Ticks

“It is said that everything in nature has a purpose. Does antbody know what the purpose of a tick is?”

“To suck blood and reproduce?”

“And then what? Still no pupose!”

“To carry deadly diseases and cull the weak.”

“And leave interesting scars all over your body, and embarrassment when you have to ask for assistance in removing them from tender areas.”

“sounds like a relation of the mosquito.”

“Mosquitos have a purpose. The larve feed trout and other fish. The adults feed bats, birds.etc. Then they breed lay eggs and start the process all over again. What eats a tick and how do they get the flat little buggers off of something they have attached themselves to. Still can't find a purpose for them.”

“We need to combine out 2 threads until we get to the bottom of this. Is there any TT'ers out there that are entomologist that can answer this nagging question?”

“Well I do know that Guinea Fowl are major eaters of ticks. I don't know if any other animal eats them but they have been used for years as a means to control ticks around dwellings.”

“You're thinking in terms of Bad VS Good. If you throw that thinking out you can view it like this. Ticks spread lyme disease which is cause by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi.

This bacteria is ONLY spread by ticks, thus the only way for this bacteria to survive and multiply is by way of the tick. Now if you were a Borrelia burgdorferi wouldn't you be glad for ticks?

They might not be a benifit to humans but I bet Borrelia burgdorferi just love them!!
last edited: 8/01/05 11:17:59 AM”

“I treat my clothes with Permethrin before I go out in Wisconsin and use 35% Deet on exposed areas (3M Ultrathon). I have never had a tick and many of my friends have on the same trip. The combination works well, but you have to believe in "living better through chemicals".

To get them off (of other people) I carry the Protick Remedy. It's handy and works like a charm. If you get them off within 24 hours of attachment you are generally in good shape. They have a little card you can carry to help you differentiate the deer tick from other non disease carrying ticks. Not all kinds of ticks carry lyme disease.

http://www.tickinfo.com/protickremedy.htm <- Protick Rememdy ... think I got mine at REI. Very light and works well.

Take lyme disease seriously, esp with kids.”

“Does antbody know what the purpose of a tick is?”


To give me Lyme disease, perhaps? Yeah, just started my three weeks of anti-biotics...”

“yikes tree...what are the first symptoms? Where the tick was on my foot I have a very red spot...kinda itchy too. The other tick places are ok.”

“tree, i thought you had west nile?”

“Ungh treebeard. That's like my worst case scenario. I hope you get well soon. I know I always feel crummy after taking antibiotics even for a week. I can't remember ever taking them for three weeks.

Coyote, the rash only occurs in about 1/2 the cases of lyme disease, so it's absence is not a strong negative indicator. It could also be an allergic reaction or a normal infection related to the bite on your foot (my feet get pretty nasty when I hike). The incubation is 14 days for the bacteria but you may not see any symptoms for weeks or even months. I am sure some people don't get diagnosed for much longer than this. So it's best to record when you were bit and identify the tick so you can tell the doctor what bit you. Not all ticks carry lyme disease but there are things other than lyme disease you can catch from ticks (Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever for example).

I have actually never seen the rash, and remember that 1/2 the people that contract lyme disease also have never seen it as well. Here is what it is supposed to look like IF you show this symptom:



You can keep the tick in a baggie with a few leaves (for moisture). If it's alive they can test it for nasties. Some places can test them if they are dead and dried up as well. Many county health services facilities perform this service for free or for a small fee (like $10-$20 bucks).

A read a good checklist ages ago that offered a list of symptoms. If you had several of the ones on this list you should see your doctor. I ain't a doctor (pretty damn far from it) but I was shocked by the list. It basically was a list of almost anything that you could ever have go wrong. My point here is that there is no hard and fast formula for diagnosis and with the long baseline it's easy to blow off a tick bite and forget when it happened.

I treat my clothing with permethrin before I go out during tick season. They claim it's almost 100% effective and I believe it based on my experience. I have seen them land on my pants leg and then fall off stunned. You treat your clothing, not your skin. I use a spray pump, and it bonds to the fabric. You can't smell it once it's dry and it lasts for several weeks (even between washings of the clothes). Then I do daily checks, but I have not had one in as long as I can remember.

You really have to be careful with ticks and little kids. Actually this is true with all insect bites, not just ticks. Little kids can get far more ill than adults. It's best to really be aggressive about looking for ticks on kids a few times a day during tick season. A tick doesn't attach itself right away, and when it does it doesn't start to feed right away. So if you check even once a day you will have a good chance of getting it before it has a chance to spread any infection it may be carrying.”

“Funny thing is, I don't have any evidence or recollection of any tick contact. Only mosquito bites. The original tests for Lyme was negative, so the doc thought it was probably West Nile. He is thorough, though and re-tested. This time it was positive. So, WTF? This is a bit confusing...”

“Ticks have three stages they pass through. Most ticks only feed three times in their life. After the blood meal they drop to the ground and advance to the next stage ... kind of like a sick Pokemon!

OK, so here is the point. Look at the picture below:



So the thing we commonly find and call a tick is the adult form. Females are larger than males in general and they are easy to spot or feel on our skin. Since a tick bite is totally painless, we have to rely on seeing or feeling them to locate them.

The nymph is very small as you can see from the picture and very hard to detect. Remember, that is a 1cm scale, so that nymph is no larger than 1mm (the thickness of a dime). I mean they are only a little larger than a sesame seed on your basic Big Mac.

The larva is even smaller! These are commonly called "seed ticks" and people make the mistake that these are a separate type of tick, but they are just the larval form of one of any species of tick. They don't like or can't take direct sunlight so they are most commonly found in cool/shady places. I don't think their bite is where most of the cases of the disease come from because at this stage they will not have bitten an infected animal.

I read somewhere that it is thought that most instances of Lyme disease come from the nymph stage. Perhaps this is because the adult ticks are easy to detect and the small "seed ticks" haven't fed yet and are probably not infected. The nymphs are small, hard to detect, and have fed at least once before they got to you.

What I do know is that it's very possible you were bitten by a tick smaller than the fairly large adult tick and never knew it. You would not necessarily have shown the "bullseye" rash. Although 1/2 the cases do (I just read up to 80%) and while the rash is a STRONG indicator, the absence of a rash is not an indication you don't have lyme disease.

Detaching an adult tick is pretty easy, although I don't like using tweezers and prefer the tool I mentioned earlier. Getting nymph ticks off must be really hard. The web site I linked to said tweezers are only 4% effective at detaching them and I can believe it! That is, assuming you even notice you were bitten by one...”

“I have had a few deer and bear tick bites that were FAR from painless. Those nasties burrow into the skin until only their butt and back legs stick out while they feed. They actually breath through their butt!!! Sometimes they inflame nerves and it hurts badly.”

“sometimes i breath through my butt”

“I have known a few people that breathe through their mouth but talk out their butt.”

“"Since a tick bite is totally painless"

The one on my foot must of found a tender spot, cause thats how I noticed it, a tiny little pain. I looked down and htere it was, it was like a pin prick when mike pulled it off. Thanks for the info, it was probebly just a miner reaction to it then:)”

“Yeah, I guess I should have said "nearly painless for some people" or something like that. I am not much of a wordsmith. They inject anesthetic when they bite so the initial bite is not supposed to be noticed. That's pretty wild, but what's even wilder is that they also ooze some sort of cement after they have settled down that glues them to your body.

When you think about it they are amazingly well adapted creatures. Toss this over to that intelligent design thread that lit up like a roman candle today...”

“Read my story here: "Living With Lyme"”

“HM, thanks for taking the time to write that up and also to reference it here. That's a really sobering post and I hope you are feeling better soon. Sharing that serves a good purpose and I know anyone reading it will learn something that just might save them going through a similar experience.”

“Thanks Pitts, I am doing better, but I've been better before only to get worse. I take it one day at a time. :-)”

“Mike, I just read your link. When I read your report from your outing the other day, I was unaware that, what ailed you, was brought about by Lyme disease. I was saddenned, from your story, that none of these doctors were able to come up with the right diagnosis, while your situation got worse by the day.

I can imagine how painful it must have been by magnifying what I have already experienced exponentially in my mind.

I wish you well, my friend! I really hope this plagues you no longer. And please don't apologize for a lengthy spiel. How could you tell a story with such impact in any less words than that? Thank you for sharing it. Right now, Lyme disease is VERY MUCH on the forefront of my day-to-day thoughts...
last edited: 8/04/05 9:47:27 PM”

“Went to the doc yesterday. He is sending me for some x-rays on my shoulder joints, where it still hurts significantly. He also said he was worried about coronary blockage, so he took an EKG. He took more blood, also. He sasid that there are lots of effects that can hit you with this thing, such as facial tics, facial paralysis and a few more things that escape me now. between Mike's story and all this I've heard and are going through, this is a humbling experience that can't be taken lightly.”

“Any idea if or when they will be coming out with a vaccine for Lyme? I know they now have one for pets.”

“If he took an EKG after you complained of shoulder pain that sounds like he thought you might have suffered a heart attack. Shoulder pain is a common symptom. He is right about there being lots of symptoms as Mike's story illustrates.

I found that checklist of symptoms I read a while ago. I thought then I might have had Lyme and dug this up. I determined that there was no way I could diagnose this and went to the doctor. Turns out neither could he but I had something totally different (confirmed by a different test). In any regard, if you look at the list I think almost anybody could think they have Lyme because it is easy to find 7 of the symptoms you would have if you had, say, the flu or a cold. That's why I don't like these "self diagnosis" lists. It can misinform as easily as they inform. Here is the link to the list:

http://www.xpressnet.com/bhealthy/symptoms.html

Again, I don't have Lyme and I can check off 7 of these on any given day of the week. So take this with a HUGE grain of salt. Getting old is hell!

Hikin Mike's story is a perfect illustration of why this is so difficult of a disease for a doctor to diagnose. Lots of symptoms that appear unrelated that occur over a long baseline.

The way some doctors approach medicine today it's no wonder this is hard for them. There is a specialist for everything and none of them are focused on the big picture. I chose my doctor years ago because he is independent ("family practice") and when I go to the doctor I see _him_ personally. He believes that one has to diagnose based on a holistic view of the human body and not on specialization on a single part or topic.

You could go to the doctor for a slew of issues and get sent to a slew of specialists each of which is paid by a drug company to push a slew of pills on you and never get any better or worse still get worse … either from what has made you ill or from all the pills you are taking.”

“Treebeard I wish you the best of luck with this and hopefully it gets cured soon!

I do hope they come up with the \accination also.”

“By MARILYNN MARCHIONE
AP Medical Writer

Scientists have discovered that a very common type of dog tick can spread Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a serious and often-fatal illness that reached historic highs in the United States last year.

Two types of ticks already were known to transmit the disease, but they're not as common and are carried mostly by rodents and dogs that live near wild or rural areas. This is the first time that a tick that routinely plagues house pets has been implicated.

Health officials don't want people to panic or think this will become a nationwide epidemic, because they've only found these infected ticks in Arizona. But the newly implicated tick lives everywhere in the world, and experts have been stumped by many unexplained cases of the disease around the United States.

"It's almost certainly occurring in other places and not diagnosed," agreed Dr. J. Stephen Dumler, an expert on the disease at Johns Hopkins University. He wrote an editorial accompanying a report of the CDC study in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

The disease is caused by bacteria that infect ticks, which then bite and infect animals and people.

Symptoms occur 5 to 10 days later and can include fever, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain, lack of appetite and severe headache - signs often mistakenly attributed to common viral ailments. Late symptoms include a spotted rash, abdominal pain, joint pain and diarrhea.

Antibiotics, particularly doxycycline, are effective when given early. But fatality rates as high as 20 percent have been reported when cases are not recognized, and the disease is especially severe in children
Officials recommend these steps to avoid ticks:

-Wear light-colored clothes so ticks are more visible.

-Tuck pants legs into your socks.

-Use insect repellents on skin, clothes and boots.

-Use a mirror to carefully check for ticks after being in tick-infested areas. Parents should check children's hair for ticks.

-Use tweezers to remove ticks and protect your fingers with a tissue or gloves. Grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible and pull up with steady, even pressure, without twisting or jerking the tick. Apply a disinfectant to the skin and wash your hands.

-Save the tick so it can be identified if you later become ill. Seal it in a plastic bag and put it in your freezer, and note the date.
last edited: 8/11/05 9:33:29 AM”

“Hope everything is going well for you. :-)”

“Hey, thanks, Mike! Still getting pains int he upper joints, but not as bad going into the second week of treatment. It seems to be shifting a bit. Sometimes in my elbows and sometimes the shoulders. Then, my left knee started feeling pain for two days this week. Go figure!

I really hope you are on the mend, too. How are you feeling these days? Are things improving for you?
last edited: 8/11/05 10:03:33 PM”

“I'm getting better. I'm still using a walker to get around but that may give way to a cane shortly. Last night I rode my exercize bike for about 3 minutes. That's the first time I've been on it since my in-laws brought it over three months ago.”

“Always good to hear that the two of you are improving.”

“Thanks,Slim!

Mike, that's great. Must be heartening after the ordeal you've had! Keep it up. It's got to good for you, mentally and physically...”

“Mike, that's great. Must be heartening after the ordeal you've had! Keep it up. It's got to good for you, mentally and physically...

It sure is! Unfortunately, the meds I'm on aren't long-term (Prednisone). I'm affraid that after I'm taken off them, I'll start to get worse. I've been trying to exercise as best as I can, while I can in hopes of giving my body a fighting chance. I'm also considering a different doctor, or a second opinion.”

“Keep on fighting, Mike. I hope you feel better soon. Just getting your heart rate up must feel great.

A second opinion is always a good idea. I don't know the specifics of your situation, but having a second opinion is always better than only having a single source of information.
last edited: 8/12/05 9:46:40 PM”

“I'm not pedaling fast enough to get my heartrate up yet. I just use the bike to get my knee joint exercised.”

“How have you been lately? any improvements or otherwise, good news?

I finished the anti-biotic regimen last week. Doc wants to test me again on the 7th of Sept. I am still feeling some random (and shifting) pain in my upper arms, though...”