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Time to Get Serious about Tick-Borne Diseases
- docker_up 7y agoAside from Lyme disease, I'm also personally concerned about Chronic Wasting Disease. We have deer on our property all the time and all they do is shit and piss everywhere. This appears to be the deer-form of Mad Cow Disease and apparently the prions in the feces can be spread even after it goes into the ground and in the plants that grow from it afterwards.
- evandev 7y agoThere is no case of a human contracting CWD. While CWD can be an issue for the local deer population, it is not something to be worried about. Avoid eating brains, spinal cords, and lymph nodes of deer as a precaution.
- edelweisser 7y agoIn the Alps you can't even go into a mid altitude wood without finding a tick or 2 walking on your dog. Hiking over 1600m is the only way to avoid them. I'm lucky to have a dog with white fur, so I can see them before they bite but it's a constant battle. I wonder: 1. if we always had them. Probably not, I can't remember seeing that many in my childhood 2. if there's a way to get rid of those or we're forced to have this problem forever. Has anyone here ever thought of building an army of tick-detector robots powered by solar panels that can go around and grab as many ticks as possible?
- tim58 7y ago> Has anyone here ever thought of building an army of tick-detector robots powered by solar panels that can go around and grab as many ticks as possible? This reminds me of mosquito killing ideas my friends and I would come up with when camping in the south.
- ghaff 7y ago>if we always had them. Probably not, I can't remember seeing that many in my childhood Depends where. I'm talking dog ticks, not deer ticks, but growing up in Pennsylvania both the dogs and us kids would get covered with them (not exaggerating--talking two-digit numbers) in the meadow or woods.
- i80and 7y agoSo this is actually plausible: the "nice" thing about ticks is that in their questing behavior, they'll grab onto anything that brushes their outstretched arms. Even if it's just permethrin-soaked cloth. https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/techflash/2015/03/tick-killing-robot-inventors-open-business-office.html https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/techflash/2015/03/... https://www.wdbj7.com/content/news/VMI-built-robot-will-hunt-ticks-in-Texas-414516493.html https://www.wdbj7.com/content/news/VMI-built-robot-will-hunt...
- eigenloss 7y ago1. Yes, Otzi had Lyme: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1701 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1701. However, it's possible tick populations were lower 50-100 years ago. 2. Yes. The main issue is that nobody wants to pay for the robots, although they're extremely effective: https://www.cnet.com/news/military-robot-deploys-co2-to-lure-ticks-to-their-doom/ https://www.cnet.com/news/military-robot-deploys-co2-to-lure..., https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1594003/?arnumber=1594003 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1594003/?arnumber=15940...
- tom_mellior 7y ago> 1. if we always had them. Probably not, I can't remember seeing that many in my childhood Growing up in Austria we regularly got shots for tick-borne encephalitis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-borne_encephalitis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-borne_encephalitis). Ticks not only existed but have been known to be problematic for quite some time.
- jph 7y agoLyme has a great young hacker: there's a kid who got Lyme, and she learned how to build an app, connect doctors, start a foundation, and create a self-reporting network of hikers, campers, and outdoors people. Very inspiring! https://ticktracker.com/ https://ticktracker.com/ https://livlymefoundation.org/ https://livlymefoundation.org/
- cascom 7y agoWhile the goal seems laudable not sure I follow the purpose of the app. Is it to track ticks in areas where people don’t expect them? Where I grew up you’d be reporting them every other day
- afterburner 7y agoI imagine so, since the affected areas are expanding.
- NikolaNovak 7y agoHmmm; Is the Scientific American's "Observations" section equivalent to newspapers' "Opinions" or "Editorial"? Because while I agree with overall message ("Let's get serious about battling ticks and diseases they spread"), there is a strange mix of scientific/data-based; political/opinion-based; and just plain emotional imploring. It brings up the highly controversial Chronic Lyme topic right front and centre, but then attempts to steer itself ambiguously away from it (essentially, "Whatever the case, we need to fight it"). Can the author really be unaware of the immediate guard that will go up on every side of that thorny issue?
- Jgrubb 7y ago> The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
- Japhy_Ryder 7y agoI agree. It wasn't a particularly well-written piece. The thesis? "Let's get serious!" Ok. How?
- tomxor 7y agoI agree too, even though I would like to see more focus on lyme... I wish they gave more convincing evidence of it being a serious yet comparably neglected disease - they compared to zika and west nile but still don't give a good picture of where it sits on the world stage of infectious diseases.
- eigenloss 7y agoFor one thing, more funding would help. >In 2017, mosquito-borne West Nile virus, which currently infects about 2,000 people annually in the U.S. received $42 million in support from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Lyme disease, with 20 times the number of reported cases, got half as much, a figure that has changed little in a decade. Doubling allocations for Lyme research and prevention to $50 million doesn't seem like an unreasonable or overcomplicated request. Congress allocated over a billion dollars for Zika [1] - a disease that something like 10 Americans ever had. How does it make sense that a disease actively affecting 400,000 Americans each year is allocated effectively $0 by the same Congress? [1] https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/28/senate-approves-zika-funding/ https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/28/senate-approves-zika-fun...
- mrpopo 7y agoRelated : Accelerated phenology of blacklegged ticks under climate warming (ticks can survive in more areas and breed faster) https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2013.0556?/= https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201... Ticks (and tick-borne diseases) will become widespread as the world is warming.
- cascom 7y agoComing from a place with an endemic Lyme disease problem, I whole heartedly agree with the thrust of the article. I’d add however that in addition to funding and research into tick-borne diseases, there needs to be significant research and funding directed at reducing tick populations in an environmentally safe manner (current methods mostly involve spraying your lawn with chemicals, or applying permethrin to rodents and deer in some ridiculous fashion)
- pcmaffey 7y agoAgreed. I vote to reintroduce wolves.
- arippberger 7y agoThis. Reduce the ticks' food supply.
- slowmovintarget 7y agoOr some other means of controlling deer populations, like, say, hunting.
- lostdog 7y agoLike mosquitos, we could create a gene drive for these tick species and eliminate them.
- gleapsite 7y agoOpossums and guinea fowl are both great at finding and eating large volumes of ticks.
- rapjr9 7y agoThere is a fungus that is approved to control ticks called Met52: https://www.novozymes.com/en/advance-your-business/agriculture/crop-production/crop-production-met52 https://www.novozymes.com/en/advance-your-business/agricultu... Novozymes took it off the market for tick control for some unknown reason a year or so ago, though it still seems to be available for aphid control. I had some applied to my yard a year ago, haven't seen any ticks since then, however I also eliminated places that mice nest in and had a lot of brush cleared. Been applying Damminex tubes as well.
- jcoby 7y agoLyme disease is no joke. My neighbor's son found out he had Lyme after being mis-diagnosed with (I think) MS. He was losing motor function, one eye started to go blind, and he was chronically tired. He made a full recovery after being diagnosed but that was several years taken from a person in their early 20s. I believe I had some sort of tick-borne bacterial illness as well. I felt a scratch on my ankle and found a small tick. I didn't think anything about it and threw it in the toilet. A few days later I started losing concentration, almost feeling out of body. I'd find myself not remembering what I was doing or how I got there. I couldn't read. I would stop mid conversation unable to remember what I was saying. After a week I went to the doctor and Lyme came back negative. Another week passed and he gave me an antibiotic and it cleared up in a few days. It may have been psychosomatic but I have never experienced anything like it before or since. The mark on my ankle has taken almost three years to heal.
- lesiva 7y agoDo you remember what you were given? Your description sounds exactly like something I've been dealing with on and off for a few years now. I'm actually surprised to hear such an accurate description from someone else, as my Googling has turned up very few matches so far.
- jcoby 7y agoI do not. It was one of the generic broad-spectrum antibiotics. One of those "take two then take one daily" if I remember correctly. The doctor I went to was equally perplexed. He basically said "you never go to the doctor but you're here. I don't think you have lyme but I don't know what you have. I'll give you an antibiotic and see if it helps."
- projektfu 7y agoLyme is essentially the poster child for an emerging disease related to climate change and human activity. It's an old organism in an ancient tick that had a happy lifecycle of tick-mouse-tick-mouse-tick-deer-tick. Humans took the forest and the predators out of the picture and now the ticks and the deer proliferate at hugely increased rates, and now we're part of the lifecycle of this tick and the Borrelia organism.
- lonelappde 7y agoAre deer much more dense than in the past? And as bad as Lyme is, if we kept predators like wolves in the civilization-adjacent forests, would it be better or worse --- today's Lyme rate vs the counterfactual wolf attack rate if they stayed?
- word-reader 7y agoYes, big time, because their natural predators have been reduced along with reduced hunting. See [1] for more details about the deer issue in New York. The tick population in the Northeast is absolutely insane. I went camping in one of the "overabundance" areas in that link and killed no less than 10 ticks crawling on me and ripped another 5 or so out of my skin in about a 24-hour period. Compare this to a similar (well-hunted) forest in Texas where I've spent 5-10 days and seen approximately 3 ticks and been bitten once. [1]https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/104911.html https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/104911.html
- projektfu 7y agoI think it is hard to know before the appearance of people who might count, but the loss of the forest means that the deer are browsing suburban areas more and the ticks are becoming more prevalent. Clearly there are no longer any wolves or cougars in the Northeast and that affects predation. I'm not sure the counterfactual is really relevant. I'm just saying Lyme is the poster child for this kind of problem. My preference would be for more risk from wolves and more diverse ecology, with less suburbia and more forest. If your preference is for whatever causes the least number of deaths then you're going to have to also integrate driving, pollution, carcinogens, etc., into your model.
- lymeeducator 7y agoThe testing and treatment of tick borne pathogens is a fine line between politics, science and empathy is because many people have been treated poorly by the medical industry. The majority of the symptoms are ignored by physicians or misdiagnosed. In many cases, co-infections or existing immuno-suppressive conditions are ignored by physicians. That's happened to a number of people I know. It is very common for most practitioners to be ignorant of: HLA DR gene types (can accumulate metals, mycotoxins, lyme toxins, etc), the nature of the Lyme bacteria strains: spirochtte (reproductive, doxycycline susceptible), round bound starvation form (resistant to most antiobiotics), and the nature of biofilm colonies (antibiotic resistant) that exist in nature and our bodies. Furthermore, most physicians do not know what labs and tests to apply to a patient: Igenex and Galaxy labs for Lyme, Bartonella, Babesia, etc testing; c3a, c4a, tgf-b1, mmp-9, inflammation markers. In short, each human phenotype, genetic expression, and immune context are all highly unique ... which means that every case is different. Inflammation from our immune response is the primary driver of symptoms and is very, very often mis-diagnosed as something else like MS or dementia (happened to a number of people I know). We need a lot more data to finally help educate physicians and bring the vast majority them out of the stone age. We need to educate everyone on complex systems, nutrition, and biology instead of just authority.
- ep103 7y agoSounds like a classic medical business opportunity for an all-in-one testing device sold to doctor's offices in high-lyme areas
- chr1 7y agoCan gene drive be used against ticks? Mosquitos get many defenders who claim they are important as food for other species, but even that argument can't be used against eliminating ticks.
- jamisteven 7y agoBeing someone who has this disease, I can say its much worse than even this article depicts. I was self-diagnosed after seeing over 10 doctors. First was told ahh its Lupus! Then it was certainly some kind of STD, then Rheumatoid Arthritis, then Gout, then reactive arthritis, it wasnt until I looked at my spreadsheet I had kept to look for commonalities that I noticed every one of them said they were "75% sure it wasnt Lymes". I immediately went to anylabtestnow and had a few tests done for common forms of borellia infection and took the results to my rheumatologist. You would think thats the end of it but no, after months of antibiotics I was still not well and still couldnt walk correctly, I ended up at a naturopath in Seattle. All said and done I lost 30lbs, couldnt get out of bed, pain everywhere, symptoms of amnesia, forgetting everything, scoriosis on my eyelids, and all kinds of other really terrible side affects that I wont get into here.
- lonelappde 7y agoWhat did you do with/from the naturopath?
- tnorthcutt 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20747225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20747225
- driverdan 7y agoPseudoscience and placebos. The side effects of Lyme's are not well treated or understood. It's terrible for those effected. Medicine is imperfect and there are still many holes in our knowledge. That doesn't mean you should go to a quack like a naturopath.
- thrav 7y agoHow are you now? My cousin has been all over the country for years working to tame hers and she’s found a combination of diet and cannabis to be extremely helpful.
- jamisteven 7y ago
- UI_at_80x24 7y agoSeveral years ago I went on a hike/hammock camping trip. This was in an `old-growth` state forest and had practically no underbrush. The ground around the campfire area was bare dirt, and I sat/reclined on a ground-sheet and a 'sit-pad'. (two layers between me & the ground). 2-days into the camping I started to feel like I was having a reaction to a bug bite, assumed it was mosquitoes and ignored it. I got home after 4-days, went to climb in the shower and my wife pointed out that I had several ticks attached to my back. So I grabbed my knife, pulled them off, and watched the area for a few days. (I had my wife circle the red-welts with a sharpie to make sure it didn't spread.) I was ofcourse concerned about Lyme. Turns out nothing happened, and the redness went down. But I took precautions against getting made a meal of, and I still failed. It was a sobering incident, and I know I was lucky.
- jeromegv 7y agoYou should have gone to the hospital to get it checked. That was risky.
- blub 7y agoDid you use any insect repellent?
- UI_at_80x24 7y agoYes, (basic DEET spray, and 'Muskoil')but this was before I learned about Permethrin. I now use that religiously.
- needsmust 7y ago> It's Time to Get Serious about Tick-Borne Diseases I was diagnosed with Lyme disease two years after a tick bite in Nth Germany. A strong course of antibiotics cured me of the disease. At the time I got to learn of the chronic Lyme community (typically self diagnosed) and what the specialist doctors are saying. It seemed to me that the range of possible symptoms of this disease, and the difficulty in diagnosing it, make it a nice excuse for other problems somebody might be experiencing. Ultimately, the best evidence I saw - the people in the hospital diagnosed with Lyme disease tended to have identifiable symptoms, e.g arthritic joints, while the self diagnosed complained of feeling unsociable and not motivated to continue with working.
- billfor 7y agoIt was vanquished. We pulled the vaccine off the market. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/#idm140034452980864title https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/#idm140...
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago"Vanquished" is a bit too strong, but I agree, it's really frustrating that we know how to make a vaccine but have decided to not manufacture it anymore.
- ghaff 7y agoA similar vaccine is still used for dogs. Some of the reaction to the original LYMErix was almost certainly overblown but it also wasn't a great vaccine for a lot of reasons. One can reasonably ask if it should have pulled from the market, but it was a long way from a silver bullet. 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... There is apparently a new vaccine in the works. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/lyme-disease-vaccine-update https://www.healthline.com/health-news/lyme-disease-vaccine-...
- Wowfunhappy 7y agoWe somehow came out of that same Vox article with very different impressions. 90% effective against the North American strain of Lyme for everyone 15 and older sounds pretty darn great to me. I certainly want it. It's great that there is a new vaccine under development, but it's likely years away, if it even completes its later phase trials at all. How about we use what we have?
- ghaff 7y agoThat's a pretty glass half-full summary of the data. I'd recommend reading this retrospective (linked from the article) for more detail: https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/52/suppl_3/s253/444754 https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/52/suppl_3/s253/444754 It's also a vaccine that, among other things, probably required multiple shots and maybe annual boosters. To be sure, Lyme has become a bigger problem since that vaccine was pulled and, with the benefit of hindsight, it probably should be available for high-risk adult populations in spite of the risks. Of course, it would probably have to be added to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program so the manufacturer couldn't be sued. Probably academic anyway as there is hopefully a better vaccine from a French company in the pipeline.
- kiterunner2346 7y agoDemocrats have quietly opposed research into Lyme disease because Lyme discourages the hunting and shooting sports. This serves two purposes: a) Discourages hunters, shooters, guns, &etc. (i.e., those who exercise the 2nd Amendment). b) leaves federal and state park lands closed to those activities, allowing them to be used for other more liberal-friendly recreational/industrial activities (e.g., hiking, biking, birdwatching, mining, commercial fishing, &c.). FWIW hunting exposes a person to more risk than hiking or camping since you're handling the carcass of an animal that almost assuredly is tick-infested.
- overthemoon 7y agoIt would be incredible if you could prove 1.) Democrats opposed Lyme research 2.) because it discourages gun-related activities.
- 24gttghh 7y agoIf anything, the prevalence of Lyme should promote gun-related activities to hunt the huge deer populations in Lyme-heavy areas! OP is way off base I think...
- cshimmin 7y agoThe first point sounds pretty farfetched, do you have some sources to back this up, or is it just a conspiracy theory you cooked up because it suits a narrative? Tye second point is ridiculous, you could make the same argument and say that lyme disease is being kept around to prevent people from hiking or camping or doing anything outdoors at all. BTW in case it isn't obvious you're being downvoted to oblivion because this is not a political site and you politicized your post in the very first word.
- wes-k 7y agoI live in TN which fortunately doesn’t have Lyme carrying ticks but other bad things like Rocky Mountain spotted fever and alpha gal (allergy to meat thanks to the lone star tick). There are several precautions we take every time we go camping or hiking during tick season: 1. Spray permethrin on shoes and ankles. 2. Tuck pants into socks. 3. Leg tick checks during + full body check when we get home and for next two days. 4. Toss all clothes in the drier. The heat kills them. Do not wash first! 5. Shower with T/gel. Still not fully tested but we heard this will kill them! So far I’ve had a few cases of an attached tick but nothing longer than half a day of exposure. Bleh!!
- hammock 7y agoDo you find permethrin to be more effective than DEET? Or do you do it because it's safer.
- freehunter 7y agoPermethrin and DEET have similar efficacies and the EPA says they're both safe to use. The main difference seems to be DEET is applied to the skin and permethrin is applied to clothing. https://www.consumerreports.org/insect-repellent/how-deet-and-permethrin-can-protect-you/ https://www.consumerreports.org/insect-repellent/how-deet-an...
- artimaeis 7y agoMy understanding is that DEET is a generally effective repellent -- but Permethrin is a highly effective insecticide and a generally effective repellent. It's also nice because you can generally treat a set of clothing with it and the treatment lasts for weeks at a time.
- noonespecial 7y agoPermethrin is vastly more effective than deet. It lasts for weeks, even across washes and kills basically any insect that touches the sprayed areas. Its so harmless to mammals(1) that ranchers spray it directly on cattle. It is extremely toxic to marine life and indiscriminately kills insects including beneficial pollinating insects. Use with care. (1) With some important exceptions, thanks to rileyphone for the reminder.
- lowdose 7y agoI have noticed that certain family members are somehow attractive to ticks. On the same forest walk , my mom would always be blessed with a tick while me, my dad and brother never. Off course this is a very small sample size but consistent for literally my whole life growing up across Europe.
- daliusd 7y agoSame for me - mosquitoes and ticks love me. I guess it is related to blood group - A+ (0+) is the worst group to have. While I believe there are more components that might be important.
- afterburner 7y ago> A+ (0+) is the worst group to have Huh? Which one is it?
- daliusd 7y agoSorry I have mixed two systems into one. So it is 0+ (or I+)
- goda90 7y agoIt's probably similar to how some seem attractive to mosquitoes more than others. My wife definitely gets them worse than me, and to boot she gets big welts from their bites while I only itch for a few hours.
- ceejayoz 7y agoEven walking style might make a difference. I tend to fairly carefully but rapidly pick my way along a trail. My wife and kids do not. I'd imagine this varies the rate of exposure to things like foliage on the edges of the trail.
- mark_l_watson 7y agoI do the same. I live within 200 feet of trailheads and hike all the time. I watch for areas of trails with overhanging plants, and avoid touching them as I walk by. I have also started treating my hiking boots, hiking pants, and shirt with Premethrin. If you are careful, getting Premethrin into the general environment can be avoided.
- brownbat 7y agoNew Hampshire Public Radio and Outside/In just spun off a podcast on Lyme disease, Patient Zero: https://www.patientzeropodcast.com/ https://www.patientzeropodcast.com/ I've been really impressed with the quality of journalism from Taylor Quimby, Sam Evans-Brown, and that team on other stories. They've had stories where they mention openly that they changed their view halfway through, or have a reasonable debate among the reporters. I find that really refreshing. http://outsideinradio.org/ http://outsideinradio.org/
- ryandrake 7y agoOne thing I must have messed from the article is: why are we not already serious about it? There was this comparison to AIDS, but AIDS had the whole horrible “moral” stigma against diagnosing and treating it. What ax to grind do people have with Lyme disease? Why are doctors misdiagnosing or deliberately ignoring it? What are the incentives? I don’t understand.
- eigenloss 7y agoLyme doesn't have outward symptoms like the flu: https://www.webmd.com/arthritis/do-i-have-lyme-disease https://www.webmd.com/arthritis/do-i-have-lyme-disease Lyme borreliosis is persistent and hard to kill once it establishes itself in the form of biofilms/plaques: https://akademiai.com/doi/abs/10.1556/1886.2015.00049 https://akademiai.com/doi/abs/10.1556/1886.2015.00049 Lyme is a common term for a bunch of different infections (borreliosis, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, anaplasmosis), while AIDS is just a single virus. AIDS has been known to the medical community decades longer than Lyme has: https://www.bayarealyme.org/about-lyme/history-lyme-disease/ https://www.bayarealyme.org/about-lyme/history-lyme-disease/ Lyme is known as "the great imitator" as it is so often misdiagnosed: https://drjaydavidson.com/lyme-the-great-imitator/ https://drjaydavidson.com/lyme-the-great-imitator/ Lyme borreliosis may be transferred in utero, so a child could be born with latent infection: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1586/14787210.2015.1081056 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1586/14787210.2015.1... There is a huge controversy raging between ILADS & ISDA over the characteristics of Lyme in general: https://www.lymedisease.org/idsa-guidelines-removed-ngc/ https://www.lymedisease.org/idsa-guidelines-removed-ngc/
- aidanfindlater 7y agoYour confusion is understandable. What the article fails to mention is that, although Lyme disease is very real and is increasing, the disease referred to as "chronic Lyme disease" is not recognized by physicians as either Lyme disease or as an infection, but is more commonly classified alongside things like chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia as legitimate suffering from an unknown or poorly-understood cause (but not from infection). Other people, like the author of the linked article, disagree, and think that doctors are mistreating these patients. So there's some controversy.
- Circuits 7y agoMy roommate recently fell asleep in a hammock and woke up covered in currently feeding ticks and tick bites from ones that had their fill and left. It's been about 3 weeks since then and he doesn't seem to have any forgone symptoms. It seems odd to me that... is he just lucky?
- aphextim 7y agoOver the course of my life (I am in my mid 30s), I have gotten probably 75+ tick bites. When I was a kid I lived in the country, about 20 minutes from the nearest town and would have a tick-check every time I returned from being outside during the times when ticks are more prevalent. Many times you would have ticks but they didn't get a chance to bite yet (Thankfully my parents did these tick-checks all the time, I hated it at the time but looking back I understand their concern). I usually get at least one a year (tick that actually bites me), and although recently (Age 30+) I have been getting them checked out/monitor them more closely than when I was a younger, I've been lucky myself to not get this disease or any other ones related to ticks yet. If anyone is curious as to this location, I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
- Noumenon72 7y agoWow, I thought if you were not walking next to grass you were safe! Most ticks don't climb higher than about the height of a raccoon because that's where all the hosts are.
- nlawalker 7y ago> Yet when patients blame failed tests and treatments for their persistent symptoms, when they seek additional care for Lyme disease, they are often told they suffer from anxiety or chronic fatigue syndrome. They are derided, called anti-science, denied insurance reimbursement. > They are dismissed in ways comparable to those experienced by their AIDS-afflicted brethren. The Atlantic just published a good article about this: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/life-with-lyme/594736/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/life-wi...
- arippberger 7y agoBorrelia burgdorferi (the pathogen that causes Lyme) was named after Willy Burgdorfer. Burgdorfer claimed that the disease was the result of a biological weapons program that went awry. This is an interesting read: https://www.amazon.com/Bitten-History-Disease-Biological-Weapons/dp/006289627X https://www.amazon.com/Bitten-History-Disease-Biological-Wea...
- alexhutcheson 7y agoThat's a discredited conspiracy theory: https://www.aldf.com/did-lyme-disease-originate-in-the-eastern-u-s-from-borrelia-burgdorferi-infected-ticks-that-escaped-from-a-laboratory-at-the-plum-island-animal-disease-center-where-scientists-were-conducting-top-sec/ https://www.aldf.com/did-lyme-disease-originate-in-the-easte...
- swebs 7y ago>Some claim that Lyme disease was introduced into the northeastern region of the U.S. by a man-made strain of Borrelia burgdorferi that escaped from a high containment biological warfare laboratory on Plum Island. However, there is ample evidence to indicate that both Ixodes ticks and B. burgdorferi were present in the U.S. well before the Plum Island facility was ever established. What a lazy "debunking". Of course creating a strain of bacteria would require the original bacteria to already exist.
- alfromspace 7y agoDiscredited and debunked are words that desperately need to be retired. The vast majority of the time, they much more accurately could be replaced with "unpopular" or "disliked by the authority I'm about to appeal to".
- rmind 7y agoJust some observations: - In my country, Lithuania, tick-born diseases have been increasingly becoming a major problem. We had them for some time, but I think the problem has been amplified by the climate change in the last few decades. At least, the summers got hotter and the winters certainly start later than they used to in my childhood. - Ironically, cleaner environment and stricter EU regulations on the use of pesticides and other chemical compounds also played a role: tick population is flourishing. The government doesn't have or at least cannot come up with some means to control it. Spraying forests with some chemical compounds would certainly produce serious side effects and would do more harm than good (unless something new gets invented). There have been some discussions in the parliament to raise the issue at the EU level. - There are essentially two main diseases: tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) and Lyme disease. They are both very nasty. There is a vaccine from TBE. Unfortunately, vaccination is not universally funded or compensated by the government. Only for certain groups (forest rangers, members of the armed forces, etc). Nevertheless, a lot of people (including myself) get vaccinated and it's one of the most popular vaccines. - Apparently, there is also a vaccine from the Lyme disease: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#Vaccination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#Vaccination . In 2000s, it was tried in the US, but then subsequently pulled out from the market. It is unclear whether the vaccine really had side effects or it was due to anti-vaxxers. IMO, more effort should be put on: 1) large scale vaccination 2) research on possibilities to control the tick populations.
- EForEndeavour 7y agoIn 2016, the US FDA approved a canine Lyme vaccine called VANGUARD crLyme [1], and the principal investigator behind its development (Richard Marconi) is working toward a human vaccine [2], so there's hope; availability is still probably years away. [1] https://www.zoetisus.com/products/dogs/vanguard-crlyme/ https://www.zoetisus.com/products/dogs/vanguard-crlyme/ [2] https://news.vcu.edu/article/VCU_researcher_develops_Lyme_disease_diagnostic_and_comes_closer https://news.vcu.edu/article/VCU_researcher_develops_Lyme_di...
- gargarplex 7y agothis summer, I got a tick bite. I immediately went to go get a prophylactic antibiotic (doxycycline). You'd think that the pharmacist could just give me some over the counter, but I had to go to a clinic and get a prescription – felt kinda absurd. I wonder how much Lyme disease is attributable to the inconvenience of the process, especially in USA where American are scared of obscure + outrageous medical fees.
- Noumenon72 7y agoWe don't want 99 people taking antibiotics for every one who gets cured (about the rate most tick bites have of giving Lyme disease), so maybe a bit of gatekeeping is appropriate here. At least to ask "Has it been on you for 36 hours?" Antibiotics have a major effect on your gut flora and I don't take them lightly.
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoThat sounds bad, but what's the 'false negative' penalty? (Not getting antibiotics when you needed to). Pretty high - getting Lyme disease. If it was your kid, I'm thinking we'd all do it.
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- forgotmypw3 7y agoDisclaimer: I am not a doctor. If you live in a lyme-tick area, you should have antibiotics on hand at all times. If you find a tick that's already been on you long enough to cause a red irritation spot, the clock is ticking. Any time spent on finding a doctor to see, waiting for test results, seeing if symptoms develop, etc. is wasted time. The sooner you make your body an unfriendly environment to the bacteria, the less time they have to grow and spread. This means not only antibiotics, but also not eating anything calorie dense, eating fresh garlic and other natural antibacterials, and getting a lot of sleep, when your immune system works best. If you are a weed smoker and it makes you crave food, it may help to take a tolerance break. Coffee will not help you in this situation. This is a protocol I've learned about from several people for whom antibiotics do not work. I think there's a book about it. Doctors have told me that a 3-day course is enough to prevent a system-wide infection if you catch it early. Once an infection settles in, a longer course is needed, typically 14 days, which will do major damage to your biome.
- swebs 7y ago>If you live in a lyme-tick area, you should have antibiotics on hand at all times. Does this mean oral or topical? And if topical, would tryclosan be enough?
- eigenloss 7y agoHe's talking about oral antibiotics; these tick-borne infections propagate through your bloodstream, so topical antibiotics aren't going to do anything. Triclosan has effectively zero efficacy anyway (since we pump so much of it down our sewers): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4295542/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4295542/ Unfortunately, since antibiotics are prescription-only, what forgotmypw3 is recommending is effectively illegal in the US. A much better option is to coat all of your clothing in permethrin, avoid wooded/grassy areas, and check yourself for ticks often.
- privateSFacct 7y agoIf you travel internationally you can generally get a scrip overseas for first line antibiotics
- crazygringo 7y agoI agree it's serious (I've had Lyme disease and so have family members), and there are problems with positively identifying symptoms, but I don't get what this article is asking for? The author herself quotes: > For ticks, “proven and scalable control measures do not exist,” wrote three officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2018. She ends with "Prevention efforts have failed. Do the work on ticks." But do what work? She just admitted measures don't exist. Is she asking for an order of magnitude more funding? New research approaches? Are there even any promising solutions we haven't tried? Or is she just asking for magic? For someone demanding change, it feels disingenuous to not even give a cursory description of what the current obstacles are or potential avenues for addressing them.
- sooheon 7y agoDoes it really need to be spelled out? :p 1. Incite outrage, 2. generate clicks and discussion, 3. profit! E: revisiting this because pure snark adds nothing. I think the heart of the issue is that the tests are inconclusive -- why can't people who care enough look for the B. burgdorferi virus itself live in the blood for a clear-cut diagnosis?
- alfon 7y agoFor whom it may concern, regarding specifically a Bb infection: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03891667 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03891667
- kndjckt 7y agoIt looks like it's getting worse https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/maps.html https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/maps.html Either this means more diagnoses or more people being infected
- b_tterc_p 7y agoI know people are concerned about using gene drives on native species, but why don’t we use it against invasive species. Lantern flies in PA seem like a good example.
- ben7799 7y agoPrevention is worth a lot here. I've been aware of Lyme for 30 years now probably? (I have lived most of my life not that far from Lyme, CT where it was first noticed.) Because I've been aware of it so long it would get brought up to the doctor immediately if something happened. It would also be very unlikely I would get bit and not notice. Taking the usual recommended precautions and checking yourself carefully goes a really long way. Be careful around tall grass. Don't hang around in areas that make it easy for a tick to get on you. Wear clothes that reduce risk. I've been a very active hiker/mountain biker for many years now. I've pulled a few ticks (<10) off me but I have always found them before they bit me. Biggest factor I've noticed in the people I know who have gotten Lyme is dog ownership. I would be really interested if someone did a study. It seems Dogs in the house raise the risk significantly. Dogs on a walk behave in the most risky way possible hanging out in tall grass and going everywhere (they're dogs, can't blame them) and they have a nice furry coat that is easy to grab onto for the ticks. Then you need to check the dog and remove the ticks, bringing yourself into contact with the ticks. Or you miss them and now the ticks are crawling around in your house. Dog owners also seem to wear more casual clothes going for a walk with the dog. The dog drags them into areas they might not have gone on their own. The casual clothes provide more surface to grab onto vs dedicated clothes an outdoor enthusiast is wearing. (Most feel compelled to wear appropriate clothes and at that point you can adjust for tick prevention) Unfortunately I've known multiple dog owners who have gotten Lyme multiple times. Check kids really carefully, they're too young to know any better.
- lyme 7y agoThrow away account here. Writing on mobile so excuse the short sentences. Been dealing with Lyme disease since 2011. Main symptoms have been fatigue (both mental and physical), brain fog, headaches, migraines, cold extremities. Anyone reading this dealing with Lyme has I'm sure heard of many different treatment protocols to get better. In fact, I've got a list of over 50 treatments from doctors and patients I've saved in a spreadsheet. To keep it short, I've tried many different treatments and have been very skeptical of most of them and most have not had any meaningful improvement. Talked with a contractor who was doing work for me who had to close his business because of chronic Lyme. He tried all different doctors and protocols and he found a solution that cured him. It's going to sound crazy and I'm sure it will get downvoted but I'd rather get the information at least out there for anyone to consider. The contractor mentioned this guy called the Medical Medium. This medical medium guy says science actually is wrong about Lyme being bacterial, but is actually viral. I know it sounds crazy. I know there is no science behind it. Try to keep an open mind. I eventually read the theory behind it, tried the protocol, and am now 5 months into it. Best I've ever been in terms of symptoms. Again, I'm a guy who only follows science. I don't try to get into stuff that is considered out there, but I was desperate enough to at least consider it and try it. Maybe read it and consider it. And please don't say I'm spreading unscientific information. I know that I am but for people who have an illness without a defined solution, I think it's sometime good to being open to considering an unconventional approach. https://www.medicalmedium.com/blog/herpes-viruses https://www.medicalmedium.com/blog/herpes-viruses
- losteric 7y agoMedical Medium is bullshit. Dude claims a spirit from the future psychically communicates advanced medical knowledge to him alone... garbage like celery water curing autoimmune diseases. His website has an extensive legal medical disclaimer that basically says "none of this is medical advice, if you listen to me it's all on you"
- AndyMcConachie 7y agoIf you're interested in the intersection between Lyme disease and investigations into it being a bioweapons program gone wrong there's a recent book on the subject. <https://www.amazon.com/Bitten-History-Disease-Biological-Weapons/dp/006289627X/> https://www.amazon.com/Bitten-History-Disease-Biological-Wea... I haven't read it, but I heard an interview with the author and the book sounds well researched. It doesn't reach a definitive conclusion that Lyme came from a bioweapons program gone wrong, but it does talk about other bioweapons programs similar to Lyme.
- someoneiam 7y agoMy Lyme story is probably one of the less dramatic posted here, but it is telling that I feel like I was relatively taken good care of compared to many others here and elsewhere. My first symptom was the classic erythema migrans (bullseye rash), which was painful on its own, but given that this was during summertime in southern Italy it got unbearable at times. I saw a doctor who told me I had probably been bitten by a spider or lizard, but nothing to worry about. I asked him about Lyme but he insisted there were no ticks in Italy (!)... Eventually I got low fever and terrible upper joint pains, as well as deformed nails and fingers (the second stage of Lyme). This was still not enough for the doc as again, there are no ticks in Italy... After a short time Bell's palsy kicked in (severe facial paralysis and a drastic change in taste in my case) and then I knew that I was 100% dealing with Lyme. So off we go to Italy's main institution for infectious diseases where they tap me for an insane amount of blood to analize, and tell me I will stay at the hospital for maybe a week. Tests came back and Lyme was positive, even though there are no ticks in Italy... I ended up staying at the hospital almost two months with antibiotics pumped intravenously multiple times a day for hours. After recovering I had to go to the hospital for health controls every 2-3 months or so for a around a year. And I was lucky enough to go through this during a time where antibiotics are still effective at fighting bacterias. One of my biggest fears is entering a post-antibiotic era, where bacterias grow resistant at a faster rate than we are discovering new antibiotics. If we keep misusing them, to erroneously treat ourselves, to feed livestock, pumping the rest products into rivers, this might not be such a far fetched scenario.
- the_watcher 7y agoI am close to someone with Lyme disease, and it's far more serious than I realized in terms of impact on day to day life. What I've learned is that it doesn't get the kind of funding or research as other debilitating diseases because it's relatively rare and hard to diagnose, so there's simply fewer people who go into medicine with a personal connection to it.
- heelix 7y agoIf you get the signature bull's eye, you are lucky. My kid got it and we were able to recognize the textbook bite signature, in addition to her high temps and fever symptoms. They were able to test for Lymes and then aggressively do the IV antibiotics regiment. As an avid camper, I treat all my clothing gear with Permethrin. In addition to keeping the flying bugs off you... they also keep the ticks off. I treat the tick 'entrances' and socks, which makes a huge difference for the normal ticks.
- miek 7y agoWow thank you for mentioning this! My wife had a bullseye bite mark two days ago. We wondered what it was. Time for a doctor visit.
- marble-drink 7y agoDo you get irritation from the Permethrin?
- heelix 7y agoIt goes on clothing, not skin. I'm not pestered by it.
- bduerst 7y agoMost of the comments here are about Lyme's disease in deer ticks, but what really terrifies me is the Lone Star tick. This alpha-gal syndrome epidemic appeared out of the blue in the 2000's and gives you a lifelong allergy to red meat.
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- blisterpeanuts 7y agoI'm a deer hunter. I'm out in the woods scouting a few times in the late summer, then I'm out there every day in the fall for about two months. I treat everything with permethrine: clothes, socks, boots, hats, orange vest, backpack, ground blind, even the tripod chair I sit on in the blind. Permethrine, derived from the chrysanthemum flower, kills ticks (as well as ants and bees). If one lands on your pants or shirt, it will quickly die. But permethrine is considered harmless to mammals once it's dry. It also doesn't hurt to spray some deet on your exposed skin (face, hands etc.). Permethrine survives several washings. As soon as I come back from a hunt, I strip and take a hot scrub shower. This is probably the best way to rid them from your body before they latch on, which usually takes a few hours up to 24 or so before they settle in a desirable spot. Reducing the deer population is an excellent way to reduce the adult tick vector; deer can travel quite far and spread tick populations quickly. The nymph phase of the tick life cycle is slightly different; they are on mice and other rodents until they reach a certain size. You can actually reduce this population by putting out tick tubes everywhere in your yard, under brush, under wood piles, wherever rodents might tend to go. The tubes contain cotton or dryer lint sprayed with permethrine; the rodents take bits of the material back to line their nests, and it kills the baby ticks. I do this every spring, in the hopes it will rid the vicinity of many ticks. Lyme is serious business and once you get it, it can take years if not forever to get rid of. Lymerix was a vaccine developed in the 1990s that was about 80% effective, but unfortunately an anti-vaccine group sued the company successfully and they pulled it off the market. The CDC subsequently determined there was no validity to the plaintiff's claims, but by then the deed was done. Probably hundreds of thousands of people suffer from Lyme today because of this lawsuit. There are new vaccines in the pipeline that sound very promising; they target common proteins among the family of Lyme bacteria (there are about a dozen known species of borrelia bacteria) so that one shot should protect you. Of course, promising doesn't mean guaranteed, so we'll just have to wait and hope this thing can be beaten. In the meantime, we can focus on attacking the vectors: reduce the overpopulation of deer and rodents that carry the ticks, encourage more use of permethrine and other insecticides. Monhegan Island, off the Maine coast, had 25% prevalence of the disease until they eradicated the deer population (originally brought there in the 1950s-60s as a tourist attraction) and new cases of Lyme went down to almost nil. We can encourage more predators like hawks and owls and snakes, all of which work to keep the rodent population in check. Flocks of birds eat ticks, but bird populations have greatly decreased in recent decades, so we might think about ways to bring them back, perhaps through reforestation and limiting exurban development that removes habitat.
- johnfactorial 7y agoThere's some healthy doubt to be cast on concepts like "Chronic Lyme." Consider, for one example, the data here: https://lymescience.org/washington/ https://lymescience.org/washington/ In this thread a poster claims that multiple doctors couldn't save them until a "doctor" with "natural remedies" put them on a fast. Now, I support skepticism all around; it is very healthy to get second and third opinions when you know your body doesn't feel right. But it's also extremely important to trust actual expertise over self-diagnosis, Facebook groups, and so-called medicinal practitioners who hawk herbs and starving oneself as panacea.
- fallingfrog 7y agoWe would already have a vaccine against lyme, anaplasmosis, etc if they were diseases that affected rich people. But since it’s mostly poor people living out in the woods that get Lyme disease, nobody cares. Nobody important anyway.
- epmaybe 7y agoSerious question: do you think more could be done to help bring awareness to patients to encourage earlier screening for Lyme disease and other tick borne diseases? I remember being told that if I ever saw a tick on my skin or if I had a target sign rash on my body that I should 1) take the tick with me, and 2) go to the doctor. At least then you have a record of potential Lyme exposure in your record and it can be brought into the differential diagnosis as a reason for your symptoms in the future. Like a public health campaign where you had some ads especially in wooded areas that are Lyme endemic areas. I think back to things like the BE FAST mnemonic (balance, eyes, face, arm, speech, time) for stroke awareness, and feel like many people don't even know that.