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Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

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11–20 of 238 posts

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#11
post #7
post #4

I've recently gotten into backpacking and learned that the most effective way of dealing with mosquitoes and ticks in nature is Permetherin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permethrin . It is intended for clothing and not the skin. The best way to apply it is to soak your clothes and let it dry. Spray on applicators are also available. Once it is dry, it is very stable and safe. It does breakdown with UV and washes, so…

Yes, this. Also from what I've read just applying it to your shoes is hugely effective on its own vs ticks, with socks adding another large percentage, as the majority of ticks will jump onto your feet and climb up your legs. The rest of your clothes are worth treating too certainly, but even if it's just your feet it will be a major help.

"Also from what I've read just applying it to your shoes is hugely effective on its own vs ticks, with socks adding another large percentage, as the majority of ticks will jump onto your feet and climb up your legs."

This is very interesting advise. I always thought ticks drop from trees? no? I actually wear a hat sometimes in the forrest because of this. Am I stupid?

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#12
post #6

Are these all real cases or some psychogenic ones? I was under the impression that a lot of "chronic Lyme" cases were something else.

They're citing the CDC's numbers for confirmed cases, so I'd expect the "chronic Lyme" folks to be excluded.

https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/faq/index.html

> The term “chronic Lyme disease” (CLD) has been used to describe people with different illnesses. While the term is sometimes used to describe illness in patients with Lyme disease, in many occasions it has been used to describe symptoms in people who have no evidence of a current or past infection with B. burgdorferi (Marques, 2008). Because of the confusion in how the term CLD is employed, experts in this field do not support its use.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#13
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this. Also from what I've read just applying it to your shoes is hugely effective on its own vs ticks, with socks adding another large percentage, as the majority of ticks will jump onto your feet and climb up your legs. The rest of your clothes are worth treating too certainly, but even if it's just your feet it will be a major help.

"Also from what I've read just applying it to your shoes is hugely effective on its own vs ticks, with socks adding another large percentage, as the majority of ticks will jump onto your feet and climb up your legs." This is very interesting advise. I always thought ticks drop from trees? no? I actually wear a hat sometimes in the forrest because of this. Am I stupid?

I’m surprised at this misconception about ticks falling from trees. Growing up in northern California, it seems to be common knowledge among my friends and family that tall grass is where you’ve got to be careful.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#15
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this. Also from what I've read just applying it to your shoes is hugely effective on its own vs ticks, with socks adding another large percentage, as the majority of ticks will jump onto your feet and climb up your legs. The rest of your clothes are worth treating too certainly, but even if it's just your feet it will be a major help.

"Also from what I've read just applying it to your shoes is hugely effective on its own vs ticks, with socks adding another large percentage, as the majority of ticks will jump onto your feet and climb up your legs." This is very interesting advise. I always thought ticks drop from trees? no? I actually wear a hat sometimes in the forrest because of this. Am I stupid?

The tick causing the spike in Lyme disease, the deer tick, likes to hang out in grass. Other ticks behave differently; there's a horrifying story near the end of the article about a tick in Mexico hiding in stucco...

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#16

This article blames sprawl and climate change, but neglects the connection to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center right off the coast of Lyme CT. Borrelia has been in the US for ages, but wasn't known for causing the debilitating symptoms this modern strain causes.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/04/02/lab.257/index.ht...

> Moreover, a Department of Agriculture spokesperson, Sandy Miller-Hays, told the news service that -- counter to Carroll's claims -- Lyme disease was never studied at Plum Island.

As for symptoms, it was described in the 1760s as "exquisite pain [in] the interior parts of the limbs", neurological symptoms in the 1920s, etc. That it took a while to recognize the cause of these things doesn't mean the disease didn't exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#History

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#17
I remember standing in line at a coffee shop, after walking some dogs on a nature trail. I felt a sharp pain on my hip flexor and knew right away it was a tick bite, even though I had never had one before. I rushed into the bathroom and lo and behold, it was a tick. In a panic I asked all the women in the coffee shop if they had tweezers. They must have thought I had a screw loose. None of them did so I rushed home to pull it off. I kid you not, as I pulled it, I heard its jaws (or whatever) snap. P.S. you don’t need to burn them unless they’ve already burrowed.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#18
post #6

Are these all real cases or some psychogenic ones? I was under the impression that a lot of "chronic Lyme" cases were something else.

There's no such thing as "chronic Lyme disease":

https://www.fasebj.org/doi/10.1096/fj.10-167247

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/does-everybody-have-chronic...

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#19

I remember standing in line at a coffee shop, after walking some dogs on a nature trail. I felt a sharp pain on my hip flexor and knew right away it was a tick bite, even though I had never had one before. I rushed into the bathroom and lo and behold, it was a tick. In a panic I asked all the women in the coffee shop if they had tweezers. They must have thought I had a screw loose. None of them did so I rushed home t…

Oil.

Edit: I had a scary experience. After rain I was hunting in the woods with bushes a metre tall, shotgut over the head to avoid accidents. Then a snake hiss ahead, tried to turn right, another snake hiss that way, same to left and... same back.

I panicked and got out of the bushes as fast as I could, I was panting. Then I noticed I was covered by hundreds of ticks. I shouted and my father came alarmed. He managed to brush all of them except one that I found at home. It took my mother about ten seconds to take it off with olive oil.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#20
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this. Also from what I've read just applying it to your shoes is hugely effective on its own vs ticks, with socks adding another large percentage, as the majority of ticks will jump onto your feet and climb up your legs. The rest of your clothes are worth treating too certainly, but even if it's just your feet it will be a major help.

"Also from what I've read just applying it to your shoes is hugely effective on its own vs ticks, with socks adding another large percentage, as the majority of ticks will jump onto your feet and climb up your legs." This is very interesting advise. I always thought ticks drop from trees? no? I actually wear a hat sometimes in the forrest because of this. Am I stupid?

not stupid, they can. Usually they climb undergrowth and wait on a blade of grass or twig or something and grab on to something walking by.

Inadvertently wandering through (or for a puppy sleeping in) a deer nest where there's hundreds or thousands of nymph ticks is a real life horror.

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