21 ms·

Lyme Disease Cases Are Exploding

321 points by sb057 7y ago

gregoryexe 7y ago
This article blames sprawl and climate change, but neglects the connection to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center right off the coast of Lyme CT. Borrelia has been in the US for ages, but wasn't known for causing the debilitating symptoms this modern strain causes.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/04/02/lab.257/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/04/02/lab.257/index.ht... > Moreover, a Department of Agriculture spokesperson, Sandy Miller-Hays, told the news service that -- counter to Carroll's claims -- Lyme disease was never studied at Plum Island. As for symptoms, it was described in the 1760s as "exquisite pain [in] the interior parts of the limbs", neurological symptoms in the 1920s, etc. That it took a while to recognize the cause of these things doesn't mean the disease didn't exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#History
  - ColanR 7y ago
    I think that a government spokesperson should not be considered a reputable source when speaking on potential misdoings by the same government. Is there an independent source that can speak to the Plum Island claims?
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      Given that it's impossible to prove a negative, the onus is on conspiracy theorists to provide evidence that Lyme research was performed there.
      - ColanR 7y ago
        15 years ago, conspiracy theorists were being asked to prove government spying. It's hard, and the coverup might leave only circumstantial evidence, but it doesn't mean its not true. Either way, if you're trying to provide a source against the point being made, it needs to be better than that one. Is there any other? Edit: I did a bit of looking into it. Tick-borne diseases were definitely studied there, which means general subject was being researched. (a bunch of pubmed studies are listed here [1], and pubmed shows in the author information that they were from Plum Island. Ignore the site if you like, just look at the pubmed articles.) The geography of the disease also fits a spread from the Plum Island facility. See the same article for a map. I obviously can't go order and read a physical book off the cuff, but it seems like the Lab 257 book by Carroll is decently reliable, as far as can be expected when making claims counter to an official government position. From wikipedia: "The review in Army Chemical Review concluded 'Lab 257 would be cautiously valuable to someone writing a history of Plum Island'". Anyway, in summary, there is enough evidence to ask a reasonable question: which puts the onus back on the government, or you, to provide credible evidence that Lyme was not developed there.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        > The geography of the disease also fits a spread from the Plum Island facility. See the same article for a map. No, it doesn't, considering it was documented in Scotland in the 1700s. The Plum Island facility was started in 1954. > From wikipedia: "The review in Army Chemical Review concluded 'Lab 257 would be cautiously valuable to someone writing a history of Plum Island'". The actual quote is: > The review in Army Chemical Review concluded "Lab 257 would be cautiously valuable to someone writing a history of Plum Island, but is otherwise an example of fringe literature with a portrayal of almost every form of novelist style." In other words, "it gets the biographical stuff mostly right, before it goes nutty". > Anyway, in summary, there is enough evidence to ask a reasonable question: which puts the onus back on the government, or you, to provide credible evidence that Lyme was not developed there. Lyme's historical record predating the very existence of the lab is fairly conclusive proof that it wasn't developed there.
        7y ago
Willson50 7y ago
https://outline.com/CXBe5a https://outline.com/CXBe5a
nouveaux 7y ago
I've recently gotten into backpacking and learned that the most effective way of dealing with mosquitoes and ticks in nature is Permetherin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permethrin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permethrin. It is intended for clothing and not the skin. The best way to apply it is to soak your clothes and let it dry. Spray on applicators are also available. Once it is dry, it is very stable and safe. It does breakdown with UV and washes, so it will need more applications. It is also available for sale and the pre-treated clothing does last through more washes. Note: Permetherin is harmful to cats when it is wet so if you have cats at home, please read up more on it. Once it is dry, it is safe around cats.
- acheron 7y ago
  Yes, this. Also from what I've read just applying it to your shoes is hugely effective on its own vs ticks, with socks adding another large percentage, as the majority of ticks will jump onto your feet and climb up your legs. The rest of your clothes are worth treating too certainly, but even if it's just your feet it will be a major help.
  - kaycebasques 7y ago
    Never heard of Permetherin. Thanks for the tips.
  - joyjoyjoy 7y ago
    "Also from what I've read just applying it to your shoes is hugely effective on its own vs ticks, with socks adding another large percentage, as the majority of ticks will jump onto your feet and climb up your legs." This is very interesting advise. I always thought ticks drop from trees? no? I actually wear a hat sometimes in the forrest because of this. Am I stupid?
    - kaycebasques 7y ago
      I’m surprised at this misconception about ticks falling from trees. Growing up in northern California, it seems to be common knowledge among my friends and family that tall grass is where you’ve got to be careful.
thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
I read about this issue in a runners World article. Most people assume that the tics jump from trees down onto people. But that's not how they said it goes. They said that the tics which spread Lyme disease get spread onto runners from Tall Grass that people run through as you make contact with the grass they get onto you.
- kaycebasques 7y ago
  One hiking trick is to tuck your pants into your socks. And wear colors that make it easier to spot the ticks on your pants.
- w8rbt 7y ago
  I had a friend who was in the Marines and he told me once that they wore panty hose when training in areas with ticks. He said the only downside was that they can be hot in the summer time.
  - utexaspunk 7y ago
    ...but is that the only downside?
- megous 7y ago
  That's also why they're collected/sampled by dragging a cloth over the grass/ground.
ajudson 7y ago
Are these all real cases or some psychogenic ones? I was under the impression that a lot of "chronic Lyme" cases were something else.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  They're citing the CDC's numbers for confirmed cases, so I'd expect the "chronic Lyme" folks to be excluded. https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/faq/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/faq/index.html > The term “chronic Lyme disease” (CLD) has been used to describe people with different illnesses. While the term is sometimes used to describe illness in patients with Lyme disease, in many occasions it has been used to describe symptoms in people who have no evidence of a current or past infection with B. burgdorferi (Marques, 2008). Because of the confusion in how the term CLD is employed, experts in this field do not support its use.
- msla 7y ago
  There's no such thing as "chronic Lyme disease": https://www.fasebj.org/doi/10.1096/fj.10-167247 https://www.fasebj.org/doi/10.1096/fj.10-167247 https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/does-everybody-have-chronic-lyme-disease-does-anyone/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/does-everybody-have-chronic...
  - megous 7y ago
    I didn't read the links, but I've read a lot here https://lymescience.org/ https://lymescience.org/ and I also almost fell for "chronic Lyme" few years ago. There's something seriously unsettling around websites/online communities dedicated to chronic Lyme. From Lyme friendly doctors, to people doing and interpreting their own tests, to people ascribing all kind of ailments to this "condition", etc.
    - ajudson 7y ago
      If you want to go down another rabbit hole, read about Morgellons
      - 7y ago
joyjoyjoy 7y ago
Don't know about US products. But in Europe, this is one of the few ones guaranteed to work: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anti-Brumm-Forte-150-ml/dp/B006ZL4HNY https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anti-Brumm-Forte-150-ml/dp/B006ZL4H...
- curtis3389 7y ago
  OFF! Deep Woods https://www.amazon.com/OFF-Deep-Woods-Insect-Repellent/dp/B019ZTXU2G https://www.amazon.com/OFF-Deep-Woods-Insect-Repellent/dp/B0...
- Aloisius 7y ago
  Really, anything with DEET.
kaycebasques 7y ago
I remember standing in line at a coffee shop, after walking some dogs on a nature trail. I felt a sharp pain on my hip flexor and knew right away it was a tick bite, even though I had never had one before. I rushed into the bathroom and lo and behold, it was a tick. In a panic I asked all the women in the coffee shop if they had tweezers. They must have thought I had a screw loose. None of them did so I rushed home to pull it off. I kid you not, as I pulled it, I heard its jaws (or whatever) snap. P.S. you don’t need to burn them unless they’ve already burrowed.
- narag 7y ago
  Oil. Edit: I had a scary experience. After rain I was hunting in the woods with bushes a metre tall, shotgut over the head to avoid accidents. Then a snake hiss ahead, tried to turn right, another snake hiss that way, same to left and... same back. I panicked and got out of the bushes as fast as I could, I was panting. Then I noticed I was covered by hundreds of ticks. I shouted and my father came alarmed. He managed to brush all of them except one that I found at home. It took my mother about ten seconds to take it off with olive oil.
  - kaycebasques 7y ago
    So you just rub olive oil on it?
    - narag 7y ago
      Yes. We used some chemical powders for the dogs. I thought the same was going to be used for me too but, to my surprise the oil was very effective. The bug seemed to dislike it as much as I disliked the bug. It loosened the grip very quickly.
    - refurb 7y ago
      My understanding is removal by gripping the mouth parts is the only safe way to remove a tick. Coating them in oil blocks their oxygen exchange, so they release, but sometimes they vomit back into the bit when they do.
4restm 7y ago
The advice we were given in my veterinary entomology course was to tweeze as close as you could from the base and pull perpendicularly to the skin. You shouldnt yank it, more along the lines of the force you'd use to open a zipper.
- yread 7y ago
  I've had 100+ ticks always removed them using wet cloth with a tiny bit of (solid) soap turning counter-clockwise. Somehow clockwise never worked for me, counter-clockwise it was out after the 2nd rotation. We had both lyme and tick-borne encephalitis in the family, not too bad if caught early.
tolmasky 7y ago
We actually have a vaccine for Lyme disease that was pulled due to the Antivax hysteria. I believe an article was posted here on Hacker News before, but here is a link to one otherwise: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/science-and-health/2018/5/7/17314716/lyme-disease-vaccine-history-effectiveness https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/science-and-health/2018/5/7... We now live in a world where you can vaccinate your dog for Lyme disease but not yourself.
- cmrdporcupine 7y ago
  We don't vaccinate dogs for lyme disease. We give them a topical or oral systemic insecticide that permeates their skin and bloodstream so as to kill ticks on contact. Dogs have short, and I guess less valuable, lives. So this is considered an acceptable practice for prevention. And there are many many dogs with severe reactions to these medications, including some fatalities. Would you really want to do that to yourself?
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    https://www.zoetisus.com/products/dogs/vanguard-crlyme/index.aspx https://www.zoetisus.com/products/dogs/vanguard-crlyme/index... > For vaccination of healthy dogs 8 weeks of age or older as an aid in the prevention of clinical disease and subclinical arthritis associated with Borrelia burgdorferi.
- jseliger 7y ago
  The key moment in the original article: Lyme and other tick-borne diseases have yet to receive anything like that sort of attention. In 1998, the Food and Drug Administration approved a Lyme disease vaccine called Lymerix, administered in a three-injection cycle, that reduced infections in adults by nearly 80%. But it was discontinued three years later after sales bottomed out, due in large part to public fears driven by negative news reports over its side effects (most notably arthritis) and a class-action lawsuit whose claims were debunked. It was an early victory for the anti-vaccine movement, which gained momentum thanks to a now-retracted study linking autism to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine that was released the same year as Lymerix. “That actually scared me,” says Joyce Sakamoto, an entomologist at the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University who has researched public engagement strategies to improve tick-borne disease literacy. “That was a case where the anti-vax community was able to effectively kill something entirely without a lot of scientific evidence.” Damned depressing.
TimTheTinker 7y ago
Shout-out to Nicholas Zachas (@slicknet, https://humanwhocodes.com https://humanwhocodes.com). Thanks for the great JavaScript books, and praying you feel better!
- hinkley 7y ago
  CTRL-F Nicholas Yeah, he's mentioned once or twice that his is so bad that he can't even write reliably, let alone do speaking gigs or consulting work. Stuff like this scares the shit out of me.
robolange 7y ago
My father nearly died of [what we believe to be] Lyme disease. A few years ago he started getting awful bouts of pain all over his body. He couldn't eat, was losing weight, was losing muscle mass fast. It got the the point where he was using a walker (he was less than 60 years old at the time) and could barely lift a 5 pound weight. He went to a bunch of different doctors, had all kinds of scans run, and only kept getting worse. At one point my mother noticed that every test any doctor gave for Lyme disease came back "inconclusive". She pointed out to one of the doctors, who said that it didn't mean anything as apparently the test is not very reliable. Finally, they found a doctor who prescribed medication to treat Lyme disease without a definitive test because apparently there was a low risk of side effects. Within a couple of weeks of starting the medication, my father was visibly better, within a few months he was basically back to normal, and is basically fully recovered now. (Sorry folks, I don't know any of the specific drugs or medical terminology.) We have no idea how or when he got infected. As far as he knows, he never had a bullseye rash, although apparently that doesn't always happen. Now I slather myself in DEET whenever I go into a an even semi-woodsy environment.
- Assossa 7y ago
  I would greatly appreciate it if you could find the name of that medication. My sister has Lyme Disease and is still suffering health effects from it despite various treatments.
  - koolba 7y ago
    The treatment for Lyme is via antibiotics but I think it’s only effective if it’s relatively early on in the course of the disease (on the order of weeks or months). Caught early it’s curable. One of the issues though is symptoms are not caught early on as they’re so general and by the time treatment starts the disease has spread and already caused the major damage.
  - spacebatsghost 7y ago
    Most non-Lyme Literate Medical doctors prescribe Doxycyclin. If you are seeing a Lyme Literate Medical doctor they'll put you on a cocktail (often Clarithromycin, Doxy, Alinia (anti-parasitic), and a few others. This also depends if you have co-infections or not.
llamataboot 7y ago
I may or may not have had chronic lyme disease. I definitely had many many ticks. (Never cared about em, just pulled them off). And I definitely was sick for over a decade. And I definitely tested positive on the Western Blot multiple times. (And chronic lyme is definitely a bit of a catch-all diagnosis for a host of auto-immune stuff we don't quite understand yet) It was awful, something I wouldn't wish on anyone. If you do get a deer tick (they are the small ones, not the giant gross ones) save it, there are a number of places you can send it for peace of mind that it was not infected. Also consider brief antibiotic prophylaxis: 1-3 doses of doxycycline are often recommended. I'm not in favor of anti-biotic overuse, but if lyme can turn into chronic lyme and that was indeed what I dealt with for 10 years of pain and crushing fatigue, then you want to avoid it. (edit: typos)
- cogman10 7y ago
  Just a note, Chronic lyme disease isn't really a thing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4477530/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4477530/ This isn't to say you haven't been dealing with a lot of garbage, just that you might need to seek different medical care if your doctors are telling you that you have chronic lyme disease.
  - archarios 7y ago
    Well they noted that "chronic lyme" is used as a catch all for a variety of issues. If this person is being told they have chronic lyme, they are already seeing an alternative doctor of some sort and are most likely very aware of what you're saying. Traditional "western" doctors won't really recognize chronic lyme as a thing. There are a lot of people out there who are experiencing chronic fatigue issues and other problems that our medical system doesn't really have answers for. A lot of those people end up seeking alternative solutions if they can afford it because they need SOMETHING.
  - llamataboot 7y ago
    I appreciate your concern. I certainly had something. It certainly sucked. I certainly shared a lot of symptoms and remission factors with other people who identified as having chronic lyme. I certainly had Lyme at some point in my past. I agree that "alternative medicine" can be a hotbed of pseudo-science and sketchy treatment, but I also think that in terms of a lot of these chronic auto-immune related conditions, our evidence base is still pretty small and there's a lot we don't know. And the dominant Western medical system tends to do much better with acute conditions with a clear etiology of cause/effect than nebulous clusters of symptoms (see also, all of mental health). My hunch is that chronic lyme, just like for example chronic fatigue that lasts for years after Epstein-Barr, is some sort of auto-immune condition triggered by the initial infection, even if the initial infection is gone. With Lyme it is a little more complicated because there are spirochetes involved. I assure you I've probably read everything that the NIH has put out about Lyme all the way to some of the wackiest all caps blinking sketchy sell-me-vitamin treatment websites out there, as well as chronic fatigue (I spent the first 7 of those years considering it CFIDS). It nearly destroyed all of my 20s. Treat prophylatically or not, but try not to get Lyme, that's all I'm saying.
staunch 7y ago
I was bitten by little nymph/larval (not sure which) ticks on Bay Trail in Mountain View, CA. Had to stop riding my bicycle there (which I absolutely loved) because I just can't afford to be debilitated by Lyme's disease. I've become violently genocidal towards these little bloodsuckers. If it was up to me, I'd wipe them out with almost any means, and at whatever cost ;-) After looking into the anti-tick options I actually started fantasizing about some kind of super lightweight "earth suit" (like an astronaut's space suit). Something that you could put on, fully seal yourself in, and then just enjoy the outdoors with reckless abandon. I know it sounds a bit crazy but I think it could potentially be a transformative way of exploring the outdoors. I love the idea of being rattlesnake/tick/spider/thorn-proof. I could sleep outdoors in the middle of fields, under trees, in puddles, etc.
- jerkstate 7y ago
  FWIW, lyme disease is exceedingly rare on the west coast..
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - staunch 7y ago
    Yes, but there are other infectious diseases spread by ticks. And most importantly, I really don't want to be one of the unlucky few! https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/datasurveillance/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/datasurveillance/index.html
- flurdy 7y ago
  You could wear a wet suit, taped with some gaffer tape, thick balaclava, etc. It might not stop leaches but will reduce the chance of ticks and most other bites. But you would also sweat a lot and generally be quite uncomfortable. Tradeoffs... Though I am nearly there when I go for walks in mosquito country. Big hat, with netting all around, socks half way up my legs, trousers stuck well inside them... I do really hate ticks. Ruins summers for me.
cmrdporcupine 7y ago
Explosion of deer and rodent populations is definitely not helping. We were walking with our dog at a local natural area we frequent. A deer crossed the path and we all stopped to take photos, and then moved on. That day we found ticks all over our dog. The deer are literally swimming in them. Both rodents and deer are part of the lifecycle of the tick. Suppressing deer populations and encouraging red foxes and other rodent predators would have to help.
- rb808 7y ago
  Most people still see deer as cute, but its starting to change. When I see deer I just see disease carrying vermin. Deer populations have exploded. I wish they were systematically culled. Time talked about this a while back, I havent seen anything since. https://time.com/709/americas-pest-problem-its-time-to-cull-the-herd/ https://time.com/709/americas-pest-problem-its-time-to-cull-... https://vet.uga.edu/population_health_files/scwds-150wtdeer507080-2012.jpg https://vet.uga.edu/population_health_files/scwds-150wtdeer5...
  - gerbilly 7y ago
    I know what you mean. However we might not be awash in deer if we hadn't first 'culled' all the predators. Wolves for example.¹ 1: http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/AppalFor/Readings/leopold.pdf http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/AppalFor/Readings/leopold.pdf
    - Tharkun 7y ago
      The wolf population is slowly increasing in western europe. Here's some wolf news for those who enjoy that sort of thing, in Dutch: http://www.welkomwolf.be/node/238 http://www.welkomwolf.be/node/238
      - rb808 7y ago
        I'd love wolves roaming around my local forest, but my neighbors with pets and local farmers wouldn't let it happen.
wazoox 7y ago
I've got ticks a few times a year just running in the woods (the last one was Saturday). During holidays in the Pyrenees with my family, we had to scan our bodies for ticks every day, and every day we found several -- up to a dozen -- on each of us. Now the article is very light on the main question: why did ticks multiply that much recently?
- bubblewrap 7y ago
  Could be global warming, or at least warm winters (whether due to global warming or not).
  - iamthepieman 7y ago
    it probably is global warming but of course that actually means many many interacting effects. In no particular order 1. Different weather patterns caused by El Nino(warm pacific equatorial temperatures resulting in increased precipitation) along with similar weather patterns in other areas of the world. This is especially noticeable during the winter with increased snow fall providing denser snowpack and a more protected subnivean zone for one of ticks primary hosts, white footed and field mice. Warm weather in general also helps. Ticks are not greatly affected by cold weather but their hosts are and when there are more hosts, there are more ticks. 2. Increased temperatures has a complex affect on tick habitat. While a rise in temperature can increase forest biomass and increase growth rates of transitioning forest, it decreases biomass at the forest edge which is a place where low lying scrub grows the most and provides ideal "questing"[0] habitat for ticks. So that seems like wash but it's actually more complex even that that. 3. This one is more Anthropocene than specifically climate related. Many prime tick hosts have adapted well to human crowded space including deer, mice and small mammals. Their predators such as wolves, foxes, and birds of prey have not fared as well. 4. Related to 3 above, sprawl puts people in closer proximity to habitats once favored by tick hosts so there may be a factor where ticks are not increasing so much as human/tick interaction is. [0]https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/life_cycle_and_hosts.html https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/life_cycle_and_hosts.html search for questing
- HarryHirsch 7y ago
newswriter99 7y ago
Jack MacReady: It's obvious the bastard's got lyme disease! Bill Pardy: What? Jack MacReady: Lyme disease. You touch some deer feces, and then you... eat a sandwich without washin' your hands. You got your lyme disease! Bill Pardy: And that makes you look like a squid?
chris72205 7y ago
Even if there's only one mention of it in the article, I'm glad they included it: alpha-gal syndrome. Not a ton of people seem to know about it and yet I continue to meet more and more people that are affected by it. For those unaware, it causes a person to develop an allergy to red meat and there's currently no treatment for it other than to wait. Granted, it's not as serious as Lyme Disease, I hope it gets to be well known so there's increased chances of finding a cure for it.
- _sword 7y ago
  My friend's brother was bitten by a lone star tick on Long Island and since has developed that syndrome. It's been pretty funny trying to figure out what we can cook for him at our BBQ's since apparently the meats he's able to eat now are essentially chicken, fish, duck, and human.
baxtr 7y ago
When we go hiking, we won’t leave the house without a tick card or something similar, e.g tick squeezers. When we get back we scan everyone from head to toe for ticks. At least Lyme disease can be prevented quite successfully if the tick is removed within the first 24 hours. https://www.cdc.gov/features/lymedisease/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/features/lymedisease/index.html
biohax2015 7y ago
Lyme disease is awful, and ticks are truly evil creatures. The intellectual disabilities it causes are especially scary to me as a knowledge worker. It's about time we start treating this as the public health crisis that it is and targeting concerted efforts towards eradicating ticks.
erentz 7y ago
Unfortunately there’s no way to know that one currently has Lyme disease unless the symptoms are close in time to a tick bite. Treatment is with antibiotics, usually doctors will use a combination of two types of antibiotics (eg doxycycline and cefdinir) for which there is some research suggesting better results. In rare cases IV antibiotics may be required, especially if evidence of cardiac or neurological involvement. Duration of treatment is for 1 to 4 months. There’s next to no evidence you should go longer than that. After treatment patients may also need immune modulation treatment due to autoimmune reaction to the infection. High dose ivig in serious cases. Some patients also find benefit using low dose naltrexone for this though it can have a very nasty side effect of causing depression so watch yourself using it. Almost everything else is a scam. And unfortunately with Lyme, while the patients are clearly very sick, there are an aweful lot of quacks ready to part them with their cash so be weary. It’s important to know there are other illnesses that people need to rule out too, check for dysautonomia, POTS, ME/CFS, MS, and aaSFPN for example.
- voidlogic 7y ago
  >Unfortunately there’s no way to know that one currently has Lyme disease unless the symptoms are close in time to a tick bite. I thought you could test for bacterial nuclear material in the blood? Edit found it: Its a PCR Assay: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26469112 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26469112
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- Medicalidiot 7y ago
  Why do you say cefdinir as the second antibiotic? It's not recommended in uptodate.
- hnzix 7y ago
  Any advice on POTS treatment avenues? There seems to be poor GP knowledge around the condition, apart from giving fluids via a port to reduce symptoms.
toss1 7y ago
Might be time for a CRISPR Gene Drive to eradicate ticks in some zones. Plausibly more critical than mosquitoes. Obviously we need to be very careful about trying to rebalance what we've put out of balance, and study to be sure that we are not eliminating a critical food source for other links in the food web. https://psmag.com/magazine/deleting-a-species-genetically-engineering-an-extinction https://psmag.com/magazine/deleting-a-species-genetically-en...
stupidboy 7y ago
Surprised to see Lyme disease on HN, since bringing affordable DNA testing for B. burgdorferi & other pathogens to the public is the startup I've been working on since 2014. Relevant Plug: https://www.tickcheck.com/ https://www.tickcheck.com/ As mentioned in other comments, serological tests fall short in various ways (accuracy, time). If you keep the tick that bit you, we can test it for the presence Lyme, and several other pathogens. If negative, we can effectively rule out much of the risk. Super quick & accurate, too.
- dheera 7y ago
  Interesting. I got bit by 2 blacklegged ticks in the past 3 months but I couldn't find any free tick tests, so I never had them tested. Both were within a few hours so I assumed based on CDC advice that I was still in the green zone. It sounds like one of those things that health insurance companies would be out of their minds to not cover. Separately: Bay Area hikers beware -- change your clothes immediately after getting home, do complete body checks after hiking -- ideally, shower immediately.
  - stupidboy 7y ago
    We can't get reimbursed by health insurance because we aren't a medical facility, but rather a DNA lab. I'm sure in some regard, it's a downside. However, it does force us to compete intensely on price, value & service. And I'm happy with that because consumers win.
    - dheera 7y ago
      When the cost of prevention is higher than the cost of treatment, you know the system is truly messed up. IMO health insurance should be paying for everything preventative. It's in their financial interest to stop fretting about what kind of lab you are, encourage early diagnosis and reduce long-term medical costs.
      - jagannathtech 7y ago
        'reduce long-term medical costs' the pharma companies won't be happy with that
hanniabu 7y ago
Maybe it's wrong, but I'm happy that cases are exploding because that (hopefully) means there will be more research into better treatments and preventions.
lkrubner 7y ago
I was bit by a tick and I got sick. No doctor could figure out what was wrong. I tested negative for Lyme. I took antibiotics (Biaxin) and 3 months later I was fine. I stopped taking antibiotics. Within 2 months I was sick again. I took Biaxin for 6 months. I felt great. I stopped antibiotics. Within 2 months I was sick again. I took Biaxin for a year. I felt great. I stopped taking antibiotics. Within 2 months I was sick again. This time, the symptoms were completely different. I assumed it was a new illness. Doctors were mystified. One said it was psychosomatic. I was off antibiotics for more than 6 months. I got sicker and sicker. I was in bad shape when I decided this illness was the same as the previous illness. I took a combination of Cipro and Zithromax for 1 year. I got better. Then I stopped. I got sick again. I was eager to get back to my career so I tried a few antibiotics that might be light, cheap, easy and sustainable. A friend of mine, as a teenager, had acne and the doctors had them on antibiotics for 4 years to deal with the acne. They’d taken something similar to doxycycline. I tried it but it did nothing for me. I tried hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which gave me great energy but did not cure me. Then I tried Amoxicillin. That worked great. I took that for 11 years. Then I quit and got sick again. I went back to Biaxin, and took that for another 2 years. My business was going well so I could not focus on my health. I was busy. The simplest thing was to take antibiotics, which kept me healthy so I could focus on work. So long as I took antibiotics the illness kept its distance. In that sense, the illness was similar to leprosy — I could live a normal life but only if I took antibiotics every day. But I was irritated with my business partner (I’ve written about that elsewhere). So I sold my share of the business. Now I had time to focus on my health. What had I not yet tried? What about fasting? I went 2 weeks without food. I took antibiotics the first week but not the second. I felt sick. The fast ended. I had a vegetarian meal. I fell asleep. I woke up the next day and had a large vegetarian meal. That night I felt funny. The feeling was similar to that moment, if you have a flu, when the fever breaks. With a flu, you get sicker and sicker till a moment the fever breaks and then you know that your immune system has kicked in. That was exactly the feeling that I had then. I have not taken any antibiotics since that fast, and I’ve been blessed with excellent health.
- rb808 7y ago
  The problem is that Lyme isn't the only tick borne disease. There are a bunch and some speculate there are more undetected ones. When someone has "chronic lyme" maybe they have some other prion that no one has diagnosed yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-borne_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-borne_disease
switch007 7y ago
A few years ago I got bitten by something after being close to a deer but never saw any kind of insect. I had a large inflamed area (one circle IIRC) for a while, experienced mild flu symptoms for a few weeks, and then some wrist pains a few weeks after that. Doctor wouldn't give me antibiotics. I haven't had any physical symptoms since, but I'm pretty sure my mood and cognitive ability has taken a hit. There are of course so many factors not controlled for, but it's always at the back of my mind.
brainflake 7y ago
It's too bad LYMErix was taken off the market due to anti-vaccine marketing in the 90s... https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/7/17314716/lyme-disease-vaccine-history-effectiveness https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/7/17314716/lym... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/
- castratikron 7y ago
  Surprised this isn't well known. I found out on my own a few months ago and nobody I've talked to about it since knew that this was available. I would definitely pay money for this if they brought it back. Probably up to hundreds of dollars.
- foobiekr 7y ago
  If you pay close attention to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/ you’ll note that a portion of the population does appear to have a genotype that makes people susceptible to arthritis which is exactly the symptoms that the initial negative response to Lymerix claimed. I wish there was a Lyme vaccine but imho the case of Lymerix is closer to Rotashield than an innocent victim of anti-vaxxers.
agumonkey 7y ago
Interviewee is wrong about movies. They exist and they're high grade Z movies.
coopernewby 7y ago
This new book, Bitten, describes some of the mystery surrounding the origins of the disease in the US in the 1960s. https://www.amazon.com/Bitten-History-Disease-Biological-Weapons/dp/006289627X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1H1E4KW1SW0I1&keywords=bitten+kris+newby&qid=1561500221&s=gateway&sprefix=bitten%2Caps%2C402&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Bitten-History-Disease-Biological-Wea...
pastor_elm 7y ago
The CDC says post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome or 'chronic lyme' doesn't exist. While i am suspicious of this claim, I know people who say they have it, and have subjected themselves to every treatment under the sun without any success.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  > The CDC says post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome or 'chronic lyme' doesn't exist. You're conflating two terms. PTLDS exists, in patients who had Lyme but experience post-treatment symptoms. "Chronic Lyme" is different, and is largely problematic because the folks who believe they have it tend to have never actually been exposed to Lyme in the first place. https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/chronic-lyme-disease https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/chronic-lyme-d...
pfdietz 7y ago
Well that's certainly an alarming symptom.
Kenji 7y ago
Why is nobody eradicate ticks with genetic engineering? Ticks are a species that deserves to be eradicated. The health implications are vast and they don't contribute much to the ecosystem. They're a literal plague.
emmp 7y ago
I grew up in a Lyme hotspot. Every early outdoor memory of mine involved checking for ticks afterwards. My younger brother had the bullseye as a very young child. My mother had a different very debilitating tick borne illness, Babesiosis, but was only treated for Lyme for months. I had a blood test when I was 20, and was told I was positive for Lyme. I had zero symptoms of Lyme, and had been spending most of my time living out of the region at college, though I had complained of some general fatigue. They put me on doxycycline, and I dutifully took it. I still don't know whether I actually had Lyme. My father, a chronic hypochondriac, was put on a Lyme regimen at one point too, though it was never clear exactly what symptoms he had. I'm not entirely sure the point I'm getting at with these anecdotes. Doctors in Lyme hotspots may diagnose Lyme too readily. More specifically, they may order too many blood tests, which from my naive research do not look to be especially accurate for Lyme.
Chazprime 7y ago
This isn't a joke. In New England where I live, in the early 2000's, car accidents involving moose had become so common that Vermont attempted to halve the moose population by increasing hunting permits. Today, the population in New England has been shockingly decimated by ticks... researchers are pulling upwards of ten thousand ticks off of dying moose. They've been bled dry, thanks to warmer winters and reduced tick dormancy periods.
- abledon 7y ago
  Wow, "first dominated by dinosaurs, then humans, the third age of the earth arrived in 2050, dominated by ticks"
khawkins 7y ago
Bullshit, they're not exploding. Lyme disease confirmed cases are occurring at roughly the same rate in 2017 as 2007. Look at the CDC data yourself: https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/graphs.html https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/graphs.html
- switch007 7y ago
  You can call "bullshit" by picking a random year, sure. I can pick 2010 (22,561) vs 2017 (29,513) Their data set begins at 1997 and ends in 2017 though: 1997: 12,801 2017: 29,513
  - khawkins 7y ago
    Exploding doesn't just mean increasing, it means accelerating. No one would look at that graph and say the rate is increasing. No doubt they excluded it from their article, and instead chose to cherry-pick years like you're saying, because it discredits their title.
jaequery 7y ago
This scares me.
richcollins 7y ago
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4920391/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4920391/
beenBoutIT 7y ago
Foley's wrong about California's tick problems getting worse as the climate gets hotter and drier. California's western fence lizard has a protein in its blood that kills the bacterium responsible for Lyme and shares the exact same climate requirements as the ticks. California doesn't get the tick unless the lizard is there and the combination keeps Lyme disease in check. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2013-aug-20-la-ol-lyme-disease-lizard-20130820-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2013-aug-20-la-ol-lym...
L_226 7y ago
One of my neighbours when I was growing up in Australia had apparently chronic Lyme disease, however every doctor she went to told her that there was indisputably "no Lyme disease in Australia" [0]. This went on for years. Eventually she had to go on a trip to IIRC the UK to get prescribed the relevant medication, which she smuggled back to Australia. [0] - https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/ohp-lyme-disease.htm https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Conte...
hellenawaweru 7y ago
i didn't know that tick causes lyme disease. i sometimes back had severe pain allover my body, weight loss and i thought its this disease but after several tests it was confirmed negative https://finance.uonbi.ac.ke/node/1071 https://finance.uonbi.ac.ke/node/1071

321 points by sb057 7y ago

This article blames sprawl and climate change, but neglects the connection to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center right off the coast of Lyme CT. Borrelia has been in the US for ages, but wasn't known for causing the debilitating symptoms this modern strain causes.

ceejayoz 7y ago
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/04/02/lab.257/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/04/02/lab.257/index.ht... > Moreover, a Department of Agriculture spokesperson, Sandy Miller-Hays, told the news service that -- counter to Carroll's claims -- Lyme disease was never studied at Plum Island. As for symptoms, it was described in the 1760s as "exquisite pain [in] the interior parts of the limbs", neurological symptoms in the 1920s, etc. That it took a while to recognize the cause of these things doesn't mean the disease didn't exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#History
- ColanR 7y ago
  I think that a government spokesperson should not be considered a reputable source when speaking on potential misdoings by the same government. Is there an independent source that can speak to the Plum Island claims?
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Given that it's impossible to prove a negative, the onus is on conspiracy theorists to provide evidence that Lyme research was performed there.
    - ColanR 7y ago
      15 years ago, conspiracy theorists were being asked to prove government spying. It's hard, and the coverup might leave only circumstantial evidence, but it doesn't mean its not true. Either way, if you're trying to provide a source against the point being made, it needs to be better than that one. Is there any other? Edit: I did a bit of looking into it. Tick-borne diseases were definitely studied there, which means general subject was being researched. (a bunch of pubmed studies are listed here [1], and pubmed shows in the author information that they were from Plum Island. Ignore the site if you like, just look at the pubmed articles.) The geography of the disease also fits a spread from the Plum Island facility. See the same article for a map. I obviously can't go order and read a physical book off the cuff, but it seems like the Lab 257 book by Carroll is decently reliable, as far as can be expected when making claims counter to an official government position. From wikipedia: "The review in Army Chemical Review concluded 'Lab 257 would be cautiously valuable to someone writing a history of Plum Island'". Anyway, in summary, there is enough evidence to ask a reasonable question: which puts the onus back on the government, or you, to provide credible evidence that Lyme was not developed there.
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        > The geography of the disease also fits a spread from the Plum Island facility. See the same article for a map. No, it doesn't, considering it was documented in Scotland in the 1700s. The Plum Island facility was started in 1954. > From wikipedia: "The review in Army Chemical Review concluded 'Lab 257 would be cautiously valuable to someone writing a history of Plum Island'". The actual quote is: > The review in Army Chemical Review concluded "Lab 257 would be cautiously valuable to someone writing a history of Plum Island, but is otherwise an example of fringe literature with a portrayal of almost every form of novelist style." In other words, "it gets the biographical stuff mostly right, before it goes nutty". > Anyway, in summary, there is enough evidence to ask a reasonable question: which puts the onus back on the government, or you, to provide credible evidence that Lyme was not developed there. Lyme's historical record predating the very existence of the lab is fairly conclusive proof that it wasn't developed there.
        7y ago

Willson50 7y ago

https://outline.com/CXBe5a https://outline.com/CXBe5a

nouveaux 7y ago

I've recently gotten into backpacking and learned that the most effective way of dealing with mosquitoes and ticks in nature is Permetherin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permethrin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permethrin. It is intended for clothing and not the skin. The best way to apply it is to soak your clothes and let it dry. Spray on applicators are also available. Once it is dry, it is very stable and safe. It does breakdown with UV and washes, so it will need more applications. It is also available for sale and the pre-treated clothing does last through more washes. Note: Permetherin is harmful to cats when it is wet so if you have cats at home, please read up more on it. Once it is dry, it is safe around cats.

acheron 7y ago
Yes, this. Also from what I've read just applying it to your shoes is hugely effective on its own vs ticks, with socks adding another large percentage, as the majority of ticks will jump onto your feet and climb up your legs. The rest of your clothes are worth treating too certainly, but even if it's just your feet it will be a major help.
- kaycebasques 7y ago
  Never heard of Permetherin. Thanks for the tips.
- joyjoyjoy 7y ago
  "Also from what I've read just applying it to your shoes is hugely effective on its own vs ticks, with socks adding another large percentage, as the majority of ticks will jump onto your feet and climb up your legs." This is very interesting advise. I always thought ticks drop from trees? no? I actually wear a hat sometimes in the forrest because of this. Am I stupid?
  - kaycebasques 7y ago
    I’m surprised at this misconception about ticks falling from trees. Growing up in northern California, it seems to be common knowledge among my friends and family that tall grass is where you’ve got to be careful.

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago

I read about this issue in a runners World article. Most people assume that the tics jump from trees down onto people. But that's not how they said it goes. They said that the tics which spread Lyme disease get spread onto runners from Tall Grass that people run through as you make contact with the grass they get onto you.

kaycebasques 7y ago
One hiking trick is to tuck your pants into your socks. And wear colors that make it easier to spot the ticks on your pants.
w8rbt 7y ago
I had a friend who was in the Marines and he told me once that they wore panty hose when training in areas with ticks. He said the only downside was that they can be hot in the summer time.
- utexaspunk 7y ago
  ...but is that the only downside?
megous 7y ago
That's also why they're collected/sampled by dragging a cloth over the grass/ground.

ajudson 7y ago

Are these all real cases or some psychogenic ones? I was under the impression that a lot of "chronic Lyme" cases were something else.

ceejayoz 7y ago
They're citing the CDC's numbers for confirmed cases, so I'd expect the "chronic Lyme" folks to be excluded. https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/faq/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/faq/index.html > The term “chronic Lyme disease” (CLD) has been used to describe people with different illnesses. While the term is sometimes used to describe illness in patients with Lyme disease, in many occasions it has been used to describe symptoms in people who have no evidence of a current or past infection with B. burgdorferi (Marques, 2008). Because of the confusion in how the term CLD is employed, experts in this field do not support its use.
msla 7y ago
There's no such thing as "chronic Lyme disease": https://www.fasebj.org/doi/10.1096/fj.10-167247 https://www.fasebj.org/doi/10.1096/fj.10-167247 https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/does-everybody-have-chronic-lyme-disease-does-anyone/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/does-everybody-have-chronic...
- megous 7y ago
  I didn't read the links, but I've read a lot here https://lymescience.org/ https://lymescience.org/ and I also almost fell for "chronic Lyme" few years ago. There's something seriously unsettling around websites/online communities dedicated to chronic Lyme. From Lyme friendly doctors, to people doing and interpreting their own tests, to people ascribing all kind of ailments to this "condition", etc.
  - ajudson 7y ago
    If you want to go down another rabbit hole, read about Morgellons
    - 7y ago

joyjoyjoy 7y ago

Don't know about US products. But in Europe, this is one of the few ones guaranteed to work: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anti-Brumm-Forte-150-ml/dp/B006ZL4HNY https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anti-Brumm-Forte-150-ml/dp/B006ZL4H...

curtis3389 7y ago
OFF! Deep Woods https://www.amazon.com/OFF-Deep-Woods-Insect-Repellent/dp/B019ZTXU2G https://www.amazon.com/OFF-Deep-Woods-Insect-Repellent/dp/B0...
Aloisius 7y ago
Really, anything with DEET.

kaycebasques 7y ago

I remember standing in line at a coffee shop, after walking some dogs on a nature trail. I felt a sharp pain on my hip flexor and knew right away it was a tick bite, even though I had never had one before. I rushed into the bathroom and lo and behold, it was a tick. In a panic I asked all the women in the coffee shop if they had tweezers. They must have thought I had a screw loose. None of them did so I rushed home to pull it off. I kid you not, as I pulled it, I heard its jaws (or whatever) snap. P.S. you don’t need to burn them unless they’ve already burrowed.

narag 7y ago
Oil. Edit: I had a scary experience. After rain I was hunting in the woods with bushes a metre tall, shotgut over the head to avoid accidents. Then a snake hiss ahead, tried to turn right, another snake hiss that way, same to left and... same back. I panicked and got out of the bushes as fast as I could, I was panting. Then I noticed I was covered by hundreds of ticks. I shouted and my father came alarmed. He managed to brush all of them except one that I found at home. It took my mother about ten seconds to take it off with olive oil.
- kaycebasques 7y ago
  So you just rub olive oil on it?
  - narag 7y ago
    Yes. We used some chemical powders for the dogs. I thought the same was going to be used for me too but, to my surprise the oil was very effective. The bug seemed to dislike it as much as I disliked the bug. It loosened the grip very quickly.
  - refurb 7y ago
    My understanding is removal by gripping the mouth parts is the only safe way to remove a tick. Coating them in oil blocks their oxygen exchange, so they release, but sometimes they vomit back into the bit when they do.

4restm 7y ago

The advice we were given in my veterinary entomology course was to tweeze as close as you could from the base and pull perpendicularly to the skin. You shouldnt yank it, more along the lines of the force you'd use to open a zipper.

yread 7y ago
I've had 100+ ticks always removed them using wet cloth with a tiny bit of (solid) soap turning counter-clockwise. Somehow clockwise never worked for me, counter-clockwise it was out after the 2nd rotation. We had both lyme and tick-borne encephalitis in the family, not too bad if caught early.

tolmasky 7y ago

We actually have a vaccine for Lyme disease that was pulled due to the Antivax hysteria. I believe an article was posted here on Hacker News before, but here is a link to one otherwise: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/science-and-health/2018/5/7/17314716/lyme-disease-vaccine-history-effectiveness https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/science-and-health/2018/5/7... We now live in a world where you can vaccinate your dog for Lyme disease but not yourself.

cmrdporcupine 7y ago
We don't vaccinate dogs for lyme disease. We give them a topical or oral systemic insecticide that permeates their skin and bloodstream so as to kill ticks on contact. Dogs have short, and I guess less valuable, lives. So this is considered an acceptable practice for prevention. And there are many many dogs with severe reactions to these medications, including some fatalities. Would you really want to do that to yourself?
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  https://www.zoetisus.com/products/dogs/vanguard-crlyme/index.aspx https://www.zoetisus.com/products/dogs/vanguard-crlyme/index... > For vaccination of healthy dogs 8 weeks of age or older as an aid in the prevention of clinical disease and subclinical arthritis associated with Borrelia burgdorferi.
jseliger 7y ago
The key moment in the original article: Lyme and other tick-borne diseases have yet to receive anything like that sort of attention. In 1998, the Food and Drug Administration approved a Lyme disease vaccine called Lymerix, administered in a three-injection cycle, that reduced infections in adults by nearly 80%. But it was discontinued three years later after sales bottomed out, due in large part to public fears driven by negative news reports over its side effects (most notably arthritis) and a class-action lawsuit whose claims were debunked. It was an early victory for the anti-vaccine movement, which gained momentum thanks to a now-retracted study linking autism to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine that was released the same year as Lymerix. “That actually scared me,” says Joyce Sakamoto, an entomologist at the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University who has researched public engagement strategies to improve tick-borne disease literacy. “That was a case where the anti-vax community was able to effectively kill something entirely without a lot of scientific evidence.” Damned depressing.

TimTheTinker 7y ago

Shout-out to Nicholas Zachas (@slicknet, https://humanwhocodes.com https://humanwhocodes.com). Thanks for the great JavaScript books, and praying you feel better!

hinkley 7y ago
CTRL-F Nicholas Yeah, he's mentioned once or twice that his is so bad that he can't even write reliably, let alone do speaking gigs or consulting work. Stuff like this scares the shit out of me.

robolange 7y ago

My father nearly died of [what we believe to be] Lyme disease. A few years ago he started getting awful bouts of pain all over his body. He couldn't eat, was losing weight, was losing muscle mass fast. It got the the point where he was using a walker (he was less than 60 years old at the time) and could barely lift a 5 pound weight. He went to a bunch of different doctors, had all kinds of scans run, and only kept getting worse. At one point my mother noticed that every test any doctor gave for Lyme disease came back "inconclusive". She pointed out to one of the doctors, who said that it didn't mean anything as apparently the test is not very reliable. Finally, they found a doctor who prescribed medication to treat Lyme disease without a definitive test because apparently there was a low risk of side effects. Within a couple of weeks of starting the medication, my father was visibly better, within a few months he was basically back to normal, and is basically fully recovered now. (Sorry folks, I don't know any of the specific drugs or medical terminology.) We have no idea how or when he got infected. As far as he knows, he never had a bullseye rash, although apparently that doesn't always happen. Now I slather myself in DEET whenever I go into a an even semi-woodsy environment.

Assossa 7y ago
I would greatly appreciate it if you could find the name of that medication. My sister has Lyme Disease and is still suffering health effects from it despite various treatments.
- koolba 7y ago
  The treatment for Lyme is via antibiotics but I think it’s only effective if it’s relatively early on in the course of the disease (on the order of weeks or months). Caught early it’s curable. One of the issues though is symptoms are not caught early on as they’re so general and by the time treatment starts the disease has spread and already caused the major damage.
- spacebatsghost 7y ago
  Most non-Lyme Literate Medical doctors prescribe Doxycyclin. If you are seeing a Lyme Literate Medical doctor they'll put you on a cocktail (often Clarithromycin, Doxy, Alinia (anti-parasitic), and a few others. This also depends if you have co-infections or not.

llamataboot 7y ago

I may or may not have had chronic lyme disease. I definitely had many many ticks. (Never cared about em, just pulled them off). And I definitely was sick for over a decade. And I definitely tested positive on the Western Blot multiple times. (And chronic lyme is definitely a bit of a catch-all diagnosis for a host of auto-immune stuff we don't quite understand yet) It was awful, something I wouldn't wish on anyone. If you do get a deer tick (they are the small ones, not the giant gross ones) save it, there are a number of places you can send it for peace of mind that it was not infected. Also consider brief antibiotic prophylaxis: 1-3 doses of doxycycline are often recommended. I'm not in favor of anti-biotic overuse, but if lyme can turn into chronic lyme and that was indeed what I dealt with for 10 years of pain and crushing fatigue, then you want to avoid it. (edit: typos)

cogman10 7y ago
Just a note, Chronic lyme disease isn't really a thing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4477530/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4477530/ This isn't to say you haven't been dealing with a lot of garbage, just that you might need to seek different medical care if your doctors are telling you that you have chronic lyme disease.
- archarios 7y ago
  Well they noted that "chronic lyme" is used as a catch all for a variety of issues. If this person is being told they have chronic lyme, they are already seeing an alternative doctor of some sort and are most likely very aware of what you're saying. Traditional "western" doctors won't really recognize chronic lyme as a thing. There are a lot of people out there who are experiencing chronic fatigue issues and other problems that our medical system doesn't really have answers for. A lot of those people end up seeking alternative solutions if they can afford it because they need SOMETHING.
- llamataboot 7y ago
  I appreciate your concern. I certainly had something. It certainly sucked. I certainly shared a lot of symptoms and remission factors with other people who identified as having chronic lyme. I certainly had Lyme at some point in my past. I agree that "alternative medicine" can be a hotbed of pseudo-science and sketchy treatment, but I also think that in terms of a lot of these chronic auto-immune related conditions, our evidence base is still pretty small and there's a lot we don't know. And the dominant Western medical system tends to do much better with acute conditions with a clear etiology of cause/effect than nebulous clusters of symptoms (see also, all of mental health). My hunch is that chronic lyme, just like for example chronic fatigue that lasts for years after Epstein-Barr, is some sort of auto-immune condition triggered by the initial infection, even if the initial infection is gone. With Lyme it is a little more complicated because there are spirochetes involved. I assure you I've probably read everything that the NIH has put out about Lyme all the way to some of the wackiest all caps blinking sketchy sell-me-vitamin treatment websites out there, as well as chronic fatigue (I spent the first 7 of those years considering it CFIDS). It nearly destroyed all of my 20s. Treat prophylatically or not, but try not to get Lyme, that's all I'm saying.

staunch 7y ago

I was bitten by little nymph/larval (not sure which) ticks on Bay Trail in Mountain View, CA. Had to stop riding my bicycle there (which I absolutely loved) because I just can't afford to be debilitated by Lyme's disease. I've become violently genocidal towards these little bloodsuckers. If it was up to me, I'd wipe them out with almost any means, and at whatever cost ;-) After looking into the anti-tick options I actually started fantasizing about some kind of super lightweight "earth suit" (like an astronaut's space suit). Something that you could put on, fully seal yourself in, and then just enjoy the outdoors with reckless abandon. I know it sounds a bit crazy but I think it could potentially be a transformative way of exploring the outdoors. I love the idea of being rattlesnake/tick/spider/thorn-proof. I could sleep outdoors in the middle of fields, under trees, in puddles, etc.

jerkstate 7y ago
FWIW, lyme disease is exceedingly rare on the west coast..
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- staunch 7y ago
  Yes, but there are other infectious diseases spread by ticks. And most importantly, I really don't want to be one of the unlucky few! https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/datasurveillance/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/datasurveillance/index.html
flurdy 7y ago
You could wear a wet suit, taped with some gaffer tape, thick balaclava, etc. It might not stop leaches but will reduce the chance of ticks and most other bites. But you would also sweat a lot and generally be quite uncomfortable. Tradeoffs... Though I am nearly there when I go for walks in mosquito country. Big hat, with netting all around, socks half way up my legs, trousers stuck well inside them... I do really hate ticks. Ruins summers for me.

cmrdporcupine 7y ago

Explosion of deer and rodent populations is definitely not helping. We were walking with our dog at a local natural area we frequent. A deer crossed the path and we all stopped to take photos, and then moved on. That day we found ticks all over our dog. The deer are literally swimming in them. Both rodents and deer are part of the lifecycle of the tick. Suppressing deer populations and encouraging red foxes and other rodent predators would have to help.

rb808 7y ago
Most people still see deer as cute, but its starting to change. When I see deer I just see disease carrying vermin. Deer populations have exploded. I wish they were systematically culled. Time talked about this a while back, I havent seen anything since. https://time.com/709/americas-pest-problem-its-time-to-cull-the-herd/ https://time.com/709/americas-pest-problem-its-time-to-cull-... https://vet.uga.edu/population_health_files/scwds-150wtdeer507080-2012.jpg https://vet.uga.edu/population_health_files/scwds-150wtdeer5...
- gerbilly 7y ago
  I know what you mean. However we might not be awash in deer if we hadn't first 'culled' all the predators. Wolves for example.¹ 1: http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/AppalFor/Readings/leopold.pdf http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/AppalFor/Readings/leopold.pdf
  - Tharkun 7y ago
    The wolf population is slowly increasing in western europe. Here's some wolf news for those who enjoy that sort of thing, in Dutch: http://www.welkomwolf.be/node/238 http://www.welkomwolf.be/node/238
    - rb808 7y ago
      I'd love wolves roaming around my local forest, but my neighbors with pets and local farmers wouldn't let it happen.

wazoox 7y ago

I've got ticks a few times a year just running in the woods (the last one was Saturday). During holidays in the Pyrenees with my family, we had to scan our bodies for ticks every day, and every day we found several -- up to a dozen -- on each of us. Now the article is very light on the main question: why did ticks multiply that much recently?

bubblewrap 7y ago
Could be global warming, or at least warm winters (whether due to global warming or not).
- iamthepieman 7y ago
  it probably is global warming but of course that actually means many many interacting effects. In no particular order 1. Different weather patterns caused by El Nino(warm pacific equatorial temperatures resulting in increased precipitation) along with similar weather patterns in other areas of the world. This is especially noticeable during the winter with increased snow fall providing denser snowpack and a more protected subnivean zone for one of ticks primary hosts, white footed and field mice. Warm weather in general also helps. Ticks are not greatly affected by cold weather but their hosts are and when there are more hosts, there are more ticks. 2. Increased temperatures has a complex affect on tick habitat. While a rise in temperature can increase forest biomass and increase growth rates of transitioning forest, it decreases biomass at the forest edge which is a place where low lying scrub grows the most and provides ideal "questing"[0] habitat for ticks. So that seems like wash but it's actually more complex even that that. 3. This one is more Anthropocene than specifically climate related. Many prime tick hosts have adapted well to human crowded space including deer, mice and small mammals. Their predators such as wolves, foxes, and birds of prey have not fared as well. 4. Related to 3 above, sprawl puts people in closer proximity to habitats once favored by tick hosts so there may be a factor where ticks are not increasing so much as human/tick interaction is. [0]https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/life_cycle_and_hosts.html https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/life_cycle_and_hosts.html search for questing
HarryHirsch 7y ago

newswriter99 7y ago

Jack MacReady: It's obvious the bastard's got lyme disease! Bill Pardy: What? Jack MacReady: Lyme disease. You touch some deer feces, and then you... eat a sandwich without washin' your hands. You got your lyme disease! Bill Pardy: And that makes you look like a squid?

chris72205 7y ago

Even if there's only one mention of it in the article, I'm glad they included it: alpha-gal syndrome. Not a ton of people seem to know about it and yet I continue to meet more and more people that are affected by it. For those unaware, it causes a person to develop an allergy to red meat and there's currently no treatment for it other than to wait. Granted, it's not as serious as Lyme Disease, I hope it gets to be well known so there's increased chances of finding a cure for it.

_sword 7y ago
My friend's brother was bitten by a lone star tick on Long Island and since has developed that syndrome. It's been pretty funny trying to figure out what we can cook for him at our BBQ's since apparently the meats he's able to eat now are essentially chicken, fish, duck, and human.

baxtr 7y ago

When we go hiking, we won’t leave the house without a tick card or something similar, e.g tick squeezers. When we get back we scan everyone from head to toe for ticks. At least Lyme disease can be prevented quite successfully if the tick is removed within the first 24 hours. https://www.cdc.gov/features/lymedisease/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/features/lymedisease/index.html

biohax2015 7y ago

Lyme disease is awful, and ticks are truly evil creatures. The intellectual disabilities it causes are especially scary to me as a knowledge worker. It's about time we start treating this as the public health crisis that it is and targeting concerted efforts towards eradicating ticks.

erentz 7y ago

Unfortunately there’s no way to know that one currently has Lyme disease unless the symptoms are close in time to a tick bite. Treatment is with antibiotics, usually doctors will use a combination of two types of antibiotics (eg doxycycline and cefdinir) for which there is some research suggesting better results. In rare cases IV antibiotics may be required, especially if evidence of cardiac or neurological involvement. Duration of treatment is for 1 to 4 months. There’s next to no evidence you should go longer than that. After treatment patients may also need immune modulation treatment due to autoimmune reaction to the infection. High dose ivig in serious cases. Some patients also find benefit using low dose naltrexone for this though it can have a very nasty side effect of causing depression so watch yourself using it. Almost everything else is a scam. And unfortunately with Lyme, while the patients are clearly very sick, there are an aweful lot of quacks ready to part them with their cash so be weary. It’s important to know there are other illnesses that people need to rule out too, check for dysautonomia, POTS, ME/CFS, MS, and aaSFPN for example.

voidlogic 7y ago
>Unfortunately there’s no way to know that one currently has Lyme disease unless the symptoms are close in time to a tick bite. I thought you could test for bacterial nuclear material in the blood? Edit found it: Its a PCR Assay: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26469112 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26469112
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Medicalidiot 7y ago
Why do you say cefdinir as the second antibiotic? It's not recommended in uptodate.
hnzix 7y ago
Any advice on POTS treatment avenues? There seems to be poor GP knowledge around the condition, apart from giving fluids via a port to reduce symptoms.

toss1 7y ago

Might be time for a CRISPR Gene Drive to eradicate ticks in some zones. Plausibly more critical than mosquitoes. Obviously we need to be very careful about trying to rebalance what we've put out of balance, and study to be sure that we are not eliminating a critical food source for other links in the food web. https://psmag.com/magazine/deleting-a-species-genetically-engineering-an-extinction https://psmag.com/magazine/deleting-a-species-genetically-en...

stupidboy 7y ago

Surprised to see Lyme disease on HN, since bringing affordable DNA testing for B. burgdorferi & other pathogens to the public is the startup I've been working on since 2014. Relevant Plug: https://www.tickcheck.com/ https://www.tickcheck.com/ As mentioned in other comments, serological tests fall short in various ways (accuracy, time). If you keep the tick that bit you, we can test it for the presence Lyme, and several other pathogens. If negative, we can effectively rule out much of the risk. Super quick & accurate, too.

dheera 7y ago
Interesting. I got bit by 2 blacklegged ticks in the past 3 months but I couldn't find any free tick tests, so I never had them tested. Both were within a few hours so I assumed based on CDC advice that I was still in the green zone. It sounds like one of those things that health insurance companies would be out of their minds to not cover. Separately: Bay Area hikers beware -- change your clothes immediately after getting home, do complete body checks after hiking -- ideally, shower immediately.
- stupidboy 7y ago
  We can't get reimbursed by health insurance because we aren't a medical facility, but rather a DNA lab. I'm sure in some regard, it's a downside. However, it does force us to compete intensely on price, value & service. And I'm happy with that because consumers win.
  - dheera 7y ago
    When the cost of prevention is higher than the cost of treatment, you know the system is truly messed up. IMO health insurance should be paying for everything preventative. It's in their financial interest to stop fretting about what kind of lab you are, encourage early diagnosis and reduce long-term medical costs.
    - jagannathtech 7y ago
      'reduce long-term medical costs' the pharma companies won't be happy with that

hanniabu 7y ago

Maybe it's wrong, but I'm happy that cases are exploding because that (hopefully) means there will be more research into better treatments and preventions.

lkrubner 7y ago

I was bit by a tick and I got sick. No doctor could figure out what was wrong. I tested negative for Lyme. I took antibiotics (Biaxin) and 3 months later I was fine. I stopped taking antibiotics. Within 2 months I was sick again. I took Biaxin for 6 months. I felt great. I stopped antibiotics. Within 2 months I was sick again. I took Biaxin for a year. I felt great. I stopped taking antibiotics. Within 2 months I was sick again. This time, the symptoms were completely different. I assumed it was a new illness. Doctors were mystified. One said it was psychosomatic. I was off antibiotics for more than 6 months. I got sicker and sicker. I was in bad shape when I decided this illness was the same as the previous illness. I took a combination of Cipro and Zithromax for 1 year. I got better. Then I stopped. I got sick again. I was eager to get back to my career so I tried a few antibiotics that might be light, cheap, easy and sustainable. A friend of mine, as a teenager, had acne and the doctors had them on antibiotics for 4 years to deal with the acne. They’d taken something similar to doxycycline. I tried it but it did nothing for me. I tried hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which gave me great energy but did not cure me. Then I tried Amoxicillin. That worked great. I took that for 11 years. Then I quit and got sick again. I went back to Biaxin, and took that for another 2 years. My business was going well so I could not focus on my health. I was busy. The simplest thing was to take antibiotics, which kept me healthy so I could focus on work. So long as I took antibiotics the illness kept its distance. In that sense, the illness was similar to leprosy — I could live a normal life but only if I took antibiotics every day. But I was irritated with my business partner (I’ve written about that elsewhere). So I sold my share of the business. Now I had time to focus on my health. What had I not yet tried? What about fasting? I went 2 weeks without food. I took antibiotics the first week but not the second. I felt sick. The fast ended. I had a vegetarian meal. I fell asleep. I woke up the next day and had a large vegetarian meal. That night I felt funny. The feeling was similar to that moment, if you have a flu, when the fever breaks. With a flu, you get sicker and sicker till a moment the fever breaks and then you know that your immune system has kicked in. That was exactly the feeling that I had then. I have not taken any antibiotics since that fast, and I’ve been blessed with excellent health.

rb808 7y ago
The problem is that Lyme isn't the only tick borne disease. There are a bunch and some speculate there are more undetected ones. When someone has "chronic lyme" maybe they have some other prion that no one has diagnosed yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-borne_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-borne_disease

switch007 7y ago

A few years ago I got bitten by something after being close to a deer but never saw any kind of insect. I had a large inflamed area (one circle IIRC) for a while, experienced mild flu symptoms for a few weeks, and then some wrist pains a few weeks after that. Doctor wouldn't give me antibiotics. I haven't had any physical symptoms since, but I'm pretty sure my mood and cognitive ability has taken a hit. There are of course so many factors not controlled for, but it's always at the back of my mind.

brainflake 7y ago

It's too bad LYMErix was taken off the market due to anti-vaccine marketing in the 90s... https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/7/17314716/lyme-disease-vaccine-history-effectiveness https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/7/17314716/lym... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/

castratikron 7y ago
Surprised this isn't well known. I found out on my own a few months ago and nobody I've talked to about it since knew that this was available. I would definitely pay money for this if they brought it back. Probably up to hundreds of dollars.
foobiekr 7y ago
If you pay close attention to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/ you’ll note that a portion of the population does appear to have a genotype that makes people susceptible to arthritis which is exactly the symptoms that the initial negative response to Lymerix claimed. I wish there was a Lyme vaccine but imho the case of Lymerix is closer to Rotashield than an innocent victim of anti-vaxxers.

agumonkey 7y ago

Interviewee is wrong about movies. They exist and they're high grade Z movies.

coopernewby 7y ago

This new book, Bitten, describes some of the mystery surrounding the origins of the disease in the US in the 1960s. https://www.amazon.com/Bitten-History-Disease-Biological-Weapons/dp/006289627X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1H1E4KW1SW0I1&keywords=bitten+kris+newby&qid=1561500221&s=gateway&sprefix=bitten%2Caps%2C402&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Bitten-History-Disease-Biological-Wea...

pastor_elm 7y ago

The CDC says post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome or 'chronic lyme' doesn't exist. While i am suspicious of this claim, I know people who say they have it, and have subjected themselves to every treatment under the sun without any success.

ceejayoz 7y ago
> The CDC says post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome or 'chronic lyme' doesn't exist. You're conflating two terms. PTLDS exists, in patients who had Lyme but experience post-treatment symptoms. "Chronic Lyme" is different, and is largely problematic because the folks who believe they have it tend to have never actually been exposed to Lyme in the first place. https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/chronic-lyme-disease https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/chronic-lyme-d...

pfdietz 7y ago

Well that's certainly an alarming symptom.

Kenji 7y ago

Why is nobody eradicate ticks with genetic engineering? Ticks are a species that deserves to be eradicated. The health implications are vast and they don't contribute much to the ecosystem. They're a literal plague.

emmp 7y ago

I grew up in a Lyme hotspot. Every early outdoor memory of mine involved checking for ticks afterwards. My younger brother had the bullseye as a very young child. My mother had a different very debilitating tick borne illness, Babesiosis, but was only treated for Lyme for months. I had a blood test when I was 20, and was told I was positive for Lyme. I had zero symptoms of Lyme, and had been spending most of my time living out of the region at college, though I had complained of some general fatigue. They put me on doxycycline, and I dutifully took it. I still don't know whether I actually had Lyme. My father, a chronic hypochondriac, was put on a Lyme regimen at one point too, though it was never clear exactly what symptoms he had. I'm not entirely sure the point I'm getting at with these anecdotes. Doctors in Lyme hotspots may diagnose Lyme too readily. More specifically, they may order too many blood tests, which from my naive research do not look to be especially accurate for Lyme.

Chazprime 7y ago

This isn't a joke. In New England where I live, in the early 2000's, car accidents involving moose had become so common that Vermont attempted to halve the moose population by increasing hunting permits. Today, the population in New England has been shockingly decimated by ticks... researchers are pulling upwards of ten thousand ticks off of dying moose. They've been bled dry, thanks to warmer winters and reduced tick dormancy periods.

abledon 7y ago
Wow, "first dominated by dinosaurs, then humans, the third age of the earth arrived in 2050, dominated by ticks"

khawkins 7y ago

Bullshit, they're not exploding. Lyme disease confirmed cases are occurring at roughly the same rate in 2017 as 2007. Look at the CDC data yourself: https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/graphs.html https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/graphs.html

switch007 7y ago
You can call "bullshit" by picking a random year, sure. I can pick 2010 (22,561) vs 2017 (29,513) Their data set begins at 1997 and ends in 2017 though: 1997: 12,801 2017: 29,513
- khawkins 7y ago
  Exploding doesn't just mean increasing, it means accelerating. No one would look at that graph and say the rate is increasing. No doubt they excluded it from their article, and instead chose to cherry-pick years like you're saying, because it discredits their title.

jaequery 7y ago

This scares me.

richcollins 7y ago

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4920391/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4920391/

beenBoutIT 7y ago

Foley's wrong about California's tick problems getting worse as the climate gets hotter and drier. California's western fence lizard has a protein in its blood that kills the bacterium responsible for Lyme and shares the exact same climate requirements as the ticks. California doesn't get the tick unless the lizard is there and the combination keeps Lyme disease in check. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2013-aug-20-la-ol-lyme-disease-lizard-20130820-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2013-aug-20-la-ol-lym...

L_226 7y ago

One of my neighbours when I was growing up in Australia had apparently chronic Lyme disease, however every doctor she went to told her that there was indisputably "no Lyme disease in Australia" [0]. This went on for years. Eventually she had to go on a trip to IIRC the UK to get prescribed the relevant medication, which she smuggled back to Australia. [0] - https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/ohp-lyme-disease.htm https://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Conte...

hellenawaweru 7y ago

i didn't know that tick causes lyme disease. i sometimes back had severe pain allover my body, weight loss and i thought its this disease but after several tests it was confirmed negative https://finance.uonbi.ac.ke/node/1071 https://finance.uonbi.ac.ke/node/1071