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Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

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201–210 of 238 posts

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#201
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ticks can drop out of trees on your head, or attach to your hair when your head brushes past some leaves on a tree. Also, if your bare skin is not covered in insect repellent, that could also be a route that they get to the rest of your body. The most effective method of not getting bitten is not to go in to the woods at all.

The most effective method of not getting bitten is not to go in to the woods at all. Agreed. I'm not worried about ticks since I only go between work and my mom's basement.

Can confirm: This also works with non-parental residence.

For me, this is the key to surviving hay fever season.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have nerve damage from arthritis in my spine. Mine is definitely not correctable with current medical technology (degenerative discs, bone spurs and pinched nerves & spinal cord from the above). Most days, I'm resting at a 4-5 on a 1-10 pain scale. It can easily reach a 7-8 on bad days. When I go for allergy shots, I dont even notice the injections, typically. Thing is, most pain meds dont even work. NSAIDs don't m…

Have you tried much acupuncture? I've found it extremely effective for nerve issues, although nothing approaching what you are dealing with. But in general western medicine seems bad at resolving these kinds of things, it might be worth investigating. If you are in SF competent practitioners abound.

There is no reason for this comment to be downvoted. It is both informative and insightful.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#203
post #29
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 inte…

Or get some chickens and let them roam. They supposedly enjoy eating the little buggers.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#204
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people still see deer as cute, but its starting to change. When I see deer I just see disease carrying vermin. Deer populations have exploded. I wish they were systematically culled. Time talked about this a while back, I havent seen anything since. https://time.com/709/americas-pest-problem-its-time-to-cull-... https://vet.uga.edu/population_health_files/scwds-150wtdeer5...

I know what you mean. However we might not be awash in deer if we hadn't first 'culled' all the predators. Wolves for example.¹ 1: http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/AppalFor/Readings/leopold.pdf

The wolf population is slowly increasing in western europe.

Here's some wolf news for those who enjoy that sort of thing, in Dutch: http://www.welkomwolf.be/node/238

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#205

Bullshit, they're not exploding. Lyme disease confirmed cases are occurring at roughly the same rate in 2017 as 2007. Look at the CDC data yourself: https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/graphs.html

You can call "bullshit" by picking a random year, sure.

I can pick 2010 (22,561) vs 2017 (29,513)

Their data set begins at 1997 and ends in 2017 though:

1997: 12,801

2017: 29,513

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#206

My father nearly died of [what we believe to be] Lyme disease. A few years ago he started getting awful bouts of pain all over his body. He couldn't eat, was losing weight, was losing muscle mass fast. It got the the point where he was using a walker (he was less than 60 years old at the time) and could barely lift a 5 pound weight. He went to a bunch of different doctors, had all kinds of scans run, and only kept ge…

The bull’s eye rash is deceptive because that is what people expect but depending on your location it may only appear in 20% of all cases.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have nerve damage from arthritis in my spine. Mine is definitely not correctable with current medical technology (degenerative discs, bone spurs and pinched nerves & spinal cord from the above). Most days, I'm resting at a 4-5 on a 1-10 pain scale. It can easily reach a 7-8 on bad days. When I go for allergy shots, I dont even notice the injections, typically. Thing is, most pain meds dont even work. NSAIDs don't m…

Have you tried much acupuncture? I've found it extremely effective for nerve issues, although nothing approaching what you are dealing with. But in general western medicine seems bad at resolving these kinds of things, it might be worth investigating. If you are in SF competent practitioners abound.

Western medicine is not "western", is THE medicine based in proved facts. Scientifically proven.

Anything that experimentally works, being chinese or icelandese, is included in medicine so there are a fair possibily that anything working in chinese medicine is yet included in medicine. The rest is just in the category of "dubious traditions, superstitions, fairy tales and non trustable until proven".

The basis if acupuncture is to selectively "stimulate" nerve fibers so the pain dissapears, but the nerve funcion is temporarily damaged. Is not different than blue scorpion poison against cancer, or being struck by an electric current. Killed nerves can't feel or transmit pain sensations but pain is an important defense system for animals. Anesthetics do not cure nerve issues, just hide the problem, as acupuncture does.

Sticking needles in a finger maybe could be acceptable. Touching the spine with several hot metal objects has a much higher risk and probably unaceptable in the balance of benefits and cons IMHO.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#208
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…

Wirecutter has a great article about the alternative repellents and their evaluation:

https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-bug-repellent/

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried much acupuncture? I've found it extremely effective for nerve issues, although nothing approaching what you are dealing with. But in general western medicine seems bad at resolving these kinds of things, it might be worth investigating. If you are in SF competent practitioners abound.

There is no reason for this comment to be downvoted. It is both informative and insightful.

It's completely unsolicited advice. The comment it is replying to is adding first-hand testimony to the discussion, not asking for suggestions for how to manage their own condition.

Mere mention of one's own medical situation should not generally be deemed to be open season on the entire internet tossing out medical suggestions, no matter how seemingly insightful. Most people with serious, long-standing conditions know a lot more about it than the average person on the street, have tried myriad approaches to treatment and get incredibly sick of having everyone "helpfully" toss suggestions at them at the mere mention of their diagnosis.

It's exhausting to have to say over and over "I've tried that or have a good reason why I am not doing that. I'm aware of those options. My short comment here is not remotely a comprehensive medical history."

Everyone puts it on the chronically ill person to be polite and respectful and make them feel good about wanting to help. But it's an incredibly negative experience to be constantly bombarded with such "help" and the implicit expectation that you should be politely appreciative of their good intentions.

I'm one of the people that downvoted it and that's why I did so. I'm chronically ill and also post as openly female here. I'm abundantly familiar with the desire to simply say "Oh, hey! I know something about that!" only to get a slew of advice I didn't ask for. The subjective experience of that is that the entire world clearly thinks you are an idiot who isn't trying hard enough and that's the only reason you can't fix your chronic, intractable problems for which the world has no real solutions or you would have already long ago sold your soul to the devil to finance the slam dunk answer.

This is part of why some parts of Twitter are awash with bitter complaints about Ablism and how terrible Abled people are.

Re: Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

#210
post #196
post #71

Unfortunately there’s no way to know that one currently has Lyme disease unless the symptoms are close in time to a tick bite. Treatment is with antibiotics, usually doctors will use a combination of two types of antibiotics (eg doxycycline and cefdinir) for which there is some research suggesting better results. In rare cases IV antibiotics may be required, especially if evidence of cardiac or neurological involveme…

Any advice on POTS treatment avenues? There seems to be poor GP knowledge around the condition, apart from giving fluids via a port to reduce symptoms.

I'm not familiar with POTS, but a quick google suggests that adding salt (and fluids) to the diet is a standard treatment.

I have a different condition where a high salt diet is a standard medical recommendation. I benefited from getting really picky about salt quality, though that's not anything doctors ever talked about.

I eschewed table salt in favor of sea salt containing a mix of natural minerals and micronutrients, not just sodium chloride.

I also generally recommend keeping a journal to track diet and symptoms in the face of any chronic condition.

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