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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

#101

Post by MeteorMarc »

lima wrote: post #25

Unfortunately, there are major issues with this approach. The vendor claims "lab-level accuracy" (conveniently omitting the actual accuracy numbers), but the test is a lateral flow test, which means its Limit of Detection is going to be orders of magnitude worse than molecular tests. Tick tests do not require FDA clearance, so their claims are most likely unreviewed. Existing lab tests for ticks are almost universall…

In addition, there also is the issue of tick borne encephalitis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-borne_encephalitis

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

#102

Post by dofm »

nephihaha wrote: post #99
dofm wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing really to do with public healthcare. It is literally that there is almost no medical or social experience in the UK of actually seeing developed Lyme disease up close, because it has historically been so unusual, so there are no protocols. A few thousand cases every year now, when the first indigenous case ever properly recorded in the UK was only in 1986, and it's not like in the USA where really wide areas…

1986 is forty years ago. We have Lymes disease in Scotland (I know someone who has it), and a large deer population which has not been properly controlled with substantial remote areas. (Much smaller than the USA but big enough to be reservoirs for the disease.)

> 1986 is forty years ago.

Epidemiologically recent (and also dofm-recent because I'm old).

But the graphs typically show that Scotland ballooned in the last twenty years, from below a hundred a year into the thousands.

Apparently in the UK it is now mostly stable, so it is endemic in deer. Much more common in middle-aged people who are I guess more likely to walk the dog and be keen active gardeners.

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

#103

Post by dofm »

nephihaha wrote: post #98
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…

Ticks are much more common in Scotland thanks to deer population and high rainfall. Ticks prefer damp conditions to drought conditions, so this last summer wouldn't have been good for them. The damp makes it easier to survive while they are waiting for passing hosts. They also like long grass and overgrown areas. England in comparison is much more built up. We do have Lyme disease here unfortunately. I know someone w…

Yeah — you definitely get more ticks! I think everyone I know who lives in the Highlands or walks in it has been bitten, and that is one of the Lyme risk zones.

But weirdly almost all of the peak risk areas for Lyme (and the encephalitis disease) are in the south. This would suggest risk is about deer population density rather than absolute numbers.

So for example the New Forest, Thetford Forest and Exmoor have higher density populations of smaller deer like muntjac and sika.

It appears obviously worse in smaller protected forests that have large deer populations. The risk in Thetford Forest is really high.

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

#105

Post by vibrio »

hammock wrote: post #81
lima wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antibiotics aren't free of risks to the patient either, including doxycycline. There's always a risk tradeoff.

100%. CDC is not a replacement for a trusted doctor

…and a trusted doctor isn’t necessarily a replacement for the CDC.

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

#106

Post by pbhjpbhj »

lokar wrote: post #22
vintermann wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A problem with vaccines and the public is that when you perform any intervention on many many people, some will happen to (randomly) suffer some issue. To them, it is obviously causation, regardless of what the math (that they do t understand) says.

A further problem is that vaccines generally aren't perfect, some people do get sick. Some people may even die. It's a population-based approach. They save far-far more people.

Unfortunately vaccine-denialists will say 'ah this person died from getting a vaccine, we shouldn't vaccinate anyone'. Even if the vaccine saves millions of lives.

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

#107

Post by pbhjpbhj »

KellyCriterion wrote: post #77
KellyCriterion wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a link on HN some years ago which reported entering a phase-III trial for a vaccination created by one of the big pharma.

Downvoters shouldnt be allowed to vote if they cant use Google: Here is the link for all downvoters :-D https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32465108 (Aug 2022, exactly what I said with "some years ago")

Downvoters maybe read the link you responded to whilst you didn't?

The Pfizer Lyme vaccine is in the Wikipedia article linked that you responded to, and the link there works whilst the link in the story you linked is dead.

Whilst it might be nice to remove some downvote privileges we could apply the rules we do have and not complain about downvotes.

To my view, your original comment was fine, but I could also see others wouldn't like it.

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

#108

Post by rnvannatta »

dofm wrote: post #11
afavour wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The 'have you traveled' question is much less useful with Lyme disease, because it takes potentially years to kick in. It's still important to ask, but it's not going to be surefire for Lyme disease.

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

#109

Post by rnvannatta »

itintheory wrote: post #74
acheron wrote: post #19

Great. Let's get working on preventing/curing alpha-gal allergy though. Or actually let's just eradicate all ticks.

I developed alpha-gal allergy. I've gotten many tick bites over the years, though none from 'lone star' tick afaik. I don't eat meat normally, so it was only a rare chance occasion when I ate something that triggered an allergic reaction: hives all over, tightness in the throat. It wasn't full anaphylaxis though, fortunately. After some research I thought it might be this allergy, but it wasn't until ~12 years later…

To get alpha-gal allergy you need to get bitten by the lone star tick. It's caused by the alpha-gal in the tick's saliva. Even a nymph can do it though.

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

#110

Post by rnvannatta »

giardini wrote: post #71

Why test ticks for Lyme Disease? Make a cheap, accurate test for Lyme disease in humans ! Jeez! Chasing ticks, c'mon, really, my f*ing intelligence is insulted by the suggestion.

In order to be at risk for Lyme disease the tick has to have fed on you for a couple days, in which case its plump and more noticeable. If a tick has feasted on you for a few days, it's a singular pill of doxycycline at this stage to not get ill.

Similar to rabies, Lyme disease itself slowly disseminates through the flesh over months, by the time it's spread you are very sick.

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