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He didn’t know he had Lyme disease. How cases are rising in the Midwest

Katherine Langford
Editor-in-Chief · Friday, October 16, 2026 at 5:44 PM · 1 min read
He didn’t know he had Lyme disease. How cases are rising in the Midwest — ABC 7 Suncoast SWFL, Naples Health news
Image: ABC 7 Suncoast SWFL

(InvestigateTV) — Richard Dolnik spent much of his free time running on trails, training for marathons. Now he avoids the woods and tall grass because of his fear of a disease that can be transmitted by ticks.Dolnik is recovering from Lyme disease, an infection that early on can include fever, headache, joint and muscle pain and a rash. That’s how it started for him.“I went to take a shower, I noticed there was a giant rash right here,” Dolnik said. “And then the next day I wake up and I have a chainsaw headache.”For a month, Dolnik didn’t know what was wrong with him.Because he didn’t know what was wrong, Dolnik didn’t get treatment, and his condition worsened. He developed Lyme carditis, a condition that attacks electrical signals in the heart.“That first night in the hospital, it was bad,” he told us. “I had a code blue where the entire emergency team had to come in because my heart paused for like 15 seconds.”When Dolnik got the disease, he said “not a single person” aside from his

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