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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

#51

Post by throw93949990 »

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…

Maybe it is a raise of dog ownership in UK as well. They bring ticks inside houee, and shed it in public parks. Our dog used to have like 50 ticks everytime it returned from run.

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

#52

Post by faeyanpiraat »

codingdave wrote: post #44
dermacentor wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ticks can transmit Powassan and Heartland viruses within the first 15 minutes of a bite. Still feeling cool, suave, experienced, and fearless?

Hey, thanks - I wasn't aware of that. Glad to have learned it. But you can probably tell that there is no need to be snarky. Just your first sentence would have been more in line with how people engage with each other around here.

I'd argue it's perfectly fine to have some snark reacting to a comment spreading a potentially dangerous sentiment.

I have at least one serious regret about trusting someone on the internet saying something incorrect confidently.

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

#53

Post by jambalaya8 »

I saw a commercial for this. I am not sure it makes much sense unless you literally are 100% sure that was the only tick. And it is like I think $40 or $50 a test. I am sure the women I saw discussing the satisfaction they got enjoyed crushing up those little bad guys, and maybe some placebo-like relief, but the truth of the matter is the only really reliable tests for Lyme Disease are blood tests.

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

#54

Post by PLMUV9A4UP27D »

I live in Finland, and if I would be following this advice;

> "If you have an embedded tick where there’s a chance of infection, then go to your doctor and get a dose of antibiotics as a prophylactic, just to be on the safe side." ...I would be eating antibiotics 5 months per year each year of my life. I've had 13 ticks this summer, and it's the least I've ever had in a summer ever I think. I sometimes go over a 100 on a summer. But I've just had Lyme's disease once confirmed, but before that I had anti-bodies (which I got to know through a research project i participated in).

There's a lot of research on ticks going on in Finland, and I participate in two citizen science projects* this summer; for one I collect the ticks and send them to the researchers, the other project I just post observations.

I quickly realized it was a hassel to submit to both projects every time I found a tick on me or the cats. So I used Claude Code to build my own self-hosted app that stores my profile, location etc and submits my findings to both of the projects. Simple and nice litte project. I have a thought of publishing the app in some form, but haven't thought about it much.

*https://www.punkkilive.fi/en and https://punkkipankki.fi

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

#55

Post by hammock »

lima wrote: post #41
layla5alive wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard isn't to avoid antibiotics until symptoms occur. The standard for a sufficiently attached deer tick in a high risk area is PEP: Lyme post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) is a single dose of doxycycline (200 mg for adults, or weight-adjusted for children) taken within 72 hours of removing a high-risk blacklegged tick bite to prevent Lyme disease.

CDC recommends prophylaxis only if the tick is engorged. In my country, guidelines do not recommend prophylaxis at all (for better or worse - personally, I would take a single doxycyclin dose for a >24h high-risk tick bite, Lyme is no joke). However, guidelines universally recommend against testing ticks. For instance, IDSA says this: > Knowing tick characteristics (ie, species, life stage, and an assessment of the d…

CDC recommendation is more interested in preventing antibiotic resistance than in preventing Lyme disease for the patient. Obey CDC at your own risk

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

#56

Post by KellyCriterion »

_puk wrote: post #33
KellyCriterion wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats interesting, since there is a lot of research around face palsy & recovery in UK.

Yep. About 20 years ago my gran got to the facial palsy stage of Lyme's before it was even considered and diagnosed by a visiting locum doctor who'd grown up in another country. Antibiotics were given, her face recovered (albeit slowly). It's a horrendous disease.

May I ask: Did the muscles on the side of the face with the affection also restore or does she have an muscle-atrophy until today on that side?

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

#57

Post by SoftTalker »

WarmWash wrote: post #49

This is great (if it's accurate) but the real gem would be a vaccine, which is apparently also coming out soon.

There was a vaccine over 20 years ago. It was discontinued due to low demand.

https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/about/lyme-disease-vaccine.html

Looks like there are clinical trials of a new vaccine, maybe demand will be higher this time around. The link also mentions a PrEP-type of treatment, which would be given seasonally. My bet is on that one, big pharma loves nothing more than a treatment that isn't quite a cure, but requires constant maintenance.

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

#59

Post by pimeys »

SyneRyder wrote: post #45
beej71 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I think about moving to the NE from out west, ticks are one of my main reservations. I think, given how many people and dogs recreate out there, I might have it blown out of proportion.

Not necessarily out of proportion, the Lyme numbers have really spiked there in recent years if you check the official stats. I'd written a longer reply about my time last year in upstate NY, but what I wrote was "tinted"... so the shorter version: within just a 2 month stay I did find infected ticks on me (submitted to testing - I was happy with nyticks.org). Everytime the cat came into the house, first step was alw…

Not only Lyme... In the seaside Finland the tick-borne encephalitis cases are going up. And that's no joke either, but at least you get a vaccine for that... if you remember to take it three times before the ticks wake up in springtime.

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

#60

Post by thepasswordis »

monster_truck wrote: post #6

Sign me up. Used to be a big Event Of The Year when my grandpa found one after spending all day out in their 'garden' (a few acres bordering deep woods). I remember being maybe 11 when he found one, let me try and figure out how to crush it, I couldn't. He showed me how to use the butt of a butterknife and leverage to get the fuckers I don't live anywhere near a proper forest and we've had several close calls this ye…

The tick you're talking about here (hard to crush) is a wood tick, the types that carry lyme are deer ticks.

They're much, much smaller. The size of a poppy seed.

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