Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

outsideonline.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 428 posts

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#161

Post by PragmaticPulp »

kortex wrote: post #147

Graveyard of "not considered a real/serious disease/threat by the medical consensus until a frankly embarrassingly amount of time later" [x] "cadaverous particles" (washing hands after autopsies) [x] "hysteria" (likely a combination of various mental health conditions and/or PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome) [x] "GRID" (HIV/AIDS) [x] leaded gas bad [x] asbestos bad [x] smoking bad [?] refined sugar bad [x] Autism [x…

“Chronic Lyme” is a very challenging topic because it has become a mix of legitimate symptoms (those suffering post-treatment Lyme disease) but also a pseudoscience catch-all diagnosis promoted by bad alternative medicine practitioners.

Contrary to popular belief, the CDC and medical community do actually continue to research the topics of potential Lyme persistence and post-treatment Lyme symptoms. We’re discussing this under the headline about a new Lyme disease vaccine, aren’t we?

However, there is also an out of control pseudoscience/quackery community that has attached itself to Lyme as the go-to explanation for unexplained symptoms. They’re drawn to the theories of Lyme persisting in undetectable ways, which they use as an excuse to diagnose people by vague symptoms alone. There are now a number of well-known scam Lyme disease labs that claim to use proprietary techniques to identify Lyme disease that the reputable labs can’t catch. Virtually everyone who submits a sample to these scammy labs comes back with a “positive” result.

I once tested positive for Lyme using the CDC criteria from a reputable mainstream lab. The specialists I saw did not mess around with treatment as well as follow up, but they did go to great lengths to ensure I wasn’t trying to get in with a pseudoscience or self-diagnosed “chronic Lyme” case. One of them explained that she was inundated with appointment requests from people who self-diagnosed as “chronic Lyme” after reading Internet forums despite multiple negative test results and refused to believe any other explanation. The “chronic Lyme” online communities are a terrible mess of misinformation, but the actual medical community around Lyme treatment is quietly continuing to do good work. It can be difficult to separate the two from the outside due to all of the noise made by the pseudoscience quacks that have attached themselves to the topic.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#162

Post by thefz »

spicybright wrote: post #23

As a US new england-er, this is game changer for walking through woods. For those un-informed, on a walk through any woods, you should always wear high socks, and do a full body check for ticks after. Deer ticks can be as small as a few grains of sand, and near undetectable if they latch on unless you have sharp eyes. Obviously they can transmit lymes. I had a close encounter a few years ago, but very luckily giant r…

This is enormously good news for mountain bikers too.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#163

Post by mrfusion »

kortex wrote: post #155
mrfusion wrote: post #104

I’ve found the biggest places to watch out for ticks are where not many people go. Little travelled trails. The heavily trafficked areas seem to have way less ticks. My working theory is the deer to human ratio of an area determines how many deer ticks.

My partner got a bullseye-inducing tick byte in our front yard in suburban upstate NY. Hardly little-traveled. The absolute quantity of deer is more important than the deer/human ratio. Lawns make it super easy for deer to migrate, human presence suppresses wolves and other predators, and mice love our trash, houses, bird feeders, and pet food.

I’d wonder though if deer use your front yard more than you? Especially in the pre dawn hours.

Even if you garden you’re probably only out there a couple times a week?

But you could be right that quantity of deer is more important.

BTW have you considered guniea fowl? Or at least something like this might help. https://www.consumerreports.org/pest-control/bait-boxes-are-...

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#164

Post by emerongi »

kortex wrote: post #147

Graveyard of "not considered a real/serious disease/threat by the medical consensus until a frankly embarrassingly amount of time later" [x] "cadaverous particles" (washing hands after autopsies) [x] "hysteria" (likely a combination of various mental health conditions and/or PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome) [x] "GRID" (HIV/AIDS) [x] leaded gas bad [x] asbestos bad [x] smoking bad [?] refined sugar bad [x] Autism [x…

A lot of it is just science catching up to what is observed in the real world. I agree that many practicing doctors are operating on out-of-date knowledge, so if you happen on one of those and start talking about CFS, you might not get a positive reaction. Isn't it the same as unknowingly hiring a bad contractor, though? Doesn't mean that the engineering community is not trying to find more efficient and better ways of construction. CFS is a recognized disorder by the medical community, although the causes are unkown. That is not surprising considering the complexity of the human body.

Tick-borne illnesses are talked about a lot in Europe, ever since I was a kid (~20 years ago). Can't say I have received much conflicting information in all those years.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#165

Post by inter_netuser »

nitrogen wrote: post #158
Dumblydorr wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A doctor's opinion on disease isn't merely an opinion, it's an educated guess based on experience and qualifications. New diseases and research are constantly appearing, thousands of articles are written each year. We can't expect doctors to know everything, but we can expect them to have more informed opinions, on average, than non-doctors. I say this because there's a rising trend of anti-intellectualism and distru…

trend of anti-intellectualism and distrust of doctors As someone who knows a practicing doctor who is also anti-vax, these are orthogonal issues. Sometimes, distrusting a specific doctor is the more intellectual approach.

You'd be surprised how many physicians and nurses refuse vaccination. You'll just never hear about it. AMA is one powerful beast, I wish I had a union like that.

However, sometimes fun little things like this happen that show their true colors:

"Starting in early 2003, the United States government started a program to vaccinate 500,000 volunteer health care professionals throughout the country. Recipients were healthcare workers who would be first-line responders in the event of a bioterrorist attack. Many healthcare workers refused, worried about vaccine side effects, and healthcare systems refused to participate. Fewer than 40,000 actually received the vaccine.[29]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_vaccine

over 90% refused.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#167

Post by snemvalts »

Dma54rhs wrote: post #157
dmos62 wrote: post #88

In some parts of the world (e.g. the Eastern Bloc) you find tick-borne encephalitis. That's a horrible disease that can cause cerebral and neural damage. What's more, the number of reported human cases of TBE in all endemic regions of Europe have increased by almost 400% within the last three decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-borne_encephalitis

It's a bad disease in the region but there's a vaccine for it readily available that you should take if you are connected to woods and nature.

And a booster lasts around 5 years I believe? So not as bothersome as a flu shot even.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#168

Post by mwigdahl »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #135
inter_netuser wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This cannot be repeated enough: "few of the doctors I worked with along the years still don’t believe its true" a medical opinion is just that. an opinion . consensus often takes decades to change.

A doctor's opinion on disease isn't merely an opinion, it's an educated guess based on experience and qualifications. New diseases and research are constantly appearing, thousands of articles are written each year. We can't expect doctors to know everything, but we can expect them to have more informed opinions, on average, than non-doctors. I say this because there's a rising trend of anti-intellectualism and distru…

I'd qualify that: "...we can expect them to have more informed opinions, on average, _for any random condition_, than non-doctors."

The thing I think you're missing is that the resources to do good, deep research on a condition do exist, and the sufferer has very strong motivation to do that research and become very well informed in the etiology and treatment options. The doctor, less so. They have a lot of patients and a lot of demands on their time.

Will a good doctor put in the effort, do the research, and come up with a superior treatment plan? Certainly! But not all doctors will do this.

If you use the allegory of the pig and the chicken, the sufferer is the pig, the doctor is the chicken. It is reasonable that the average pig will put in more work and be better informed about their own condition than the average chicken.

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#169

Post by gilbetron »

somehnacct3757 wrote: post #58
jankotek wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better to eradicate ticks.

The deer themselves are a problem in the northeast. They are greatly overpopulated and eat the native understory, preventing the next generation of trees from growing past adolescence. As the existing trees slowly die, there will be none younger to replace them. This also clears out the competition to the benefit of non-native plants, which the deer don't eat. Some of these plants are invasive, such as japanese barbe…

Don't forget to give part of the blame for the forest woes on worms: https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/the_dirt_about_earthworms

Re: A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way

#170

Post by inter_netuser »

jacksonkmarley wrote: post #153
nicoburns wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the key thing is that it disproves the idea that the bacteria which cause the disease are reliably eliminated by antibiotics, which is typically a key point that those in the "it's not cause by lyme" camp rely on. Doesn't prove that it is lyme, but it shifts the balance of probablities considerably.

I don't have an opinion on what the "it's not caused by lyme" camp rely on, but the wikipedia page complained about above actually already references another study that found spirochetes in animals after antibiotic treatment. No doubt the language in that wikipedia page is pretty triggering if you already believe chronic lyme disease is a thing though.

The human study was literally done because denial of chronic lyme persisted despite multiple reliable studies in animal models.

It's quite disgusting and begets further questions as to why such attitudes towards Lyme exist in the first place.

Post reply on HN