting,” he said, and in line with predictions that we’re in for a bad tick year. “We have to be extremely vigilant,” he said. “We’re going to have higher than average tick activity this year.”

That’s partly because of the weather: The mild winter and early spring – plus generous rainfall – promoted tick activity, said Michael Bentley, an entomologist and the director of training and education for the National Pest Management Association. Plus, as the coronavirus pandemic lingers, people are spending lots of time outside: on trails, in campgrounds or just lounging in the backyard.

“Everybody has taken advantage of being outdoors, which is great,” Bentley said. “But it increases the likelihood of tick encounters. It’s kind of this perfect storm of all these different conditions that could put people more at risk of encountering ticks than they would have been in years past.”

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Here’s what to know to protect yourself from tick bites.

– When it’s ‘tick season’

There are certain times of year when ticks are most active and “looking for a host to have a blood meal,” said Grace Marx, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. March, April, May and June are prime tick months, and there’s typically a peak in Lyme disease cases in June and July.

However, experts noted that ticks are becoming a year-round threat. “It seems that every season is tick season,” Molaei said. His laboratory encourages Connecticut residents to submit ticks for identification or testing. Years ago, he would receive 50 samples between December and mid-March. Now, it’s closer to 800. That highlights the importance of staying proactive year-round to protect against tickborne disease, he said.

– Which ticks are the most dangerous

While there are dozens of tick species in the United States, three spread the majority of tickborne diseases. The one responsible for the most illness is the blacklegged tick, also known as the deer tick, which spreads Lyme disease.

Blacklegged ticks, which are brown to reddish-orange and about the size of a sesame seed, have a “broad geographic range across much of the eastern United States,” Marx said, and are also found in the Upper Midwest. Last month – in news that many found surprising – research published in the journal of Applied and Environmental Microbiology reported that blacklegged ticks were abundant near beaches in Northern California.

Lyme disease accounts for 70% to 80% of all tickborne diseases, said Marx. While Lyme disease can often be treated successfully with antibiotics, it has been linked with arthritis and cardiac and neurological problems. Nearly 480,000 people in the United States are treated for it each year, according to the CDC, though it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact prevalence, because the disease can be hard to diagnose.

The blacklegged tick can also cause anaplasmosis (which leads to such symptoms as fever, headache and chills), Powassan virus disease (which can cause encephalitis) and babesiosis, a rare infection of the red blood cells.

Another species, the Lone Star tick, is particularly common in the South. It’s an aggressive tick that can be identified by a white dot – a “lone star” – on its back. It causes diseases such as tularemia and Southern tick-associated rash illness.

The American dog tick, which is most prevalent east of the Rocky Mountains, is brown with grayish markings and sometimes called a wood tick. It transmits Rocky Mountain spotted fever, “which can be rapidly fatal,” Marx said.

While they’re not yet among the most common, Molaei is worried about newer tick species, such as the Asian long-horned tick – many of which he found on himself during that recent outing to the Connecticut woods (the others were Lone Star ticks). Asian long-horned ticks, which are reddish-brown, were reported in the United States for the first time in 2017, and it’s not unusual to find thousands at a time. The ticks are known to cause anemia in livestock, Molaei said, and will “almost certainly cause major disruption to the livestock industry.” The potential risk to humans is high, he said – the ticks spread harmful pathogens in Asia, including hemorrhagic fever. But it’s still unclear if they’ll transmit disease to humans in the United States and, if so, what kind.

– Which ticks are the most dangerous

You’re at risk of encountering ticks any time you’re outside; they’re “really effective at finding and latching onto a host, and hitching a ride,” Bentley said. But ticks especially thrive in areas with thick vegetation and tall grasses.

If you can’t avoid such places, walk in the center of trails if possible and dress appropriately: Experts advise wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants in light colors that help make ticks extra visible. Tucking your pants into your socks can block ticks’ easy access to your skin, and hats can keep them out of your hair.

Marx recommends treating your clothes and gear with an insecticide that contains at least 0.5 percent permethrin, which is nontoxic to humans. Or, she said, you can buy clothes that have been pretreated with permethrin.

When you get home from a hike or another outdoor activity, check yourself thoroughly for ticks, and do the same for family members and pets. Take a shower right away: “You can wash off those ticks before they get attached,” Marx said. And toss the clothing you wore outside into the dryer for at least 10 minutes on high heat, she advised. That will kill any ticks you might have picked up.

Some pathogens can be transmitted just minutes after a tick attaches to a human, Marx said. But the pathogen that causes Lyme disease can’t be transmitted until the tick has been attached for at least 24 hours – “and we think that most transmission actually occurs after 36 hours.” That’s why it’s important to check for ticks immediately after being outside. The sooner you remove a tick, the better.

– Which ticks are the most dangerous

The key to removal is to use tweezers or another fine-toothed forceps, rather than something more clunky like scissors. “Grab as close to the skin as possible, squeeze and lift straight up,” Bentley said. Be careful not to twist the tick or dig around, which could cause parts of it to break off and get stuck in your skin.

Bentley has heard about other home treatments for removing ticks, like spreading cayenne pepper on one and waiting for it to fall off. Ignore them. “Don’t do whatever weird things the internet is recommending,” he said. “Just get fine-toothed forceps. It takes two seconds to pull out, and you’re good to go.”

Dispose of ticks by putting them in a sealed bag, wrapping them in tape or flushing them down the toilet.

– When to see a doctor about a tick bite

Most tick bites don’t result in a tickborne disease, but some are considered riskier than others, Marx said, such as bites experienced in areas where there’s a high concentration of Lyme disease. In those cases, if the tick was attached for at least 36 hours, doctors will often prescribe a single dose of the antibiotic doxycycline as a preventive measure.

No matter where you live, if you develop a rash or fever within a few weeks of removing a tick, see a doctor.

The most important advice, Molaei said, is to remain aware of the threat ticks pose and take action accordingly. “What we’re seeing [this year] magnifies the scope of the problem we’re going to have with ticks and tickborne diseases,” he said. “We have to be mindful of these things.”