Warning: Tick bites

Wow, RIP to your friend. Ticks have been out big time this year.
 
First of all, my condolences to you and your friends family. Do you have any information on how long the tick was attached etc?
 
lycoflyfisher wrote:
First of all, my condolences to you and your friends family. Do you have any information on how long the tick was attached etc?
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No I don't know how long.

He did not feel to good back in August. Then a mutual friend told me he was getting tested for lyme back on 8/17. Then on 8/19 he was on a ventilator & was put into a coma. His lungs were destroyed from the infection.

 
I'm sorry to hear Brad, condolences to you and his family. Horrible.

Ticks are the most dangerous things in the woods of PA.

Tick-borne disease is on the verge of being an epidemic, yet nothing is being done about it from a medicine standpoint. I think this may be because Lyme is by far the most common disease, and fortunately is nearly almost always not lethal. Don't get me wrong, it's serious stuff, and can be debilitating, but it almost never leads to lethal complications - It can in theory, but the connection isn't fully proven, and even then, it's statistically almost non-existent.

If one of the other rarer, but more grave diseases was occurring with the frequency Lyme does (and many Lyme cases still go undetected by the medical community) something would be being done. Something needs done. Advancements need made.
 
Swattie87 wrote:
I'm sorry to hear Brad, condolences to you and his family. Horrible.

Ticks are the most dangerous things in the woods of PA.

Tick-borne disease is on the verge of being an epidemic, yet nothing is being done about it from a medicine standpoint. I think this may be because Lyme is by far the most common disease, and fortunately is nearly almost always not lethal. Don't get me wrong, it's serious stuff, and can be debilitating, but it almost never leads to lethal complications - It can in theory, but the connection isn't fully proven, and even then, it's statistically almost non-existent.

If one of the other rarer, but more grave diseases was occurring with the frequency Lyme does (and many Lyme cases still go undetected by the medical community) something would be being done. Something needs done. Advancements need made.
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Here is the sad story about the Lyme vaccine. Don't blame the doctors, blame the lawyers.
 
Yeah, I know the backstory on the vaccine. It wasn't perfect, but probably didn't get a full fair shake either.

This goes beyond just Lyme though. Lyme is the most common disease, but far from the most serious. More needs to be done on all fronts. My prediction is tick borne disease will be a VERY big deal before long, and we'll be 20+ years behind on learning about it and dealing with it.

Unfortunately...The medical research isn't being done, and won't be done on it until there's a market to make money on it. Blame the doctors, and/or the institutions they work for, for that. That market is coming though...Once it's here, and there's money to be made, then you can blame the lawyers.
 
Brad,

Sorry to hear about your friend. I also extend my condolences to his family and friends.

I echo the fears about ticks, too. They give me the creeps. I am "devoted" to Sawyer's tick spray.
 
I thought everyone had a spleen.

But I Googled it and found that some people are born without a spleen.
 
As a lawyer, I blame the Pharmo-capitalists for not thoroughly testing the vaccine and informing people (doctors and patients) about what they knew or should have known.
 
troutbert wrote:
I thought everyone had a spleen.

But I Googled it and found that some people are born without a spleen.
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I was born with 2 spleens.

Found out when I had to have mine removed many years ago.
And yes, they took out both.

Brad - so sorry to hear this about your friend
 
As everyone else said, sorry to hear that. I honestly haven't seen hardly any ticks this year. In fact, not one and I've been out adventuring quite a bit. Weird.
 
rrt wrote:
Brad,

Sorry to hear about your friend. I also extend my condolences to his family and friends.

I echo the fears about ticks, too. They give me the creeps. I am "devoted" to Sawyer's tick spray.
Click to expand...

Yes, permethrin is an amazing anti tick chemical. It is also poisonous to fish liquid form and to cats. Once dry on your clothes, however, all is fine..
 
Brad very sorry and condolences to you about your friend.

Lyme disease has been a bit of a mystery to me. I contracted it in early April of 2009. I should say I was treated for my symptoms at that time. Who knows when I was bitten, but guess it was right around the same time. No bulls eye on my body, horrible flu-like aches and pain especially in my sternum. Many different blood tests at the time could never identify Lyme or even Rocky Mounty Spotted Fever. I was treated pretty quickly with antibiotics and had a quick recovery.

About five years later with a new doctor and blood work showed some Borrelia burgdorferi in my system. I guess it never really goes away? I kinda assumed from my experience that there are several different strains or variants of Lyme?

I need to be more diligent about insect repellent.
 
So sorry about your good friend.

If there is a concern with ticks that may be in your clothes after an outing I read that if you put your clothes in the drier on high heat for ten minutes, that will kill them. True or not, I do not know.

I’m a fan of shirts impregnated with permethrin.

Even with all the precautions Ticks are tough to completely avoid.
 
Lyme is a mysterious disease indeed.

I've had several bulls eye rashes after tic bites. But the lyme test always came back negative.
And a friend of mine was just recently diagnosed, and treated for lyme. Despite his blood work coming back negative also

Apparently, they still haven't come up with a reliable testing method yet.

And some people do, even after treatment, never seem to quite get over the symptoms
Referred to as chronic lyme disease

 
Brad, I am sorry to hear about your friend. I cant believe that with all the damage tics can do the medical research world isn't doing more to stop this. I was diagnosed with lyme in 2013, I was sick for months but my doctor would not check for lyme because I didn't have a bullseye rash. I ended up switching doctors and my new doctor immediately took a blood test and yep it showed lyme. I still have side affects of it but am doing a lot better but like others have said the pharmaceutical companies don't care because they wont make huge money off a cure for it ,
 
Very sorry to hear about this. Like others have said, ticks are the scariest thing out there. People can worry about bears and snakes all they want but it's the little things that get you.

I had lyme two years ago. There are several strains and only certain strains can be detected with tests. Some strains do not result in the bulls eye rash, I never had a rash and never tested positive for anything. But I have family members who had it before and knew what was up when I started feeling weak and aching in my joints about a month after I knew I had been bitten by a deer tick.

Some strains are harder to treat than others but if caught early, all will respond to Doxycycline. Some strains can be wiped out by 5 days of the antibiotic, others can take 14 days. On their way out, the bacteria release some chemicals into the body that in itself causes painful symptoms. I experienced this a month after my initial symptoms had cleared up. One doctor put me back on antibiotics, which did nothing this time around, so I went to a specialist.
The specialist explained to me that the bacteria could not have survived the first round of 21 days of antibiotics and that they were just the after-effects of the bacteria dying, and not to take any more antibiotics. A week later I was totally fine and have had no issues since.

Lyme is very complex and there is a new certification that doctors can get that's called an LLD which stands for Lyme-Literate Doctor. If you suspect you may have lyme, seek these doctors out, many other doctors are pretty clueless about Lyme.
 
For the last ten years I have purchased a commercial Permithrin that is meant to be diluted for applications on cows, dogs, 'n such. I dilute it so the Permithrin is 1/2% (yes .5%) Because the product I buy is 10.0% Permithrin, I cut it 20\1. 20 parts water to 1 part Permithrin.

I then spray my clothing (just use a spray bottle) an let it dry in the sun for a day. I also spray my UTV.

Now, I am stricken with Multiple Sclerosis already so I don't want\need Lyme's on top of that. My Neurologist test me every year for Lyme's. BTW, there are more than one type of Lyme's testing. A "cheap" one that is not as reliable as the more expensive one. Get the more expensive test if you believe you have it.

The symptoms of Lyme's mimic those of MS. I wouldn't wish this on my worse enemy.

And in the 15 years I've use my Permithrin spray, I have never had a tick bite.....but I have watched ticks die that land on the hood of my UTV that's treated with Permithrin.
 
I thought everyone had a spleen.
Click to expand...

One might also have to have their spleen removed if it is severely damaged in an accident.
 
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