I recommend to have one of these on you at all times while you're hiking https://www.amazon.com/Life-Systems-34020-Lifesystem-Remover...
As someone from the south, tools sold for the removal of ticks just makes me giggle. Just use your fingernail, scratch it off carefully. I can't imagine trying to use this or one of the crazier, "heat a needle" or "spread vasaline on them methods" when trying to remove the sometimes hundreds of ticks and chiggars you might have after working in the wrong field for a day.
As someone who lived in the south and worked with people who specialized in tickborne illness, none of them recommended the fingernail approach.
Most "tools" are just a specialized set of tweezers, which aid in the pulling process in a way that doesn't separate the body from the head, and are generally recommended by the medical profession.
And the heating, Vaseline, etc. methods aren't just more work - they're actively harmful.
In my neck of the woods you're more likely to be bitten by the lone star tick, which seems not to be able to communicate Lyme disease, but sometimes its bite can leave you with an allergy to red meat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amblyomma_americanum Parasites suck.
Please note that the Lone Star Tick can transmit a number of other diseases that are quite scary (various Ehrlichia, Tularemia), as well as STARI (Southern Tick Associated Rash Infection) which is very Lyme-like.
Once a tick has been removed, be sure to place it in a ziplock baggie and store it in the freezer. This way if anything crops up you'd be able to bring the tick in with ya to the doc
If you said this in the south, you would get a good long laugh.
Not by any of my colleagues you wouldn't.
And I'm an Epidemiologist who went to school in the South.
the sad thing about lyme disease is that we dont have a vaccine due to anti vaxxers: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/7/17314716/lym...
The sadder thing is that this story isn't now trumpetted alongside every lyme-disease-is-growing story.
I actually personally remember considering getting the vaccine when it was available, since I spent quite a bit of time outdoors, and declining because my doctor and I were bamboozled into thinking the risks were real (that we now know to be faked).
Here are some links to the CDC's statistics and maps on Lyme disease for those interested: https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/graphs.html https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/maps.html https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/tables.html As an aside, it's tricky interpreting certain stats regarding epidemiology. The incidence is the number of new cases in the population in a given time frame, and prevalence is the total number of people…
Please also add that antibiotics are not risk free. A lot of the post-Lyme stuff people mention sounds a lot like what happens when you obliterate your microbiome, thrash your gut integrity, and your body mounts a big inflammatory response to the mess in your gut. C. Diff and SJS are two other potentially deadly consequences of just throwing powerful antibiotics around without knowing for sure that they're needed.
I've stopped hiking and camping largely because of this. Its just not worth it any more. This page has an uncommon photo of just how small the nymph deer ticks are. https://sectionhiker.com/backpacking-lyme-disease-prevention...
That sounds extremely irrational.
Not saying ticks aren't a health risk. But an inactive lifestyle is also a health risk, and very likely a much bigger one.
There are things you can do to protect yourself and reduce the risk, e.g. using insect repellents and removing ticks quickly if you see them. Also for FSME there's a vaccine if you live in a risk area (for Lyme there is none, although a vaccine used to exist...).
I've stopped hiking and camping largely because of this. Its just not worth it any more. This page has an uncommon photo of just how small the nymph deer ticks are. https://sectionhiker.com/backpacking-lyme-disease-prevention...
Something is wrong here. How did humanity survive living most of their lives outdoors for so long in the presence of these ticks? Did lyme disease really not exist until 1975? I see there is some kind of "blame everything on lyme disease" movement going on as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease_controversy
E.coli wasn't harmful but a new deadly strain appeared in the 1980s.
I live in tick central, and for anyone else in that situation who doesn't already have a tick mitigation strategy, here's what I do (and I'd love to hear other things that work that aren't on the list):
1. Clear all debris (wood chips, leaves, etc) from places people frequent, and keep the grass cut short
2. Permethrin-laced cotton balls inside PVC tubes scattered liberally around the area. Small animals pick these up and make nests out of them, which kills the ticks while they're on the rodent hosts.
3. Permethrin on footwear, and safe insect repellent (DEET or picaridin, also geranium oil seems to help) on skin and lower-half clothing
4. Chickens in the yard seem to eat more than they host
Here are some links to the CDC's statistics and maps on Lyme disease for those interested: https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/graphs.html https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/maps.html https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/tables.html As an aside, it's tricky interpreting certain stats regarding epidemiology. The incidence is the number of new cases in the population in a given time frame, and prevalence is the total number of people…
The CDC is actually harmful with the misinformation and test suggestions they provide. I have Lyme, Bartonella, Mycoplasma, at least from 1 tick bite. Western medicine does a horrible job at analyzing the symptoms, testing, educating and treating their patients. The labs are pretty unreliable as are the antibody requirements for + test.
1) It's very common to get more than 1 infection from a single tick bite (CDC says it's not). This greatly complicates recovery. The study that the CDC relies on suffers from a small sample size and heavy selection bias (see uptodate.com).
2) Ticks can transmit multiple bacteria in less than 30 minutes depending on circulation and host.
3) CDC recommended tests have a false negative rate approaching 60%. ELISA does not even have repeatable results from the same blood sample. Western Blot ignores 2 Borellia specific antibodies (31,34) that were part of a problematic vaccine in the mid 1990s.
4) Vaccines are improbable given how the bacteria can adjust its outer surface protein (triggering antibodies) and its multiple forms (spirochete, biofilm, round body).
5) The CDC treatment guidelines are bullshit and usually result in a relapse 4+ months later as low energy, headache, sore tendons, brain fog, arthritis, heart, etc symptoms. Thus most people are unsuccessfully treated with short term doxycycline, steroids (make it worse), anti-depressants, MS treatments, etc... all expensive pharmaceutical treatments that fix some symptoms while hurting the long term health of the patient without every discovering the underlying cause.
6) I've gone through part of the CDC treatment before educating myself and realizing it was mostly bullshit. I know a number of people that have had similar difficulties.
7) A healthy immune system combined with prolonged pulsed herbal medicines(TCM/western) and/or multiple pulsed antibiotics (hard on GI and its immune function) seem to be the best treatment option.
8) There are number of bacteria in our natural environment that our immune system eventually cannot fight off. Many of them result in things like MS, Alzheimers, arthritis, heart damage, etc.
9) Medical science needs better testing of immune signaling (cytokines, chemokines, etc) before and after treatments. Most labs cannot test for many of these and insurance won't cover it.
10) Labs like igenex, fry, galaxy, dnaconnexions, etc have much better procedures for testing and will look at all specific/shared antibodies than common labs. For example, 41 is an early Lyme antibody shared with Chlamydia. The CDC requires 3+ Lyme specific antibodies to make a positive (IgG and IgM).
11) Reading "Healing Lyme" by Buhner gives a scientific overview backed by a ton of research that the CDC ignores.
12) ilads.org is comprised of doctors who actually treat Lyme and deal with patients ...