If you get to this conference, you may not get Lyme disease

deer tick largeMost Mainers are worried about Lyme disease, so this April 30 conference in Wiscasset is important to all of us. If you can attend, I urge you to do so.

I’ve written about the terrible Lyme disease ordeal suffered by my friend Harry Vanderweide, probably Maine’s best known outdoorsman and my cohost on the TV show Wildfire for 13 years. Harry also had his own TV show, Northeast Outdoors, and was editor of The Maine Sportsman.

The 2nd Annual Midcoast Lyme Disease Support and Education Conference is scheduled for Saturday, April 30, from 8 am to 5 pm at the Wiscasset Community Center, 242 Gardiner Road, Wiscasset. You can get more information at www.midcoastlymediseasesupport.blogspot.com, or by calling Paula Jackson Jones at 207-446-6447 or Angele Rice at 207-841-8757.

The conference features some great speakers:

Pat Smith, President of the Lyme Disease Association, who will speak about The State of Lyme and other Tick-Borne Diseases in 2016.

Dorothy Leland, VP of Education and Outreach at LymeDisease.org and coauthor of When Your Child Has Lyme Disease: A Parent’s Survival guide will provide some valuable advice in a speech titled: Touched by Lyme: How Lyme Affects the Whole Family.

A Question and Answer panel will be hosted by a group of Naturopathic Doctors, focused on the role of naturopathic medicine in managing Lyme and tick-borne diseases.

Sheila Statlender, a Clinical Psychologist, will speak about the role of Mental Health Practitioners in assessing and treating tick-borne diseases.

Bob Giguere of Igenex Laboratories, will talk about laboratory testing techniques for Lyme and tick-borne co-infections.

The keynote speaker at the conference is Dr. Daniel Cameron, Immediate Past President of ILADS, whose topic is: Evidence based Lyme practice: The practical use of ILADS practice guidelines.

There is no charge to attend the conference and gluten-free snacks and lunch options will be sold at there. Doors open at 7:30 am for registration.

When I told Paula how disappointed I am that I am unable to attend this informative conference, she told me they’d be video-taping all the presentations and the video will be available for sale after the conference. But if you can get there, I am certain this will prove to be a very valuable conference.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.