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Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

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Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#21

Post by UI_at_80x24 »

nouveaux wrote: 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…

Agreed 100% on Permethrin. Additional tips to make camping more fun:

Put it on swatches of cloth, and suspend those around your tent/tarp entrance. Also put it near your head where you sleep to keep all the biting insects away from your face.

Anecdote: I was camping with a buddy. Rain-storm happened. The protected area under his tarp with thick with mosquitoes trying to hide from the rain (there must have been thousands), I had none under my tarp. The only difference was a couple of cloth swatches of Permethrin under my tarp.

Treating things like hats, or headbands does wonders too.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#22

Post by bryanlarsen »

kaycebasques wrote: post #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 t…

I had dozens of ticks as a kid. Lyme disease hadn't spread to Canada yet, so it wasn't a big deal. I never once felt them bite; they produce an anesthetic so you don't feel it. Sometimes you could feel them crawling on you, but most of the time you didn't even feel that.

And you didn't hear the jaws snap when you pulled it off, you heard the mouth parts tearing. You have to be careful pulling a tick off or the mouth parts will stay in your skin, causing irritation and inflammation.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#23

Post by 4restm »

The advice we were given in my veterinary entomology course was to tweeze as close as you could from the base and pull perpendicularly to the skin.

You shouldnt yank it, more along the lines of the force you'd use to open a zipper.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#24

Post by tolmasky »

We actually have a vaccine for Lyme disease that was pulled due to the Antivax hysteria. I believe an article was posted here on Hacker News before, but here is a link to one otherwise: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/science-and-health/2018/5/7...

We now live in a world where you can vaccinate your dog for Lyme disease but not yourself.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#25

Post by Causality1 »

kaycebasques wrote: post #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 t…

Nobody in the shop was carrying a multitool? Must be Europe or California.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#27

Post by erentz »

ajudson wrote: 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.

A CDC confirmed case requires positive on five bands which is pretty good. These are reported to the CDC. This only confirms infection with Lyme at some point in time (could’ve been years ago). It in no way tells anything about so called “chronic Lyme” or “post treatment Lyme disease” or possible symptoms from an untreated Lyme infection (which is real and can turn into bad news such as heart failure).

A reason for possible increases in reported cases is that Lyme infected ticks are now found in every state, and also it is a more widely known about disease possibly leading to more testing for it and thus more reporting of infections.

One problem is this test isn’t perfect. For example in my case I am five bands positive. I tested myself twice six months apart on Quest with the same five bands positive both times. But being a thorough person I also at the same time tested myself using the IgeneX test, which had no (zero) positive bands the both times. I reported this pretty bad anomaly to the CMS but haven’t heard a response.

It is my impression from most of the research and talking to a pretty awesome neurologist who deals with a lot of “chronic Lyme” cases that make their way to him: that most chronic Lyme is actually an autoimmune reaction. Possibly caused by a prior Lyme infection (possibly not) but if so then the Lyme probably long ago was defeated, as patients with those symptoms tend to improve once put on high dose IVIG.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#28

Post by morley »

kaycebasques wrote: post #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 t…

I was told that if you find a tick on you, you should keep the bug in case you need to have it tested for Lyme.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#29

Post by sp332 »

nouveaux wrote: 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…

If you want to kill ticks around your lawn without going nuclear and covering everything with permethrin (which kills most insects), try tick tubes. These are cardboard tubes filled with cotton that has been treated with permethrin. The mice which most often harbor lyme disease will take the cotton back to line their nests. This will kill just the insects that the mice carry, and hopefully bees etc won't take an interest in the tubes themselves. The tubes are a little pricey on Amazon but you can make your own with cotton balls and a bottle of permethrin.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#30

Post by iamthepieman »

joyjoyjoy wrote: post #11
acheron wrote: 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?

ticks natural hosts are mice, deer, moose and other wildlife that lives in scrublands and mixed forests. This means optimally they will be on grass or scrub that is between mouse and moose height which, coincidentally lines up with human height. Ticks will hold on to leaves and grass with their back legs and hold their front legs outstretched. When a potential hosts passes by they will quickly climb aboard. Many ticks will climb aboard from low grass or even leaf litter which is why treating your shoes and socks works. However they can be on hanging branches or taller grass and shrubs which is why treating all your clothes with permethrin is a good idea.

Ticks do not jump run hop or make any fast movements. They are slow crawlers and do not drop out of trees onto you. They do have a very sensitive organ called a Haller's organ[0] which is an olfactory organ that can also sense humidity, C02 and Temperature.

Lyme's disease isn't the only thing you have to worry about getting from Ticks. They can also carry Tularemia fever, Powassan virus, Ehrlichiosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

Ticks are resistant to cold weather but one of their primary hosts, mice, are not. So after a particularly cold winter there may be less ticks the following Summer. However, many people would say the Northeast U.S. had a long cold and snowy winter but the early and long lasting snow cover provided the mice and other subnivean zone animals with lots of cover and protection from the cold so this Summer is actually turning out to be a bad one for ticks (at least in the NE U.S.).

In our household, we do thorough tick checks on everyone after a day spent outside or in the woods. This includes meticulously checking hair and armpits and a self-check around the groin.

You can help your own property by cutting 1.5 inch PVC pipe into 3-5 inch sections and stuffing it with permethrin soaked cotton balls. Mice will use these to build nests and any ticks coming into contact with the mice will die on contact[1]

Do not get Permethrin near any invertebrates or aquatic wildlife that you do not want to kill[2]

Edit: product we use in our household which we buy at the local outdoor store but is also available online[3]

[0]https://entomologytoday.org/2018/01/16/up-close-look-tiny-se...

[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1941927

[2]http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/metiram-propox...

[3]https://sawyer.com/products/permethrin-insect-repellent-trea...

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