[elfdoctors]

I’d love to come but that’s too much of a distance for a weeknight.

Happy Birthday anyway! 😀

[elfdoctors]

I particularly like the color shading option to show which counties you’ve found the most caches in. I guess I must be more of a visual person.

[elfdoctors]

We’ll still be in Alaska that day. Weekends after that would be best for us. We visited Hayward last weekend (and picked up a few TBs from Hayward Cheesehead to bring with us on our trip) and found a number of caches. We had enough fun up there that my wife wants to make another trip again there sometime soon.

[elfdoctors]

Congrats! Hope you enjoyed this milestone finding some of my caches around NW Wisconsin.

[elfdoctors]

I also sent an e-mail to my representative serving on the Transportation committee. Thanks to zuma for plagiarizing part of his letter:

Dear Representative Hraychuck,

I am a family physician in Grantsburg who is also active in geocaching. I recently found out that the Wisconsin Department of Transportation has decided to ban geocaching on all highway rest stops, welcome centers, and waysides. I think this policy is misguided. Since you are my state representative and are on the Transportation committee, I am sending you this letter.

In case you are not familiar with what a geocaching is, I will refer you to http://www.geocaching.com for more information. In a nutshell, it is an activity where one person hides a container in an out of the way place, provides the GPS coordinates to others playing the game on the above website to allow them to go out and find the cache.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has approved geocaching on public lands. This activity is also permitted without restrictions in all neighboring states including Minnesota and Iowa (where we have found caches).

I think this policy is foolish because the DOT wayside facilities were built at great public expense to improve highway safety and to promote tourism in our great state. The placement of geocaches at the waysides does both of these things, and at no cost to the state’s taxpayers. Interestingly, the Wisconsin DOT has not communicated any prohibition of geocaching in any kind of official way, so there are currently many geocaches in Wisconsin’s waysides and rest areas. I have even adopted a cache at a wayside in your district ( http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=be5b875f-d783-4032-bd34-17f1e5b60d82 ) which I hope does not have to be removed. It was originally placed by a Burnett County Police officer, Chad Halvorsen, who has recently taken up a position in Trempaleau County. I hope that these wayside caches do not have to be removed. When my family has made trips to Wisconsin Dells we have enjoyed stopping to stretch our legs to find the caches already in existence (which are usually hidden at the outskirts of the natural areas surrounding the rest stops. The break helps both my alertness as well as helps to settle my kids down who have been cramped in the back seat for several hours already.

Geocaching is also becoming an important part of Wisconsin’s tourism and people playing the game tend to go to areas where there are significant numbers of geocaches. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has a policy approving and regulating geocaching on public lands. This year the DNR even gave a $14,000 grant to 3 communities in northeast Wisconsin to promote off-season tourism. My family has found more than 50 caches in Burnett County and more than 70 within your home county of Polk. There are enough caches in your district that you should even consider seeing if we could get a similar grant.

This letter is a request that you investigate the matter with the department. Before any official policy is made the benefits of geocaches related to improving driver safety and tourism in the state should be weighed against any realistic potential of liability.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

[elfdoctors]

I’m interested (but probably not very good). PM sent

[elfdoctors]

Our 1 year anniversary is this week. Today was the last geocaching opportunity I had before the anniversary. I was able to go over the 365 find level today. It seems like lots of people started last summer. I know I just recruited one new team to the geocaching community who made their first finds this week.

[elfdoctors]

I visited 12 caches today and only found 1 tick crawling on my pants. The tick populations around here are dropping precipitously (right on schedule!). Also, the raspberries seem to be just starting. We shouldn’t have to worry too much about ticks now until after Labor Day (and then at a much lower level than in May and June).

[elfdoctors]

I got a Jeep in the mail today (after spending the day caching when I could have released it).

[elfdoctors]

I just got my coin yesterday. It’s a beautiful coin. 🙂 Even though my wife is starting to hate this new obsession of mine, she doesn’t want me to release this coin. 😥 I’ll probably release it after she forgets about it! 👿

[elfdoctors]

@djwini wrote:

so i had lucky at the vet today, and the test they run showed her positive for tick borne diseases. something that started with an a and lymes.

The disease starting with “A” is anaplasmosis. This was formerly called Ehrlichiosis (or Human Granulocytic Ehrlichiosis). I am aware that some veterinarians treat based on the positive test. I probably would not treat my own dog based on only a positive antibody test for this disease. My reasoning is that I know that in humans, there are no chronic forms of this disease and that most healthy adults fight this without antibiotics. Most confirmed cases in humans are over age 70 (whom can get VERY sick and even occasionally die). We just had our first confirmed human case this week.

Our clinic helped culture the world’s first two positive cultures for this disease. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/brief/334/4/209

[elfdoctors]

Small rashes that show up within 48 hrs of a tick bites are actually more commonly due to local reactions to the tick than to Lyme disease. If you know the tick was not implanted for more than 36 hrs, it is perfectly acceptable to remove the tick and watch the rash. If the rash disappears within a few days and no new symptoms develop, no further treatment is necessary. The delay of a few days will not make any difference if it does turn out later to be Lyme disease.

I break out in similar reactions every time I get bit by a deer tick. I know it is allergic because I had the same reaction to a second deer tick while I was on antibiotics. I’ve had 5 deer tick bites myself this year and I have not used antibiotics for any of them.

The state does not allow physicians to diagnose a rash (even with a bulls eye) as a Lyme rash unless it is larger than 5 cms as too many of the smaller reactions have nothing to do with Lyme.

In my experience, tick populations will crash after about July 4th. By the end of July it will be hard to find ticks (at least until Labor Day when populations start to rise again – but nothing near spring levels).

[elfdoctors]

@zuma wrote:

Interestingly, they were talking about this on the Larry Mueller show on WPR last week, and the naturalist (cant recall his name — but it is the guy who knows everything about WI wildlife who is on once a month), said that there is an extraordinary number of ticks in WI this year, and as of yet, no reason has been identified.

I do agree that there are more ticks than usual this year. Some of it relates to the weather. If the weather is cold and rainy in May, people are just not out in the woods when there are lots of ticks every year. However, in my experience this year, I estimate that the number of deer ticks is about average but the number of wood ticks is definitely up.

The only scientific theory about tick numbers I am aware of predicts high tick populations, 1 1/2 years after a large acorn crop. The theory behind this is the large amount of acorns helps the mouse population to soar, which then provides lots of prey for the ticks.

[elfdoctors]

Daily doxycycline makes it extremely unlikely that you would ever get Lyme disease. Antibiotic resistance can develop very rapidly if people take only occasional dosages of doxycycline. However, since mice and deer are rarely exposed to antibiotics, new Lyme infections are almost universally susceptible to doxycycline.

However, please never share antibiotics. There are some very good reasons that these drugs are not available over the counter.

Another nitpicking clarification – there is no “S” in Lyme disease.

[elfdoctors]

Summers tend to be busier at work. I just had a medical student from Medical College of Wisconsin arrive. She will be staying in our guest house for 8 weeks this summer so a lot of our free time will be showing her local events. After she leaves in early August, we will be going to Alaska for my nephew’s wedding. The essential point is that our family may or may not (more likely) be able to come to a summer event depending on the date. I was in Eau Claire over Memorial Day weekend and would love to get up to the Hayward area and cache there.

I can check with some friends in Polk County. They have already been planning a picnic event (probably in the St. Croix Falls area) in the near future. I was planning on posting that event here when it is published.

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