Lyme Disease Thread

[pixychick]

It's getting to be that time of year when ticks are all over, and just incase you pick up some, I thought some shared ideas on prevention, or anything related to Lyme Disease. Maybe the mods can make this a sticky.

I will share what I learned when I had it:
Lyme is transmitted through deer ticks and some mice. If you find a big dog tick on you, you will not get Lyme. I have a picture below with the size of adult and juvenile. They are pretty small and hard to see. The tick must also be burrowed on you for about 24 hours for the disease to be transmitted. Good idea to check yourself after being in the woods before you get into your car and go into the house. If you have a dog that goes in the woods with you and then back into the house, you are very high risk.

The only way you may know you may have Lyme in early stages is if you find the tick and have it tested, or if you get a rash ( I did). The rash could take several weeks to appear and sometimes there is no rash. 2 weeks antibiotics is usual for early detection. I was tired and had achy hands for 4 months after the meds. There is a blood test but it will not detect Lyme all the time in early stages. It usually takes a month and by then you should have already had the antibiotics. The test is very accurate for later stages.

If you do not catch it early, symptoms can get pretty bad and it can be difficult to cure. Some studies found here: http://lymecourse.idsociety.org.

Please post up any info you may have.

 

[rocknrollgirl]

They seem really bad this year. I took one off a student the other day that was the size of a speck of pepper. BE CAREFUL.

 

[whtbread]

Good info. You got me thinking, so I did a search and found the picture of a deer tick and a dog tick.

 

[Reggie]

Our Dr told us that Lymes can be transmitted on more than just Deer ticks; "all ticks can carry Lymes". I'm no Doogie Houser, but that is what she explained to us when our daughter had it.

 

[whtbread]

Here is a link to the center of disease control. They say "blacklegged" or "deer ticks"


http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/

http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/Transmission/

 

[Trail Rider]

I just had a lyme test done on me this past week that luckily came back negative. No symptoms but I get my share of ticks and wanted to be safe.

My dog tested positive for Lyme antibodies the week before and is on antibiotics for a month. He gets screened more often than I do.

I finally put him on Advantix after he came back positive. I figure the less ticks he brings back/carries, the safer I will be.

 

[Stash]

I thought getting Lyme's was a right of passage if you live in Monmouth county.

 

[The Kalmyk]

My father had it so bad it gave him Bells Palsy... It is serious stuff

 

[JRhunt]

Besides Mtn biking im an avid hunter who spends 75 days per year in the woods hunting. I get a blood test for Lyme 2x per year as a precaution. Ive pulled numerous ticks of me over the years. So far im lyme free. They make sprays that can help keep ticks off your skin. On my hunting clothes I use a spray called permamone.

 

[MikeP]

usually have 1 or 2 ticks a year, do the vaseline trick, always works. There was a vaccine back in the 90s, called Lymerex. I got it as soon as it was available, taken off market due to lack of popularity (according the the head of Infectious Disease at my hospital)

 

[freeride]

NJ is one of the worst states for tics. I think a big one (dog?) was on my shin in sterling forest on sunday. last year in march i picked up a couple of small ones at hi mtn. i remember last year i went for check up in march and doc said it won't show up in blood work right away.

they say stay in the middle of the trail and don't come into contact with flora to decrease your chances of catching tics. i was in sprain ridge last tuesday and there were so many deer i was really thinking about the increase chances of deer tics as every trail i went on had a boat load of deer

 

[Bora]

It is actually very interesting about the Lymarex- check this link:
http://www.healthboards.com/boards/showthread.php?t=541964
http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/briefing/3680b2_17.pdf
I use Repel every time I go to the forest, and check up myself after each forest trip.
This year I caught 2 ticks inside my car (my wife almost jumped out when she found him staring at her from the dashboard.
Sigh I hope one day someone develop Frontline drops for humans.

http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/briefing/3680b2_17.pdf

 

[MikeP]

It is actually very interesting about the Lymarex- check this link:
http://www.healthboards.com/boards/showthread.php?t=541964

I use Repel every time I go to the forest, and check up myself after each forest trip.
This year I caught 2 ticks inside my car (my wife almost jumped out when she found him staring at her from the dashboard.
Sigh I hope one day someone develop Frontline drops for humans.

finished my series of shots, had no Lyme-like symptoms. You can pretty much look up any drug and find a class action suit, but I heard about some suits. Being a nurse, doing some research, and talking to docs I trusted. I thought it was the right choice for me. If i wasn't in the woods as much as we are, probably wouldnt have got it.

Babesiosis is not Lymes, it's carried by ticks and if you get bit by that very special tick that carries both you're going to get very, very sick if you don't seek immediate medical treatment. I had a patient that had a very bad case of Babesiosis and need plasmaphoresis to get better (similar to running your blood through a machine like a dialysis machine).

 

[gtluke]

I got it twice, if that's possible.
Got the rash on my ass really bad when I was 12, but tested negative? Took the meds.
Last year I got tested, showed up positive with antibodies and positive without.
Took the meds
I never had any symptoms either and no rash or tick seen for the second one.

 

[1speed]

I got it twice, if that's possible.
Got the rash on my ass really bad when I was 12, but tested negative? Took the meds.
Last year I got tested, showed up positive with antibodies and positive without.
Took the meds
I never had any symptoms either and no rash or tick seen for the second one.

It is absolutely possible to get it more than once if your meds wiped it out the first time. The antibodies your body creates don't stay if the bacteria is eradicated altogether, so the irony of getting totally healthy after catching Lyme is that you're just as susceptible to getting it again as you would be if you'd never gotten it at all. I had Lyme Disease two years ago and the specialist I saw told me that.

By the way, the most recent volume of Dirtrag has a really good article on Lyme Disease. There is a comment at the end of the article that really hit home for me -- when the author mentioned that you need to push for getting tested and even for a precautionary round of Amoxycillin if your doctor dismisses the possibility outright. My PC doc was inexplicably dismissive of the possibility that I had Lyme Disease and I even had all the textbook symptons -- bull's eye mark, hit-and-run fevers, sharp muscle and joint pain, etc. My doctor kept insisting that I had a "flu", even though it wasn't close to flu season and I had no respiratory distress at all. But I kept pushing and I think he relented just to shut me up. He gave me an Rx for Amoxycillin and ordered the blood test. And what happened next royally pissed me off and ultimately led me to seek out a new PC doctor. A week later, I get home form work and there's two voicemails waiting: one is from my doctor telling me that my tests were negative, and the other (left less than two minutes after the first) was from the same doctor telling me that my tests were positive and that I should continue on the antibiotic. It would have been one thing if he'd said he'd made a mistake on the first call, but he didn't even seem to realize that he'd made the first call! I flipped out and called his office and played the voicemails for his admin, who got mad at me for "wasting her time". Ultimately, I stopped dealing with his office and went to a specialist on infectious disease for follow-up. He's the one who told me about how I could get it again.

So, anyway, if anyone even suspects that you've been bitten by a tick, please insist on getting the test, and perhaps even get a broad spectrum antibiotic as a precaution even if the test is negative (it can be unreliable.) The long term effects of Lyme can be some serious sh*t.

 

[jpn]

What is the vaseline trick?

I have been positive for lymes 2x on my annual blood work in the last 3 years. both times went on doxycyclene(?) for a month. yech!

 

[gtluke]

Put vaseline on the tick and it will walk out and you can get it off easier

 

[gtluke]

Anyone have suggestions for a good lymes doctor in north Jersey?

 

[UtahJoe]

The vasoline method is not recomended.

HOW TO REMOVE A TICK
The proper way to remove a tick is to use a set of fine tweezers and grip the tick as close to the skin as is possible. Do not use a smoldering match or cigarette, nail polish, petroleum jelly (eg, Vaseline), liquid soap, or kerosene because they may irritate the tick and cause it to behave like a syringe, injecting bodily fluids into the wound.
The proper technique for tick removal includes the following:

• Use fine tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the skin surface as possible.
• Pull backwards gently but firmly, using an even, steady pressure. Do not jerk or twist.
• Do not squeeze, crush, or puncture the body of the tick, since its bodily fluids may contain infection-causing organisms.
• After removing the tick, wash the skin and hands thoroughly with soap and water.
• If any mouth parts of the tick remain in the skin, these should be left alone; they will be expelled on their own. Attempts to remove these parts may result in significant skin trauma.

The two time I have had a tick on me overnight...say longer than 12 hours. First time it was a dog tick, I didnt know the difference at the time and went to my doctor the next day. To be sure, he perscribed me a single dose of doxycycline. One pill, done. Second time was at stewart on sunday, this time is was a deer tick. On me for less than 24 hours, but I still took the single dose of doxycycline anyway. 3 different doctors have recomended this method to me, but at least two of them drink beer

 

[vanseggern1]

Anyone have suggestions for a good lymes doctor in north Jersey?

As Marty's Eddie. He was in pretty bad shape from Lymes a couple years ago, but now he's back to his Fast Eddie self.