7 ms·

> So, don't be a fool like me: if you get a tick, go immediately to the doctor and get it sorted. Trust me the symptoms are just awful. I'm glad to hear you're

> So, don't be a fool like me: if you get a tick, go immediately to the doctor and get it sorted. Trust me the symptoms are just awful. I'm glad to hear you're on your way to a full recovery given the severity of Lyme. Your advice to "go immediately to the doctor" is not only important with regard to ticks but to all manner of infection. Most infections have similar symptoms and distinguishing between something discomforting and something deadly is a matter for a health care professional. Stoicism with regard to maladies is practically a cliché among strong-willed people (men especially). Always consult a doctor with unusual infections, and seemingly usual ones, too, if you can.

ams6110 9y ago
If you remove a tick within a few hours you're likely to be fine especially if you don't see the telltale red circular rash. Running to the doctor for non-issues is part of why our medical costs have increased so much the last few years. There's so much marketing to "ask your doctor" about this and that and the other thing these days. And when you go, of course the doctor is obligated to run a battery of tests to cover his ass.
- mmjaa 9y ago
  Yeah, Lyme disease is not a "non-issue", it is an issue, and a serious one, and you don't wanna fuck with it. So, learn to spot the symptoms, and go get it sorted with a doctor. Like you would with any parasite.
  - Fomite 9y ago
    Depending on what part of the country/world you're in, there's also a wide variety of tick-borne illnesses with very scary mortality rates if untreated.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    I didn't say anything that conflicts with this. If you have symptoms of Lyme, such as the circular red rash, definitely get it checked out.
- chrisgd 9y ago
  Rentier syndrome and fraud has more to do with high healthcare costs than utilization.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Jemmeh 9y ago
  Unfortunately there is not always a rash present and even if there is one it's not always the bullseye rash. The other early symptoms are feeling like you have the flu, fever, and being tired. So it can sometimes be hard to catch early on your own. You are correct in that the longer a tick is attached the more likely you are to get Lyme. Mayo Clinic says it's unlikely to happen if it'as attached less than 36-48 hours. But some of the ones that can give you Lyme are about the size of a poppyseed and you don't notice them right away. You should always check for ticks after being outside and remove them ASAP. More info on what to do: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/what-to-do-after-a-tick-bite-to-prevent-lyme-disease-beyond-the-basics https://www.uptodate.com/contents/what-to-do-after-a-tick-bi...
scarecrowbob 9y ago
I'd like to think that the reason I don't see a doctor is because I'm tough and stoci, but mostly I don't go because: a) I have no primary care physician because I don't typicaly go to the doc for any reason b) although I can afford insurance, it has an insanely high deductible and is very difficult to predict what I will be charged for c) going to the doctor involves triggering an expensive and difficult to predict system that will possibly bankrupt me. So I (like a lot of folks) don't go unless there is either an obvious emergency or a horrible, hard to live with long term problem. So yeah, the advice is probably good, but the reason that I don't tend to take it has little to do with my willpower.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > a) I have no primary care physician because I don't typicaly go to the doc for any reason This is circular... you saying you don't go to the doctor because you have no PCP, and you don't have a PCP because you don't go to the doctor > c) going to the doctor involves triggering an expensive and difficult to predict system that will possibly bankrupt me. I'm having a hard time believing that a standard outpatient visit would bankrupt you. These are typically on the order of $100, and rarely more than a few hundred unless you're going in for specialized procedures, which you've already established you aren't. Sure, if you go to the doctor, you might find out you have a more serious condition that would require future, longer-term care to address, and that future care may involve additional expenses and inpatient care which you may or may not be able to afford. But that's hardly a reason not to go to the doctor today and find out - at least you'd be able to make that decision on an informed basis.
  - tacomonstrous 9y ago
    Having grown up in India, even after I've spent almost my entire adult life in the US, I'm still reluctant to go the doctor here. In India, the process is very simple: you call the doctor in the morning, you get an appointment for the afternoon, you show up, get looked at, pay the cost of the visit (usually less than $10-15), and you're done. It's basically like any other business transaction. So even if I had a minor seeming infection, going to the doctor was the right and efficient move. Here, I call the doctor's office, and might not get an appointment for another two months, if I'm lucky. At that point there is some opaque process involving my insurance, and it just seems like a much weightier event than a simple visit should be. Of course, I'm guessing that an infection would speed up the process, but the psychological barrier is already up in my mind, and I'd rather just power through on my own. But there seems to be some hope. Recently, my wife was able to go to an urgent care clinic to treat an infection, and the process was much more like what happens in India. Still, there is some intervention of insurance, though a bit more transparently so.
ergothus 9y ago
I am a man that often avoids going to the doctor, but it isn't out of any level of machismo (I could be deluding myself). Rather, I've had a lifetime of experiences demonstrating that doctors could do nothing for me time and time again. Not necessarily their fault (medical science is trying to debug a program that you don't have the code for, do not control/know all of the inputs to, and you risk killing them if it crashes) but they've failed me time and time again in diagnosis, effectiveness, and availability, and in the US they were a financial burden until I was fortunate enough to reach the point my budget could take a hit. This has built a habit of assuming that if I'm not in intense pain, visiting a doctor would be a waste of time and money. I got pneumonia once. When the cough seemed serious I asked for an appt, but it took several days and by the day of I was struggling to breathe. Ended up going to an urgent care clinic hours before my appt because I was genuinely worried I wouldn't make it to said appt if I waited. The clinic agreed, given that as I walked in to their crowded lobby they heard me rasping and bumped me to the head of the line. I had four people on me at once, giving me oxygen, taking vitals, and one entering the numbers into their computer. I could see the screen, and saw that a few entries triggered a "the number indicates a critical problem, is it accurate?" warnings. They told me later that at 1 percent lower oxygen (i was 92%, which apparently low) they would have sent me to the emergency room. I'm glad they didn't, as their care beat any ER visit I've had, and was only $100, which included lung xrays. An ER visit would have been worse just walking in the door. Still worth it when they can help me breathe, but it demonstrates one reason why one can avoid doctors for seemingly non-serious ailments and conditions, particularly with all the times they've shrugged. I'm allergic to most everything that won't kill you (pollen, mold, dust mites, cats, dogs, even rats). I have a list of issues with this, mostly constant sinus production/drainage, but only learned it was allergies when I self diagnosed in my 30s and went to an allergist to confirm. Even then, the cause that was dramatic enough to clue me in (rats) was not part of the standard panel. I had to specifically request it...and then point out that they hadn't added it as they said they would. That ended up being so severe that the tiny scratch swelled to the size of a half dollar despite me being on benadryl (i had missed the instruction to skip such meds for the test) AND the calamine lotion they slapped on it almost immediately. Had I not asked for and checked for that test, the specific problem of the moment (my girlfriends pet rats) would have remained undiagnosed (I had a list of potential causes of an uptick in problems, not awareness of any specific one). Not one doctor growing up suggested an allergy test, even though I can now look back and see obvious signs. Not one doctor asked if my symptoms occurred at specific times or places, not one ever mentioned the high constant drainage or inflamed ear canals. (Though doctors offices are pretty allergen free. As a kid I joked that their ugly paint made you feel better, since by the time a doctor came to look in on me my worst symptoms weren't there...in retrospect the repeat experience should have been a clue to them and possibly my younger self) Instead they called it mild asthma (asthma test was negative, but shrug. My guess is that they called it that just to make me feel they had a clue) Machismo is a problem, but it isn't the sole problem.
DoubleCribble 9y ago
And yet, that is sometimes not enough. A good friend showed his obviously infected foot to a doctor who dismissed the circular rash left from a tick as a localized infection. Fast forward one year and my friend was having major health issues and difficulty making it through the work day. Eventually, it was the worrisome neuropathy in his arms that motivated him to get a full blood test which revealed... it was Lyme disease after all. And bonus! with a year's worth of disease development, a much harder infection to get rid of.
- angelsl 9y ago
  It may be worth lodging a complaint with whatever authority your country may have against that doctor that dismissed the bullseye rash.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > It may be worth lodging a complaint with whatever authority your country may have against that doctor that dismissed the bullseye rash. Because Lyme's disease is regional - almost exclusively found in the Northeast and Minnesota/Wisconsin - most doctors won't have had much experience with it. Lyme's disease also presents with a lot of different symptoms that are very difficult to differentiate from other conditions (including other tick-borne diseases), which makes it difficult for doctors in those areas to diagnose. The trademark "bullseye" rash of Lyme looks striking in pictures, but in most cases, it's less heavily pronounced, and it's harder to differentiate from many other possible sources of a rash or irritation. This is actually a problem for people who contract Lyme's disease more than once - after you've had Lyme's once, you will always test positive for the disease, even though you may no longer need treatment, so it's hard to identify patients who have been reinfected.
Fomite 9y ago
Just got back from a trip to Brazil and got several tick bites. I'm an epidemiologist, so of course I have the litany of things I'm now exposed to - and the incubation period for all of them sits right on my flight home. Told my wife that I'm going to feel like crap because of 30+ hours of flying, but if I have a headache that doesn't go away, I need to go to the hospital right now. That was a fun conversation.
zodPod 9y ago
There is also a window of time between when a tick attaches and when it can transmit disease. The ticks don't transmit disease until they have spent some time feeding so if you catch the tick within the first 24hrs or so you should be fine. EDIT: Fixed some incorrect information after I did some more reading on the specifics. Here's a full break down of it: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/what-to-do-after-a-tick-bite-to-prevent-lyme-disease-beyond-the-basics https://www.uptodate.com/contents/what-to-do-after-a-tick-bi... And here's the process of a tick attaching: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/30/heres-what-happens-when-a-tick-bites-you/ http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/30/heres-wha...
- riffraff 9y ago
  Really? Why would they wait so long to start feeding? Seems like a bad evolutionary trait.
  - tiskiharja 9y ago
    Actually they start feeding immediately, but the bacteria which causes lyme disease lives in the ticks intestinal system (not all ticks carry the bacteria). After the tick is done feeding (in general approx. 1-2 days but can be longer or shorter), or overfeeds, it can ’vomit’ back into the host and possibly spread the bacteria from its intestines. This is also why you want to be careful when removing the tick and it’s best to use special plyers, and avoid squeezing the ticks body.
    - zodPod 9y ago
      Thank you for this clarification! I had just found some more information as well I had misunderstood what I was reading prior to this!
    - riffraff 9y ago
      thanks, this makes more sense :)
  - zodPod 9y ago
    I'm sorry I believe my initial understanding was wrong. The time frame is still correct but I thought it was feeding but after you asked this it made me doubt myself and upon looking it up it's a different reason. They feed immediately but it appears that it is contingent upon when the tick starts having to get rid of excess water. Until the blood meal has started to engorge the tick, though, the organisms are not activated in the tick's gut. So until you see that the tick has actually engorged a slight amount, it's apparently not enough for you to catch disease from the tick. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/what-to-do-after-a-tick-bite-to-prevent-lyme-disease-beyond-the-basics https://www.uptodate.com/contents/what-to-do-after-a-tick-bi... Again, sorry for the incorrect info initially!

ams6110 9y ago

If you remove a tick within a few hours you're likely to be fine especially if you don't see the telltale red circular rash. Running to the doctor for non-issues is part of why our medical costs have increased so much the last few years. There's so much marketing to "ask your doctor" about this and that and the other thing these days. And when you go, of course the doctor is obligated to run a battery of tests to cover his ass.

mmjaa 9y ago
Yeah, Lyme disease is not a "non-issue", it is an issue, and a serious one, and you don't wanna fuck with it. So, learn to spot the symptoms, and go get it sorted with a doctor. Like you would with any parasite.
- Fomite 9y ago
  Depending on what part of the country/world you're in, there's also a wide variety of tick-borne illnesses with very scary mortality rates if untreated.
- ams6110 9y ago
  I didn't say anything that conflicts with this. If you have symptoms of Lyme, such as the circular red rash, definitely get it checked out.
chrisgd 9y ago
Rentier syndrome and fraud has more to do with high healthcare costs than utilization.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Jemmeh 9y ago
Unfortunately there is not always a rash present and even if there is one it's not always the bullseye rash. The other early symptoms are feeling like you have the flu, fever, and being tired. So it can sometimes be hard to catch early on your own. You are correct in that the longer a tick is attached the more likely you are to get Lyme. Mayo Clinic says it's unlikely to happen if it'as attached less than 36-48 hours. But some of the ones that can give you Lyme are about the size of a poppyseed and you don't notice them right away. You should always check for ticks after being outside and remove them ASAP. More info on what to do: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/what-to-do-after-a-tick-bite-to-prevent-lyme-disease-beyond-the-basics https://www.uptodate.com/contents/what-to-do-after-a-tick-bi...

scarecrowbob 9y ago

I'd like to think that the reason I don't see a doctor is because I'm tough and stoci, but mostly I don't go because: a) I have no primary care physician because I don't typicaly go to the doc for any reason b) although I can afford insurance, it has an insanely high deductible and is very difficult to predict what I will be charged for c) going to the doctor involves triggering an expensive and difficult to predict system that will possibly bankrupt me. So I (like a lot of folks) don't go unless there is either an obvious emergency or a horrible, hard to live with long term problem. So yeah, the advice is probably good, but the reason that I don't tend to take it has little to do with my willpower.

chimeracoder 9y ago
> a) I have no primary care physician because I don't typicaly go to the doc for any reason This is circular... you saying you don't go to the doctor because you have no PCP, and you don't have a PCP because you don't go to the doctor > c) going to the doctor involves triggering an expensive and difficult to predict system that will possibly bankrupt me. I'm having a hard time believing that a standard outpatient visit would bankrupt you. These are typically on the order of $100, and rarely more than a few hundred unless you're going in for specialized procedures, which you've already established you aren't. Sure, if you go to the doctor, you might find out you have a more serious condition that would require future, longer-term care to address, and that future care may involve additional expenses and inpatient care which you may or may not be able to afford. But that's hardly a reason not to go to the doctor today and find out - at least you'd be able to make that decision on an informed basis.
- tacomonstrous 9y ago
  Having grown up in India, even after I've spent almost my entire adult life in the US, I'm still reluctant to go the doctor here. In India, the process is very simple: you call the doctor in the morning, you get an appointment for the afternoon, you show up, get looked at, pay the cost of the visit (usually less than $10-15), and you're done. It's basically like any other business transaction. So even if I had a minor seeming infection, going to the doctor was the right and efficient move. Here, I call the doctor's office, and might not get an appointment for another two months, if I'm lucky. At that point there is some opaque process involving my insurance, and it just seems like a much weightier event than a simple visit should be. Of course, I'm guessing that an infection would speed up the process, but the psychological barrier is already up in my mind, and I'd rather just power through on my own. But there seems to be some hope. Recently, my wife was able to go to an urgent care clinic to treat an infection, and the process was much more like what happens in India. Still, there is some intervention of insurance, though a bit more transparently so.

ergothus 9y ago

I am a man that often avoids going to the doctor, but it isn't out of any level of machismo (I could be deluding myself). Rather, I've had a lifetime of experiences demonstrating that doctors could do nothing for me time and time again. Not necessarily their fault (medical science is trying to debug a program that you don't have the code for, do not control/know all of the inputs to, and you risk killing them if it crashes) but they've failed me time and time again in diagnosis, effectiveness, and availability, and in the US they were a financial burden until I was fortunate enough to reach the point my budget could take a hit. This has built a habit of assuming that if I'm not in intense pain, visiting a doctor would be a waste of time and money. I got pneumonia once. When the cough seemed serious I asked for an appt, but it took several days and by the day of I was struggling to breathe. Ended up going to an urgent care clinic hours before my appt because I was genuinely worried I wouldn't make it to said appt if I waited. The clinic agreed, given that as I walked in to their crowded lobby they heard me rasping and bumped me to the head of the line. I had four people on me at once, giving me oxygen, taking vitals, and one entering the numbers into their computer. I could see the screen, and saw that a few entries triggered a "the number indicates a critical problem, is it accurate?" warnings. They told me later that at 1 percent lower oxygen (i was 92%, which apparently low) they would have sent me to the emergency room. I'm glad they didn't, as their care beat any ER visit I've had, and was only $100, which included lung xrays. An ER visit would have been worse just walking in the door. Still worth it when they can help me breathe, but it demonstrates one reason why one can avoid doctors for seemingly non-serious ailments and conditions, particularly with all the times they've shrugged. I'm allergic to most everything that won't kill you (pollen, mold, dust mites, cats, dogs, even rats). I have a list of issues with this, mostly constant sinus production/drainage, but only learned it was allergies when I self diagnosed in my 30s and went to an allergist to confirm. Even then, the cause that was dramatic enough to clue me in (rats) was not part of the standard panel. I had to specifically request it...and then point out that they hadn't added it as they said they would. That ended up being so severe that the tiny scratch swelled to the size of a half dollar despite me being on benadryl (i had missed the instruction to skip such meds for the test) AND the calamine lotion they slapped on it almost immediately. Had I not asked for and checked for that test, the specific problem of the moment (my girlfriends pet rats) would have remained undiagnosed (I had a list of potential causes of an uptick in problems, not awareness of any specific one). Not one doctor growing up suggested an allergy test, even though I can now look back and see obvious signs. Not one doctor asked if my symptoms occurred at specific times or places, not one ever mentioned the high constant drainage or inflamed ear canals. (Though doctors offices are pretty allergen free. As a kid I joked that their ugly paint made you feel better, since by the time a doctor came to look in on me my worst symptoms weren't there...in retrospect the repeat experience should have been a clue to them and possibly my younger self) Instead they called it mild asthma (asthma test was negative, but shrug. My guess is that they called it that just to make me feel they had a clue) Machismo is a problem, but it isn't the sole problem.

DoubleCribble 9y ago

And yet, that is sometimes not enough. A good friend showed his obviously infected foot to a doctor who dismissed the circular rash left from a tick as a localized infection. Fast forward one year and my friend was having major health issues and difficulty making it through the work day. Eventually, it was the worrisome neuropathy in his arms that motivated him to get a full blood test which revealed... it was Lyme disease after all. And bonus! with a year's worth of disease development, a much harder infection to get rid of.

angelsl 9y ago
It may be worth lodging a complaint with whatever authority your country may have against that doctor that dismissed the bullseye rash.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > It may be worth lodging a complaint with whatever authority your country may have against that doctor that dismissed the bullseye rash. Because Lyme's disease is regional - almost exclusively found in the Northeast and Minnesota/Wisconsin - most doctors won't have had much experience with it. Lyme's disease also presents with a lot of different symptoms that are very difficult to differentiate from other conditions (including other tick-borne diseases), which makes it difficult for doctors in those areas to diagnose. The trademark "bullseye" rash of Lyme looks striking in pictures, but in most cases, it's less heavily pronounced, and it's harder to differentiate from many other possible sources of a rash or irritation. This is actually a problem for people who contract Lyme's disease more than once - after you've had Lyme's once, you will always test positive for the disease, even though you may no longer need treatment, so it's hard to identify patients who have been reinfected.

Fomite 9y ago

Just got back from a trip to Brazil and got several tick bites. I'm an epidemiologist, so of course I have the litany of things I'm now exposed to - and the incubation period for all of them sits right on my flight home. Told my wife that I'm going to feel like crap because of 30+ hours of flying, but if I have a headache that doesn't go away, I need to go to the hospital right now. That was a fun conversation.

zodPod 9y ago

There is also a window of time between when a tick attaches and when it can transmit disease. The ticks don't transmit disease until they have spent some time feeding so if you catch the tick within the first 24hrs or so you should be fine. EDIT: Fixed some incorrect information after I did some more reading on the specifics. Here's a full break down of it: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/what-to-do-after-a-tick-bite-to-prevent-lyme-disease-beyond-the-basics https://www.uptodate.com/contents/what-to-do-after-a-tick-bi... And here's the process of a tick attaching: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/30/heres-what-happens-when-a-tick-bites-you/ http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/30/heres-wha...

riffraff 9y ago
Really? Why would they wait so long to start feeding? Seems like a bad evolutionary trait.
- tiskiharja 9y ago
  Actually they start feeding immediately, but the bacteria which causes lyme disease lives in the ticks intestinal system (not all ticks carry the bacteria). After the tick is done feeding (in general approx. 1-2 days but can be longer or shorter), or overfeeds, it can ’vomit’ back into the host and possibly spread the bacteria from its intestines. This is also why you want to be careful when removing the tick and it’s best to use special plyers, and avoid squeezing the ticks body.
  - zodPod 9y ago
    Thank you for this clarification! I had just found some more information as well I had misunderstood what I was reading prior to this!
  - riffraff 9y ago
    thanks, this makes more sense :)
- zodPod 9y ago
  I'm sorry I believe my initial understanding was wrong. The time frame is still correct but I thought it was feeding but after you asked this it made me doubt myself and upon looking it up it's a different reason. They feed immediately but it appears that it is contingent upon when the tick starts having to get rid of excess water. Until the blood meal has started to engorge the tick, though, the organisms are not activated in the tick's gut. So until you see that the tick has actually engorged a slight amount, it's apparently not enough for you to catch disease from the tick. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/what-to-do-after-a-tick-bite-to-prevent-lyme-disease-beyond-the-basics https://www.uptodate.com/contents/what-to-do-after-a-tick-bi... Again, sorry for the incorrect info initially!