As a parent to outdoorsy boys and pet owner I am greatly concerned with the lack of true information available to North Country residents about Lyme disease and other tick related diseases/ co-infections. I have found that local doctors are not well informed and do not give tick bites the proper treatment. My nuclear family all had imbedded ticks as well as myself. Our dogs have had numerous ticks too, which is only preventable if they never go outside. At this point ticks are creating an epidemic! Lyme disease is basically untreatable after a certain point and often under-diagnosed, this should be as great of a concern as any other illness. With the large numbers of people with chronic Lyme and false negatives it is clear the problem is no longer something that can be ignored. Something has to be done at the state and county level, measures need to be taken to combat this ever encroaching problem.