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At-home test for infected ticks could improve Lyme Disease diagnosis

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: At-home test for infected ticks could improve Lyme Disease diagnosis

#11

Post by dofm »

afavour wrote: post #5
dofm wrote: post #2

Wow, this seems a pretty big deal. Here in the UK, Lyme traditionally been a marginal problem (tick bites aren't) but we now have such rapid climate change, along with rapidly increasing wild deer and boar populations, that some areas in the UK are becoming risk zones on more or less the same level of risk as some US regions. Alas the difference here is that education has not caught up to the USA: very few people hav…

I have a friend who got a tick bite on holiday in America many years ago. Turns out they got Lyme disease but no doctors in the UK were experienced with it so they dealt with years of misdiagnosis. I really hope any education effort can get out ahead of that.

Yeah. I think we simply did not see it enough and to be honest far too few doctors ask the "have you travelled" question about unusual disease. It is better now, but I think the "could it be?" thought doesn't occur because the incidence has been low.

There is a more severe risk around rabies. We basically do not have it in the UK or Ireland; it has been eliminated for over a century except a tiny incidence of a virus in the same family in bats. But because we have essentially eradicated it, doctors do not often think to ask about it, even in people who have travelled, which led to someone suffering awfully last year.

And since a dog bite or even a fox bite in the UK or Ireland carries literally zero risk of rabies, those who are bitten or scratched while travelling abroad do not have it uppermost in their mind.

Re: At-home test for infected ticks could improve Lyme Disease diagnosis

#14

Post by cubefox »

hedora wrote: post #7

Why can't the government or a generic drug manufacturer just produce the Lyme Disease vaccine? It is safe and the patent has expired! (Also, I have the same question about the poison ivy immunotherapy pills that were common in the US before the FDA.)

There is potentially a new Lyme vaccine coming out in about a year. The review process in Europe just started.

https://pharmaphorum.com/news/pfizer-valneva-lyme-vaccine-st...

Re: At-home test for infected ticks could improve Lyme Disease diagnosis

#15

Post by vintermann »

lokar wrote: post #9
hedora wrote: post #7

Why can't the government or a generic drug manufacturer just produce the Lyme Disease vaccine? It is safe and the patent has expired! (Also, I have the same question about the poison ivy immunotherapy pills that were common in the US before the FDA.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#Vaccination

All those people who claimed to get autoimmune problems after the vaccine, must have been people who went to quite a bit of trouble to get the vaccine in the first place, so I'm not so sure it can all be written off as health panic.

Re: At-home test for infected ticks could improve Lyme Disease diagnosis

#16

Post by [deleted] »

afavour wrote: post #5
dofm wrote: post #2

Wow, this seems a pretty big deal. Here in the UK, Lyme traditionally been a marginal problem (tick bites aren't) but we now have such rapid climate change, along with rapidly increasing wild deer and boar populations, that some areas in the UK are becoming risk zones on more or less the same level of risk as some US regions. Alas the difference here is that education has not caught up to the USA: very few people hav…

I have a friend who got a tick bite on holiday in America many years ago. Turns out they got Lyme disease but no doctors in the UK were experienced with it so they dealt with years of misdiagnosis. I really hope any education effort can get out ahead of that.

[deleted]

Re: At-home test for infected ticks could improve Lyme Disease diagnosis

#18

Post by maxerickson »

aliljet wrote: post #17

Does diagnosis offer a better prognosis for those that are infected?

Yes, it's treatable with antibiotics and people that are treated get less sick. As stated in the article, prophylactic treatment with Doxycycline is the standard of care. Testing the tick is an alternative to that rather than something that should be expected to increase treatment...

The article also mentions that symptoms sometimes persist after treatment with antibiotics.

Re: At-home test for infected ticks could improve Lyme Disease diagnosis

#20

Post by dofm »

aliljet wrote: post #17

Does diagnosis offer a better prognosis for those that are infected?

Absolutely yes, because the most severe risks are associated with the bacteria reaching the heart and into the nervous system, which is a relatively slow process. There's a window of a couple of weeks.

If you could know as soon as you were bitten whether there was any risk of infection at all, that would be very valuable information.

I think it's only a one in ten chance that an infected tick would transmit the infection, anyway. But you would know whether you needed to even book an appointment.

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