In Westerwolde, the number of people diagnosed with Lyme disease has exploded. “It’s nasty stuff.”
Sign? Of course Jac van der Loop (73) suffers from this. “Nauseous things.” He shows the red dots on his bare arms, which he says are caused by tick bites. He then points to his dog Gino, an American bulldog. “Sometimes half a cup is full. Then I toss through the fur to remove them. Look, here’s another one. It makes him sick to death.”
He lives a few hundred meters away with his wife, who is twenty years his junior, in a holiday home in Wedderbergen. They come from Tilburg. He mumbles something about problems with the housing association. “We were supposed to go here for a few months, but we’ve been here for three years now. Way too long. We have a living room of three by four meters and a bedroom. That costs 850 euros a month and we don’t get a penny of rent subsidy.
He wants to go back today rather than tomorrow. ,,I walk with my soul under my arm here.” What stops him are his wife and his dog, who are having a good time in Wedderbergen. He often walks through the woods with the latter. “Then I put on long socks to protect my lower legs against those ticks. They’re rotten beasts.”
“Can it also give you Lyme disease?”
He is not aware that you can get Lyme disease from it. He has never even heard of it, while it is quite a nasty disease. “Oh, that too?”
A measurement by the RIVM shows that the number of diagnoses of Lyme disease, which is caused by a tick bite, has remained the same compared to four years ago. But there are major regional differences. In the province of Groningen it increased by an average of 31 percent. Westerwolde is a leader.
It turns out that people are bitten by ticks not only in forests, but also in their gardens. In Wedde, Bert Teuben (75) is just mowing his lawn. He does know some people in the village who have been bitten by a tick. “My daughter’s dog is often covered in ticks. And her children sometimes suffer from it too.”
‘I have to watch out for skin cancer’
It never happened to him himself. He is not afraid of it, ‘absolutely not’. “I keep the grass short. I have read in Dagblad van het Noorden that ticks are mainly found in higher grass.” He takes no precautions. He rolls up his trouser leg and shows that he is standing barefoot in his Swedish clogs. “Not because of the heat, but because of laziness.”
Teuben wears a hat on his head. That’s against the sun. “I have to watch out for skin cancer. Some skin was removed from my ear about five or six years ago. That didn’t look good.”
Willy Kruze (80) has just arrived by bike from Winschoten at the cemetery in Wedde. His whole family is there. Also his son who died thirty years ago at the age of 23 in a car accident. “That is very important. Every Saturday I come here to lay flowers.”
“I don’t go to the doctor for itchy legs”
He is not surprised that so much more Lyme disease has been diagnosed in Westerwolde. “Westerwolde is of course a beautiful area with a lot of rough grass. Those bitches are in there.”
He himself has sometimes suffered from it. “Then you get itchy legs. I don’t go to the doctor for that either. It will go away on its own after a few weeks.”
He knows Lyme disease. “Yes, then you are the asshole. Luckily I’ve never had that.”
On the way to camping Wedderbergen we meet Bert Schenkel (67) in his mobility scooter. No, sign leave him alone. “But my neighbor has a lot of trouble with it. Come on, let’s go see her.”
“Tick crawling up your trouser leg”
We arrive at the mobile home of Wolly Frikken (70) from Stadskanaal. For 22 years she has camped here every summer, from April to October. This week she has already suffered three tick bites, she says. On her lower leg and one on her thigh. “They crawl up your trouser leg. I usually feel it. As a child I also suffered from it when I was on holiday in Germany with my parents. I always had them, my brother and sister never.”
She is very alert to it. She usually finds the ticks after swimming and showering. “Then I am completely focused on it. I don’t think it’s a nice animal. But luckily I’ve never had Lyme disease. At least, as far as I know.”
As a precaution, she has cut the grass around her mobile home short, as well as a footpath. She also bought a drawing card from the pharmacy years ago. It contains a magnifying glass and a bulge with which you can remove a tick. “Very handy, then you can just pop it out. Then I rinse it with boiling water. I always have it in my bag. It is sacred to me.”
Preventing tick bites
The RIVM recommends the following to prevent tick bites:
Stay on the trails as much as possible and avoid dense vegetation and brush.
Wear closed shoes, long sleeves and long pants. Tuck trouser legs into your socks. Ticks are more visible on light clothing.
Wear clothing impregnated with the insect repellent Permitrine or spray your clothing with an agent containing DEET (diethyltoluamide).
Apply an agent containing DEET to the exposed skin.
These tips do not guarantee that you will not get a tick bite. It remains important to check for tick bites after you have been outdoors.
2023-07-16 12:00:00
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