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

How to prevent Lyme disease this summer

news.harvard.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 146 posts

Re: How to prevent Lyme disease this summer

#121

Post by rpmisms »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #95
financetechbro wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the other comments? Lots of people giving anecdotal of doctors misdiagnosing their Lyme disease. It is a very valid concern

No I opened this post with my eyes closed, picked a random comment and responded. My point isn’t that misdiagnoses don’t happen, they happen for a lot of things other than Lyme, but the fact that people will take vengeance on doctors when the detection of Lyme is unpredictable (tests only really detect it within a certain timeframe of infection), the ambiguity around symptoms and their relation to Lyme, and the histo…

I'm a little tired of hearing excuses for medical professionals. Too many real issues are dismissed out of hand, and it's wrong.

Re: How to prevent Lyme disease this summer

#122

Post by CatWChainsaw »

huytersd wrote: post #85
xorcist wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After every bite? That is a manual how to breed multi resistant Borrelia burgdorferi, the short version. Please be a responsible human being and consult a doctor. Common symptoms for a bacterial infections are flu like symptoms and a bullseye-like rash a few days after the bite. Be on the lookout for those and you will be fine.

Getting antibiotics maybe once a year is not excessive. Please stop being hyperbolic, I’m well aware of MRSAs and do my best to take them sparingly. Where I live between 50-70% of the deer ticks have Lyme disease so it’s not overkill.

Sorry for the akshually energy, but the acronym MRSA is specifically for methicillin-resistant Staph aureus. In this context you might have meant MDR for multi-drug resistant? There's also XDR for the apocalyptic superbugs we're inadvertently breeding.

Re: How to prevent Lyme disease this summer

#123

Post by CatWChainsaw »

huytersd wrote: post #7

Just go to your PCP and get your one time course of 2 doxycycline pills as soon as you get bitten. I also spray my hiking/yardwork pants and boots with permethrin. DEET is pretty useless, I’ve seen them walk right over DEET sprayed boots onto my pants. They make it about 5 steps through permethrin. I’m surprised advise from Harvard is getting this wrong. If you want even more protection, you can buy stocking like sla…

DEET is a repellent which is meant to keep them away, but if they land then they land. Permethrin is a pesticide so it kills. When I'm in the woods I wear outdoor clothing that's been sprayed with permethrin, but I also put a "heavy-duty" DEET repellent on my clothes and use OLE (oil of lemon and eucalyptus) on exposed skin, even though the last one might just be placebo.

Re: How to prevent Lyme disease this summer

#124

Post by DoktorDelta »

pseudosaid wrote: post #106
newaccount74 wrote: post #16

What sucks about Lyme disease are the possible long term effects that an infection can have. Some people believe it's because of bacteria that stay hidden in your body, but I think the more likely explanation is an auto-immune reaction. There is no treatment for these long term effects. (It's called "post treatment lyme disease syndrome").

it actually hides along the cell walls between movements. My mom had Lyme and I was born with it. at age 12 i saw on live video the Lyme in action. I got rid of Lyme via eastern medicine and a liquid oxygen shot daily. Lyme hates oxygen rich environments

My partner is dealing with the same thing. Could you elaborate on the eastern medicine you used to treat your case?

Re: How to prevent Lyme disease this summer

#125

Post by sn9 »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #4

Something to note for anyone in Lyme disease range: The bullseye is the stereotypical sign, but it is not necessarily going to show up 100% of the time. When I was diagnosed with Lyme disease in ~Y2K New Jersey, I had the bullseye rash, and the doctor called in the nurses to look at it because he had never seen one before, despite diagnosing a lot of people with Lyme disease.

For future reference, if you strongly suspect something specific and you have reason to believe your doctor is wrong in dismissing your concerns, you can double-check that they're following evidence-based best practices by looking up the issue on UpToDate. For example, you can look up Lyme disease and see how it should be tested and when it shouldn't be tested (for which there are very real reasons).

It requires a fee to use, but it's not much compared to healthcare costs of missing a diagnosis.

If you find they're being negligent, definitely print it out and show it to them or get a second opinion.

Re: How to prevent Lyme disease this summer

#126

Post by rapjr9 »

tikkun wrote: post #69
rapjr9 wrote: post #20

There is a new way to treat your property: https://lymeshield.com/ It uses the original Lyme vaccine (which worked but which was withdrawn because nobody was buying it) to treat mice. You put out a bait station and the mice eat the vaccine laden bait and it kills Lyme in the mice. Ticks overwinter on mice, so if the mice are immune the ticks also get immunized. It's not perfect but they claim a 75% reduction in Lyme…

What's the pricing, if you know? I see a request pricing form, it doesn't state the info.

I haven't been able to find out, it isn't offered by any of the licensed pesticide services in my area yet.

Re: How to prevent Lyme disease this summer

#127

Post by rapjr9 »

leobg wrote: post #29
rapjr9 wrote: post #20

There is a new way to treat your property: https://lymeshield.com/ It uses the original Lyme vaccine (which worked but which was withdrawn because nobody was buying it) to treat mice. You put out a bait station and the mice eat the vaccine laden bait and it kills Lyme in the mice. Ticks overwinter on mice, so if the mice are immune the ticks also get immunized. It's not perfect but they claim a 75% reduction in Lyme…

In DE, we have “Zeckenrollen”. [1] They are filled with cotton material that mice will carry to their nest. And it’s treated with some tick killing substance. [1] https://zeckenrollen.de

In the US we have Damminix:

https://ticktubes.com/

Same thing, it is indeed permethrin on cotton balls in cardboard tubes. I've used them for several years. They help but they aren't a complete solution. Another thing I've tried is to attempt to control mice (remove wood piles and other places they nest) which also helps a little. There are a -lot- of mice in the woods if you live in a rural area. The owls in the area help too by eating the mice. A neighbors guinea hens used to roam my yard once in a while. Nothing has worked as well as Met52 so far. As far as I can tell there are no federal or state attempts to stop the spread, the problem has just been growing year after year.

Re: How to prevent Lyme disease this summer

#128

Post by rapjr9 »

goda90 wrote: post #92
rapjr9 wrote: post #20

There is a new way to treat your property: https://lymeshield.com/ It uses the original Lyme vaccine (which worked but which was withdrawn because nobody was buying it) to treat mice. You put out a bait station and the mice eat the vaccine laden bait and it kills Lyme in the mice. Ticks overwinter on mice, so if the mice are immune the ticks also get immunized. It's not perfect but they claim a 75% reduction in Lyme…

Reminds me of efforts around edible rabies vaccines that they have dropped in the wilderness to vaccinate wild animals. The big hold up there is how to get the bats vaccinated too. I've seen some studies into vaccines that are designed to stick to the bat and that will spread to its friends while they groom each other. It would be great if governments put a bunch of effort into eradicating these diseases.

I've heard of some experimental attempts to apply permethrin to the necks of deer using bait stations where the deer have to put their head+shoulders into a narrow treated area to get to the food. Doesn't seem to have seen commercialization.

Re: How to prevent Lyme disease this summer

#129

Post by rapjr9 »

microtonal wrote: post #45
rapjr9 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A neighbor caught a tick borne disease (not Lyme) even though she took precautions. The tick came off a tree onto her head and she didn't notice it there. So consider all attack angles. Watch out for West Nile also!

FWIW ticks generally don’t jump from trees, which is a common misconception: https://wgme.com/amp/news/i-team/ask-the-i-team-do-ticks-jum... If she didn’t notice it, it’s more likely the tick got on here from grass tips or bushes and worked its way up.

Maybe, but that's what she told me. She was wearing treated clothes and footwear. Maybe she was gardening or something and had her head closer to the ground.

Re: How to prevent Lyme disease this summer

#130

Post by jakjak123 »

armada651 wrote: post #72
jakjak123 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ticks are incredibly common. People in my area of the country get hundreds of ticks during their life. It's also fairly rare they carry Lyme disease and gets you infected. You definitively should not be given antibiotics without a clear reason.

I'm guessing that having a tick for longer than 24 to 48 hours was a clear enough reason. I assume people who get hundreds of ticks will be checking more thoroughly and remove them within two days. I agree antibiotics shouldn't be prescribed without a clear reason. People are being prescribed antibiotics all over for things like the common cold and for some insane reason we're still putting antibiotics in farm animal…

We check for ticks every day you have been in the garden or just outside in the woods. Less than 2% of ticks carry Lyme disease, and there is even less chance you actually get a infection, and that the infection becomes a permanent infection. As far as I know, Lyme disease is not that dangerous, but the bacteria can enter stasis and "hide" in different parts of your body, until it suddenly becomes active again, then really blossom if you are weakened for other reasons. The point is just that there is a less than 2% chance of even getting a tick that is a carrier, even less chance you get sick, even less chance it ends up in the dangerous stasis state. One usually does not treat for Lyme, until enough of the symptoms have started showing.
Post reply on HN