Allergies Archives - thegoodwills.com

Maize and the quest for gluten-free food

maize-gluten-free — Photo of maize mill courtesy Corson Grains.

As you’d know, we have been in the Tasmanian wilderness. Here’s something I prepared earlier (and posted on Thursday night!).

I’d no sooner starting thinking ‘Where do gluten-free products come from?’ when I found the answer right under my nose, a kilometre from home. The Warwick Mill, which incidentally has been trading for almost 150 years, processes maize into maize flour and other products which manufacturers use to meet market demand for gluten free breakfast cereals, breads, snack foods and brewed products.

In case you did not know, the FOMM team largely depends on a gluten free diet for various health reasons (not coeliac disease). We are always encouraged when finding palatable new products that have joined the GF club. I cite as examples GF beer and that staple spread of Australian pantries – Vegemite.

The Warwick Mill was once owned by the Toowoomba-based Defiance Group. The mill was bought in 2003 by New Zealand family company Corson, which also has mills at Gisborne and Tuakau in the north island.

The Warwick-based company, Corson Grains Defiance Maize Products, processes on average 35,000 tonnes of maize a year. The cobs are bought direct from Southern Downs growers and stored in silos for six to eight weeks to dry before milling begins.

The maize kernels are milled into two different types of ‘grits’ from which the mill produces six products including flakes (for cornflakes), maize flour, semolina and super fine polenta flour.

In January, Corson bought the Freedom Foods gritting mill at Darlington Point in south-west New South Wales.

Warwick-based Corson Grains General Manager Australia Shawn Fletcher said the Darlington Point mill would allow the company to expand into different products such as rice, sorghum, buckwheat and quinoa flours.

“This is something a number of our business customers have been asking for,” he said. “We see it as a real opportunity for growth and to get some geographic spread along the eastern coast.”

In 2018, the company started a major on-site storage project, adding six new 1800-tonne silos, manufactured in Allora. This took the storage capacity of the mill from 3000 tonnes to 13,800 tonnes.

If you are one of the estimated 260,000 people in Australia who have coeliac disease or the estimated 1.8 to 3 million who are gluten-sensitive, this is a story you need to read. It’s not that many decades ago when people with coeliac disease or gluten sensitivity had the devil’s job finding food that didn’t have gluten in it.

Now there are many companies manufacturing GF cereals, bread, pasta, biscuits and snack food. They are all supplied with the raw materials from mills like the Warwick operation, which employs 26 people.

We have noticed since we first started taking a caravan around rural Australia, how small towns have recognised the importance of catering for people who are shopping for GF products. On our most recent trip, I found a loaf of GF bread in the freezer of a grocery store in a small New South Wales town.

People who have coeliac disease become unwell after eating foods containing gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. Over time, the immune reaction to eating gluten creates inflammation that damages the lining of the small intestine. Medical complications can follow, including malabsorption (prevents some nutrients being absorbed by the body). Many people have no symptoms but the classic one is diarrhoea. Other symptoms include bloating, wind, fatigue, low blood count (anaemia) and osteoporosis. Healthline says the mainstay of treatment is a strict gluten-free diet that can help manage symptoms and promote intestinal healing.

A few of our family members in Canada are afflicted with this auto-immune disease. Cousin Glen put up with a mixed bag of symptoms before a naturopath suggested in the mid-1980s he was gluten-intolerant.

“Back then the condition was totally off the radar of conventional medicine. I have never been diagnosed as coeliac and march under the banner of the gluten intolerant.”

Glen’s brother was formally diagnosed with coeliac disease, as was a young relative of She Who Is Also Gluten Sensitive. All agree it was good to identify the cause and the cure (a gluten-free diet). Cousin Glen said the improvement in his overall health once off gluten was “immediate”.

Having said that, it is important to have some tests and get a GP or nutritionist to verify whether you have coeliac disease or are gluten-sensitive. There’s a difference.

Officially it is known as non-coeliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS), a condition which belongs in a cluster of food allergies including lactose intolerance. The numbers of people who are choosing to go GF has risen steadily over the past five to 10 years – in Australia it is estimated to be between 7% and 12% of the population.

The US National Library of Medicine refers to a survey that showed the market for gluten-free products grew at an annual rate of 28% between 2004 and 2011. Today it is a market worth more than $6 billion in the US alone.

Some of the GF retail drive has come from celebrities and athletes recommending it for weight loss and improved performance.

The proliferation of ‘free from’ products has created a marketing push, with many supermarkets devoting entire aisles to products, be they GF, dairy free or foods that avoid serious allergens like nuts and egg.

Although I’m not a drinker, I was in a bottle shop one time with SWIAGS when I spotted a six-pack of GF beer. As is often case with GF products, it was more expensive than standard beer. But SWIAGS (sometimes known as Ed), said it was quite palatable.

According to VinePair.com (which maintains a list of GF beer brands) gluten-reduced beers are brewed just like regular beer, with malted barley, wheat, rye. The beer is then exposed to an enzyme during primary fermentation, a filtration agent that has little if any effect on beer’s flavour. Or the beer can be made directly from gluten-free cereals.

It’s easy (if you do not suffer from food allergies), to be flippant about so-called lifestyle diets. In Richard Osman’s amusing Thursday Murder Club, he invents a vegan café in a up-scale retirement village called, Anything with a Pulse. Then there was Tom Waits telling David Letterman he’d passed a street protest on the way into the studio. “What was it about?” Letterman asked. “Free the glutens,” said Tom.

Multinational food producer Unilever estimates that 12% of Australians avoid wheat/gluten while 10% of New Zealanders are gluten intolerant.

The latest research on NCGS suggests that a test could soon be developed. Research from Columbia University has found people with gluten sensitivity produce high levels of antibodies to gluten, different from those measured to diagnose coeliac/celiac disease. Although they have symptoms, those with gluten sensitivity do not have the blood markers or intestinal damage of coeliac disease. The antibodies could be used in the future to help doctors more easily detect who has gluten sensitivity.

While that’s happening, I guess people will try the hit and miss system of eliminating certain foods from their diet and then introducing new ones. It’s great to see food retailers responding to this growing ‘trend’ with a line of ‘free from” foods (not just GF-free but lactose free, including ice cream and milk). It can be a bit of over-kill, though, when the label ‘gluten free’ is attached to such products as plain potato chips. Marketers are always looking for a trend to latch on to. (Let’s hope our ‘marketer in chief’ doesn’t find a winning one prior to the next election. Ed.)

Next Week: Confessions of a TreeHugger

Dangerous Australia Revisited

This week’s essay is brought to you by the letter S – snakes, sharks, spiders, scorpions, stingrays, stonefish and sand flies. Some might dispute the description of the saltwater sand fly or midge as deadly. But itchy bites can sure take the edge off a beach holiday. The odds of being bitten by a sand fly in their territory (saltwater marshes) are probably 2-1, with longer odds for those experiencing extreme reactions (me and She).

Of course there are many other potentially deadly Australian critters, names starting with other letters – blue ringed octopus, crocodiles, dingoes, marine stingers, mosquitoes and so on.

At Cape Hillsborough, North of Mackay, sand flies dominated every casual conversation. The trick is to slather yourself with insect repellent before you go outdoors and avoid being out in the early morning and late afternoon. The other sensible tip (which few people heed when at the beach) is to cover as much skin as possible with long shirts, trousers and socks. Some swear by taking vitamin B or variants but this has not been clinically proven to make you less attractive to midges/sand flies.

When my nephew in New Zealand was first planning to bring his kids over for a tour of the Gold Coast theme parks, he had been watching a National Geographic TV series, Australia’s Deadliest. The weekly tales of snake bites, shark attacks and rogue crocodiles all but put him off. Yes, it is true we have some lethal critters, but the chances of becoming a victim are not high.

A study by the University of Melbourne concludes you are more likely to be killed by being trampled on or thrown from a horse.

While we would not want to diminish the horror of a shark attack, fatalities averaged two per year between 2000 and 2013. The number of crocodile fatalities was lower still – 19 deaths over 13 years. Having said that, if a shark or croc gets you, chances of survival are slim.

Near the end of an amphibious vessel tour at 1770, the skipper encouraged guests to enjoy their stay, but added a warning. Four people had recently been stung by stonefish in the shallows around this estuarine settlement. Stonefish, as the name implies, camouflage themselves in the sand, trying to look like the spiky rocks they so resemble. If you stand on a stonefish, it will inject a barb into your foot causing immediate and dire pain. Stonefish stings are not usually fatal, but the pain is such you may wish you were dead. First aid measures include putting the affected foot in a bucket of warm water, gradually adding hot water until it is as hot as you can stand. This is an interim pain relief measure while you wait for paramedics to arrive and administer heavy duty pain killers. You will probably be taken to hospital and, if necessary, have the barb surgically removed. Some intrepid reporter may well track you down and write a story.

Having taken this information on board, we were cautious when strolling on the Cape Hillsborough beach at low tide. My sister-in- law took pictures of sea creatures around exposed rocks, including today’s photo. We say it may or may not be a blue ringed octopus, as we have sent the photo in for ID and have not yet heard back.

Blue ringed octopus rarely bite people, but if they do, the venom can be fatal. They live in tidal pools, remaining out of sight during the day and hunting by night. As with all small marine critters, best left alone, eh. The more common venomous sea critters in North Queensland, which keep people from swimming between October and May, are marine stingers. All manner of jellyfish live in the warm tropical water, the most venomous being the Australian box jellyfish. If stung, the best medical advice is to pour vinegar on the stings and carefully remove tentacles (this will stop more stinging but not the pain). Call 000.

As for snakes, I can identify tree snakes, pythons and Red Belly Blacks. The latter are venomous but shy and will rapidly retreat if you leave them room. Not so the Eastern Brown, which will look for an excuse to attack. If you are out bush walking in Australia and spot a snake, stop, then quietly back up. We did this recently on a bush walk in Maleny, when spying two pythons who were either fighting or making baby snakes. Either way, we gave them a wide berth. The Royal Flying Doctor Service says 3,000 people were bitten by snakes in 2020. There were 550 hospitalisations and two people died.

Not to mention funnel web spiders

We were planting a tree down the bottom of our half acre block and I pulled out the remnants of a tree root. Up jumped this big black hairy spider which reared up on its back legs. (I went inside and made a nice cup of tea and googled funnel web spider). Some members of the funnel web family produce venom which is toxic to humans. There have been no reported deaths since development of antivenene. All the same, if you see a large black hairy spider which appears to be aggressive, move well away.

Snake, shark and croc attacks are page one fodder for media hyperbole, so here’s some perspective to balance the shock horror headlines. A study by Melbourne University found that In the period 2000-2013, 26 people were killed by sharks and 19 by crocodiles. In the same period, 74 Australians died after being thrown or trampled by a horse.

Dr Ronelle Welton, from the University’s Australian Venom Unit, looked at hospital admissions data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, as well as Australian coronial records from 2000 to 2013.

During that period, snakebites killed 27 people, the same number as bee and wasp stings, she told the ABC. Hornets, bees and wasps accounted for 27 deaths, some of them people allergic to stings. I did note that five people died from tick bites, recalling my three-day stay in hospital in 2017 after suffering an allergic reaction.

Australia’s venomous and dangerous animals can and do harm humans, but let’s keep it in perspective; 1,217 Australians died in traffic accidents in the year to March.

Three of the six people in our family convoy experienced extreme reactions to sand fly/midge bites, Our resident nurse inspected our bites and asked if anyone was feeling unwell.

“Irritated, yes. Unwell, no.”

Today we’re arriving on the Atherton Tableland for a family gathering. I expect midge bites will be a topic of conversation:

“Check out Bobby’s welts – poor bastard!”*

*Aussie term of endearment

Cigarette Butts Still Polluting Our Highways

cigarette-butts-highways — Emu and family, on patrol but not picking up cigarette butts! Photo by Laurel Wilson

While resting in our caravan at Winton on a sultry outback day, the stench of tobacco smoke came wafting through the open window.

Going outside to investigate, I found neighbours on either side, sitting outside their vans, puffing away.

I have found, over long periods suffering from respiratory problems, that I am incredibly allergic to cigarette smoke. For years now when anyone rummages in their bag and asks do I mind, I say, yes, I do mind. Outside would be great.

It’s our one inviolate house rule, so much so an old mate in Toowoomba still recalls the night (in the dead of winter) where he was told to go outside to smoke at one of our parties. The hard-arse attitude led to a ditty called ‘If you smoke in my kitchen I’ll fart in our bedroom.’ Not high art, but the kids loved it.

I had intended this week to write about Australian road travellers and our less than perfect track record at cleaning up after ourselves.

Somewhere outside Longreach there is a roadside rest stop, very tidy and well serviced, except for items of trash left on the ground. There were seven wheelie bins there and two small bins in the toilets. So why did I pick up two stubbies and an empty packet of Berocca (a vitamin C supplement) within a metre of the bins?

It might not sound like much, but do the sums; 365 days a year and soon this pristine rest stop will look like the ones where no bins are provided. You’ve probably stopped at one of those, to change drivers or have a quick pee against a tree. These rest stops are usually littered with empty bottles, cans, milk cartons, streamers of toilet paper and, scattered like mucky confetti, hundreds of cigarette butts.

According to Clean up Australia, we discard 7 billion cigarette butts a year. It is the number one litter problem in Australia. The seriousness of the problem becomes obvious when you learn that a third of smokers dispose of their butts outdoors.

The only way to rid rest areas, parks, beaches and other public places of discarded butts is to fastidiously pick them up. Volunteers form ‘emu patrols’ to pick up cigarette butts by hand (gloves and rubbish bags), and then dispose of them in the approved manner.

The term ‘Emu Patrol’ was invented by school teachers who encouraged children to tidy their playgrounds by advancing in a line, bending down and picking up trash. The actions mimic the emu’s feeding habits, frequently bending down to feed on leaves, grass, fruit, native plants and insects.

The upside is that over the last two decades, millions have given up smoking tobacco. The most recent data estimates that 14% of Australian adults smoke tobacco products. The figure is a good deal higher for the 15-18 cohort (54%), well known for lighting up behind the bike sheds.

The figure is also 14% in the US and 13% in New Zealand, where MP Winston Peters has announced a pre-election policy to reduce excise on tobacco products. That old-school tactic reminds me of Budget night in the 1960s which was only ever about two things – will beer and fags cost more?

If you look at statistics on tobacco smoking in 1980, the proportion of Australian adult smokers was 35% (men 46%, women 30%). Forty years on, the numbers have more than halved.

This gradual reduction can be linked to the connection made between smoking and cancer. A vigorous health campaign began which would, over the years, persuade more smokers to quit and hopefully result in their children being less likely to start.

In recent years, the odds have been stacked against tobacco producers, with high excise, restrictions on advertising and compulsory warnings on packaging. The game changer was when smoking was banned in workplaces, pubs, clubs and restaurants.

It’s all a long way from the end of WWII (1945) when 72% of Australian men (and 30% of women) smoked tobacco.

Many took up smoking while serving in the armed forces, which routinely gave troops a tobacco ration. Like many children of fathers who fought in WWII, we had to endure a post-war life of living in a smoky fug. People smoked anywhere and everywhere in that era; no-one gave a thought to passive smoking or health risks.

To my shame, I took up the habit in late teens until giving it away in my late 20s, due to persistent lung infections. Smoking is bad for the health of individuals, but carelessly disposing of butts puts everyone in harm’s way. We already know that cigarette butts are one of the four main causes of grass and bush fires. There are other issues with discarding cigarette butts in the great outdoors.

National Geographic covered this topic in great detail last year. Problem number one is that cigarette filters are made from cellulose acetate, a form of plastic. They can take up to 10 years to break down completely.

Clean Ocean Action executive director Cindy Zipf told NG that cigarette butts are the number one target during beach clean ups. The real problem occurs when butts find their way into rivers and oceans. The tars and heavy metals in cigarette butts leach in to waterways and have a deleterious effects on marine life.

Australia’s problems seem minor, when National Geographic reports that 4.6 trillion cigarettes are smoked and discarded around the world every year.

As The Beatles once famously said in the lyrics of ‘I’m So Tired’ – “We curse Sir Water Raleigh, he was such a stupid git.”

Raleigh introduced tobacco to the UK in 1586. The use of tobacco, most often smoked in pipes, worked its way up to high society and royalty and so became the habit of the masses.

Contrast that with the relentless Quit campaigns of the last 30 years, which, according to the statistics, seem to have worked. And the litter problem is improving. The Keep Australia Beautiful National Litter Index (NLI) measures what litter occurs where and in what volume. In 2017/18, the NLI counted an overall litter reduction of 10.3 per cent fewer ‘items’ than in the same period in 2016/17. The most significant included a 16.8% reduction in take away food and beverage packaging, a 14% reduction in CDS beverage containers and a 6.4% reduction in cigarette litter.

It might not seem like much, but it shows a positive response to increasing attempts to educate smokers.

Some conscientious smokers I know carry a coke can or similar in the car and cram their butts into it (having left a small amount of liquid at the bottom to extinguish the embers). It’s a crude plan but better than other methods, such as grinding the butt into the soil and worse yet, tossing the still-smouldering butt out of the car window, where it could start a conflagration.

Tom Novotny, an epidemiologist at San Diego University, one of the first to start researching the effects of tobacco waste on the environment, is pessimistic:

“It’s the last remaining acceptable form of littering,” Novotny told National Geographic writer, Tik Root.

“People are more likely to pick up their dog poop than cigarette butts.”

FOMM back pages:

Asthma and Australian Dust Storms

dust-storm-asthma — Australian dust storm September 23, 2009. Image from NASA (CC)

As a kid growing up in the North Island of New Zealand, I don’t recall ever seeing dust storms of the type seen in the Australian outback. In recent weeks, we’ve seen clouds of ochre dust blowing in from South Australia. The worst dust storms converge on the eastern seaboard, shrouding cities in an eerie, fog-like miasma.

You may recall the really bad one (September 2009) when motorists in Sydney and Brisbane drove with their lights on in the middle of the day.

Fortunately, the red dust (which gets into everything), lasts only a few days, although the customary early spring westerlies tend to blow them east in sequence.

While he was writing about the Dust of Uruzgan (Afghanistan) at the time, songwriter Fred Smith could have been describing dust storm conditions in the outback.

“It’s as fine as talcum powder on the ground and in the air
And it gets in to your eyes and it gets in to your hair…
…It gets in the machinery and foils every plan…”

Yes, and it gets in rainwater tanks when the next rains wash the dust off iron roofs. Residents of Auckland, some 1,500 kms away, have previously reported how dust storm drift from Australia turned their roofs a curious pink colour.

While New Zealand can fairly claim that it does not have dust storms in-country, it certainly sees the worst of them drifting across the Tasman. Reports of red ochre dust settling on the New Zealand Alps date back more than a century. You may have seen reports like these in recent years:

A series of dust storms in 2019, intermingling with smoke from bushfires, reached New Zealand\s Southern Alps, some 2,000 kms away. The ABC published photos, taken by adventurer Liz Carlsson, of the Mount Aspiring glacier sporting a red/pink discolouration.

University of Queensland geographer Hamish McGowan told the ABC it was not uncommon for this to occur during periods of severe drought in eastern Australia.

“In the right conditions, dust particles can be blown across the Tasman Sea by north-westerly winds, coming down on the Southern Alps in rain or snow and leaving behind an orange discolouration,” Professor McGowan said.

The same phenomenon can be seen in the Australian Alps. Black or grey discolouration is more likely to be ash falling from bushfire smoke clouds. The population in general is more aware, now that we have the technology to show images taken on mobile devices, or from satellites or drones.

Dust storms quickly remind me that I should take my asthma preventer medication as directed. Like so many asthmatics, I’m guilty of forgetting/ignoring the inhalant medication if I’m feeling free of symptoms. Australia’s 2.7 million asthmatics ought to know that asthma attacks can be random. They are also triggered by air quality factors including industrial air pollution, a high pollen count, smoke, dust and indoor environmental hazards (house dust, pet dander).

I do remember that 2009 dust storm, as we were in Brisbane for Queensland Ballet’s season launch at QPAC. People with any kind of respiratory condition should be on red alert when a dust storm comes calling. Luckily, I had my asthma inhaler with me (and needed it).

The numbers of people presenting at hospital emergency departments with respiratory symptoms were well above average on that day. Analysis of the air pollution found the 2009 dust storm to be far worse than any bushfire or dust storm event of the previous 15 years.

The Environmental Health Journal said extremely high levels of particulate matter were recorded on September 23, 2009.

Daily average levels of coarse matter (<10 microns (μm) peaked over 11,000 μg/m³ and fine (<2.5 μm) particles over 1,600 μg/m³.

The World Heath Organisation guideline is that any level of fine particulate matter over 35 μg/m is considered unhealthy.

(We should also remember that major cities known for air pollution routinely record <2.5 μm levels of 50 and higher).

The EHJ authors reported that the dust storm returned on September 26, with elevated PM (particulate matter) levels of an “unprecedented order of magnitude higher than those experienced during previous years.”

The fine particles are the main problem for people with respiratory complaints, as they deeply penetrate the airways.

The 2009 dust storm originated in drought-stricken western New South Wales. Last week’s storms reportedly started in outback South Australia.

Reports of giant dust storms in Australia pre-date the technology which can now spot them from above. Dust storms were common during the series of droughts that afflicted Australia in the last decade of the 19^th century. Still, scientists are predicting that climate change will make dust storms larger and more frequent.

A Science Daily report predicts that climate change will amplify dust activity in parts of the US in the latter half of the 21st century.

A statistical model developed by researchers at Princeton University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts that climate change may lead to the increased frequency of spectacular dust storms that will have far-reaching impacts on public health and infrastructure.

Despite their dramatic visual impact, Australia’s dust storms are a blip on the the global chart. The World Meteorological Organisation says most sand and dust storms occur in the arid and semi-arid regions of Northern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia and China. Australia, America and South Africa make minor, but still important, contributions.

The WMO estimates that 40% of aerosols in the troposphere (the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere) are dust particles from wind erosion. Global estimates of dust emissions vary between one and three gigatons per year.

Spectacular though they are when they appear on the horizon, dust storms are infrequent and often blow over in a day or two. Bushfire smoke, however, as the 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires demonstrated, have far more serious ongoing health effects.

An Asthma Australia report details the effects of the bushfire smoke between July 2019 and March 2020. The air pollution caused a public health emergency, adding to the direct bushfire impacts already felt by communities. Bushfire smoke contains high concentrations of fine particulate matter.

“At its worst, the smoke resulted in the Air Quality Index reaching more than 25 times the hazardous level (in Canberra, January 1 2020),” the report states.

The Air Quality Index reached greater than 10 times the hazardous rating on multiple occasions in certain areas of Sydney between November and January.

“It is estimated the bushfire smoke was responsible for more than 400 deaths, 2,000 respiratory hospitalisations and 1,300 presentations to the Emergency Department for asthma.”

The most recent study by the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that 2.7 million Australians (one in nine or 11.2% of the total population) had asthma in 2017-18.

“Over the last 10 years, the prevalence of asthma increased in the Australian population from 9.9% in 2007-08 to 11.2% in 2017-18″.

This is as good a time as any to remind you that September 1-7 is National Asthma Awareness Week.

Don’t leave home without your puffer.

The scary truth about the paralysis tick

It is sometimes difficult to separate the facts about the paralysis tick from the myths and home-grown remedies suggested by well-meaning folks. You may have heard some of the suggestions on how to combat the tiny, toxic parasite that can kill dogs, cats and humans. The home-spun remedies include (for removal) kerosene, a hot needle, a hot match, Vaseline or methylated spirits.

No, you need to first kill the tick, by freezing it or using a scabicide. The Australian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy (ASCIA) recommends using a ‘freezing’ spray commonly used to treat warts and available at pharmacies.

A cream used to treat scabies also does the trick but you need to leave it on for 20 minutes before removing the tick, with tweezers or patented tick removers (firm grip and a slight twist). Or if you have freeze-killed the tick, it should just drop off at some point. Experts are divided on which is the best approach.

While there are 75 different tick species in Australia, the primary culprit which can kill animals and cause a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction in humans is the paralysis tick or Ixodes holocylus. The paralysis tick occurs along the Eastern seaboard of Australia, primarily in wet sclerophyll forests (the ones with ‘gum’ trees and a lower layer of rainforest plants or shrubs) and temperate rainforests).

Since I went to an information workshop organised by Barung Landcare in Maleny, I have been somewhat over-zealous in my daily inspections of the moist parts of the body where ticks latch on. At times, I imagine I have a tick, when it is more likely a mosquito bite, but one can never be too cautious.

In the last month She Who Picks Peaches without Wearing a Hat reported in with ticks (i) behind her ear and (ii) on the crown of her scalp. In both cases these were the paralysis tick at the nymph stage which I killed with a scabicide then removed in the recommended manner.

“Little bastards,” quote SWPPWWAH.

Everyone agrees: the abnormally cool spring coupled with recent rains has raised the paralysis tick threat to critical. Then other day I ran out to the washing line to take in clothes before a storm arrived. This was the classic mistake – running barefoot on to the lawn where ticks can promptly run up one’s trouser legs. Imagine the horror when I picked up the (empty) laundry basket and saw two paralysis ticks scuttling around inside.

“WTF,” I exclaimed to SWPPWWAH. “How do they do that?”

According to a rural myth, the little bastards can jump, like fleas. Well, no, I left the laundry basket sitting on the lawn! But ticks do ‘quest,’ that is, they hang off the end of a blade of grass or a plant/tree branch waiting for a host to brush by. Ticks go through three life stages from the time a female lays about 3,000 eggs (larva, nymph and adult).

As dedicated readers may recall, I had what was described as a mild to moderate anaphylactic shock reaction to a paralysis tick bite in 2013. (Jeez, what must it be like to have a major reaction?) If you want to relive the ordeal (I don’t), go here:

I now carry an Epipen everywhere I go. I also kit myself out in light coloured gardening clothes, gumboots, hat, smother myself in insecticide and hang a tick repeller around my neck. The latter emits an electronic pulse said to repel ticks up to three metres.

There were two speakers at the Maleny workshop, retired vet Leigh Findlay (who spoke about dogs, cats and ticks) and Dr Ted Chamberlain, senior medical superintendent at Maleny Soldiers Memorial Hospital. The 69 people who attended mingled outside the function room exchanging tick anecdotes and describing their most recent attack.

Attendees included several people who have a recently diagnosed type of tick bite allergy called Mammalian Meat Allergy or MMA. Once their lives have been saved the first time, MMA sufferers will doubtless be advised to avoid eating red meat. Mammalian meat allergy is the result of acquiring the carbohydrate, alpha-gal, from ticks.

Dr Chamberlain told workshop attendees that Maleny hospital sees people with a tick bite on average once a week and 20 serious cases of anaphylaxis each year. He added that before he came here, he’d seen two cases over a 25-year medical career.

Dr Chamberlain identified two ‘hot spots’ for ticks – the Blackall Range (Sunshine Coast hinterland) and the northern beaches of Sydney. He believes there are two reasons for the increase in ticks. One is the change in climate, the other is that people unwittingly create tick habitat by allowing native vegetation to flourish. The main issue with maintaining natural habitat is that it encourages tick hosts including bandicoots and possums.

But are there ways of ridding your habitat of ticks in general? The number one solution is the insectivorous Guinea Fowl. There is a practical problem with keeping guinea fowl on your land as you can tell by (listening) to this 30 second YouTube video

Guinea fowl eradicate ticks (and other insects) by systematically stripping grass and plant stems with their beaks. Free-range chooks will also peck away at ticks and other insects, but not so effectively.

A few myths busted

Ticks do not fly or fall out of trees. If there is one latched on to your head it has been crawling around on your body for at least two hours;

The size of the tick bears no relationship to the severity of the allergic response;

Do ticks cause Lyme Disease? You may have seen an episode of Insight on SBS last year when host Jenny Brockie asked that question. The science says ‘no’ but an acrimonious debate has arisen as people succumb to strange illnesses which seem related to tick bites.

Certainly more research needs to be done to explore the genesis of “lyme-like illness” but for now, I’ll stick with the science answer: “…there is no definitive evidence for the existence in Australia of B. burgdorferi, or any other tick-borne spirochaete that may be responsible for a local syndrome being reported as LD.”

Nevertheless, a tick bite can cause swelling and infection and induce flu-like symptoms. Cases of tick-borne Rickettsia and Babesia have been documented in Australia. Some ticks bites can result in life-threatening illnesses including tick typhus and severe allergic reactions. It is now broadly accepted that forcibly removing a tick without killing it first may increase the severity of any allergic reaction.

The University of Sydney, which has been conducting research in this field for 12 years (with input from Dr Chamberlain), says the best method of avoiding ticks is to stay away from known tick infested areas.

Right. I’m looking out the window here at our serene country environment, the green rolling hills, the native trees blowing in the wind, native birds flitting about, the creek burbling away at the bottom of the block; the peace and quiet.

Not bloody likely.

(Paw note: I removed a 2mm long tick from the dog’s lower eyelid(!) last night. Amazing to me was that he lay passively in my lap while I poked around trying to get a good grip on the nasty little parasite that was causing him discomfort. The dog is on tick/flea preventative medication, but it is important to check them regularly anyway. Ed)

What rhymes with rhinitis

Taken with a Nikon D3s and 14-24 lens. 7 shot HDR at f/5.6. www.elviskennedy.com — Photo Elvis Kennedy https://flic.kr/p/a3EtMY www.elviskennedy.com

The proper term for what ails 4.6 million Australians is ‘seasonal allergic rhinitis,’ more commonly known as hay fever. The latter name has stuck, even though scientists have known that grass pollen was the key culprit since the late 1800s.

I surely don’t have to tell you this is one of the worst springs on record for seasonal allergies. But I will.

If you live in Melbourne and suffer from asthma and seasonal allergies, this has been and still may be a life-threatening year.

American and UK media outlets pounced on Melbourne’s “thunderstorm asthma’’ story – six dead and five more on life support, brayed NBC, portraying it as a ‘freak’ event, though Melbourne has previously had four storm-induced asthma outbreaks. The city’s emergency services were swamped, with 8,500 receiving hospital treatment.

NBC (and other media outlets) explained that the storm caused saturated ryegrass pollen grains to ‘explode and disperse’ over the city. About a third of patients reported never having had asthma before. Inter alia, about half of asthmatics have allergic rhinitis or vice versa.

The Telegraph in the UK tracked down the Melbourne scientist who discovered and named the phenomenon in 1992 (when two people died after two consecutive storms). Cenk Suphioglu, from Deakin University, said authorities should be ready to issue public alerts during such events as Melbourne is a well-known allergy hotspot. Previous epidemics occurred in 1987, 1989 and 2010.

So I thought it was (again) time to start taking seasonal hay fever seriously. Like so many of Australia’s rhinitis sufferers, I reach for the antihistamines too late – the pollen has already got to me, hence tissue boxes placed strategically around the house. If we could all be bothered, the early warning systems are in place to take prophylactic action.

Melbourne University botanist Associate Professor Ed Newbigin said in August that hay fever sufferers were set for a worse-than-usual season. He told ABC Rural a wet winter had contributed to spring growth in grasslands across western Victoria.

These grasslands released “huge amounts of pollen” when flowering and this is then carried to the city by northerly and north-westerly winds.

website, a free service provided by the University of Melbourne and the Asthma Foundation Victoria. This useful website now also includes pollen count forecasts for Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney. Pollen is measured as grains of pollen per cubic metre of air.

Dr Newbigin told FOMM yesterday pollen counts range so widely there’s nothing he can call a ‘norm’. Pollen count ranges are 0-19 (low), 20-49 (moderate), 50+ (high) and 100+ extreme.

A pollen count of 19 to 25 grains can make a sensitive person feel rather unwell. So Melbourne’s extreme count of 154 on Sunday November 6 explains a lot about the pressure on hospital emergency departments.

It starts with itchy eyes and sneezing

Allergic rhinitis symptoms are caused by the body’s immune system mistaking inhaled pollen for a virus, hence chronic inflammation of the eyes and nasal passages.

Symptoms include sneezing, runny, itchy, stuffy nose, itchy, watery and red eyes, itchy ears, throat and palate, headache and a “woolly headed feeling.” Allergic rhinitis predisposes people to sinus infections and poor quality sleep, leading to day-time fatigue.

Writer Suzanne Moore, a new convert to the World of Snot described her world of misery well in The Guardian.

“Wearing my sunglasses indoors, struggling to tear into some new drugs, my daughter looks alarmed.”Mum, what are you doing? You look like a crackhead.”

“I know I look stupid; I feel even more stupid. Hay fever does that.

“Apart from turning your body into a snot factory, you feel perpetually fogged up; not really there at all. It’s a miserable thing.”

So do you find it just a tad worrying that medical science still does not have a cure for seasonal allergic rhinitis? We sufferers form an orderly queue at our local chemist shop, ready to try anything new.

The best known relief remedies are, in no particular order, antihistamines, nasal sprays, steroid sprays, and, for the determined, few, a series of injections designed to desensitise the sufferer.

The newly afflicted Suzanne Moore says 20% of people in the UK are affected by allergic rhinitis. Allergy UK says Brits spend close to a billion pounds on treatments.

The one in five Australians affected spend a total of $120 million a year in over-the-counter remedies, so one could be forgiven for thinking there is no real incentive to find a cure.

The preferred treatment for someone who suffers acute attacks of allergic rhinitis is to start the patient on a preventative (corticosteroid) nasal spray before the onset of the hay fever season (in Australia September-December).

Some will go further to lead a normal life. As a lad, West Tigers prop Tim Grant took on serious treatment. The Sydney Morning Herald revealed that after he was diagnosed as a 12-year-old with a grass allergy, the NRL star endured three years of injections to build up his immunity so he could train and play.

Rhinitis rare in the 19th century

In the 19^th century hay fever was regarded as something that afflicted the aristocracy, possibly because the landed gentry could afford to consult the best physicians. Without exception, they prescribed rest and recreation by the seaside or at an alpine lodge in Europe. John Bostock, a British physician, spent most of his life studying an ailment which befell him in June every year from the age of eight. An article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine says a speech by Bostock in March 1819 about summer catarrh is the first description of hay fever as we know it. The condition was so rare in pre-industrial revolution Britain it took Bostock nine years to find 20 other people to put under the microscope. Bostock experimented on himself with remedies and tonics including bleeding, vomiting, opium, mercury, cold bathing and digitalis, all to no avail.

It may come as no surprise to find that Canberra is the hay fever capital of the country, given the woolly-headed thinking emanating from Parliament House. Scientists attribute this status to the diversity of plants in the Australian Capital Territory which produce allergen-laden pollen.

One in 5 people living in the ACT reported suffering from long-term allergic rhinitis, followed closely by Western Australia, Victoria and South Australia. The lowest rates occur in Queensland and New South Wales (half that of the ACT). Dr Newbigin has previously said that as the planet warms and the population grows, it will be important for allergic rhinitis sufferers, health experts and city landscape planners to be aware of what environmental change may mean for population health in allergy hotspots like Canberra.

A map (below) usefully identifies where in Australia you are more likely to be afflicted. That’s not to suggest you should move to a low-allergy location. Some 95% of sufferers are allergic to grass, so their symptoms are destined to return, wherever they live.

But as John Updike once said, “I moved to New England partly because it has a real literary past. The ghosts of Hawthorne and Melville still sit on those green hills. The worship of Mammon is also somewhat lessened there by the spirit of irony. I don’t get hay fever in New England either.”