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Originally Posted by tis
Oh no!!! 70 ticks???? Lyme disease is getting so scary. Doesn't that scare you? Sometimes it is fatal…….. Can you tell us a little more about it. I have heard it is very hard to diagnose in humans. It doesn't seem to hit dogs quite as hard as people??
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There are about 110 of us that work in the woods at our office and even the office workers get ticks, we assume that they get the ticks shed off our clothing. We are all nervous about the effects of the tick diseases but it is our job to go out every day. Some of us use a chemicals, dress appropriately, or do manual tick checks. I just had the tiniest little nymph ever embedded in my arm Thursday, took a while to get it out it was so tiny but the site where I pulled it from looks like I got stung by bees. For us getting attention to get the tick diseases studied, getting proper medical treatment and tests that are supported by insurance and doctors are goals of everyone in our office. We have discussions on ticks nearly everyday and keep a record of how many we have crawling on us and how many are embedded and it is staggering.
Our dog got Anaplasomosis this year, I had seen her limping and she normally goes upstairs with us but when she climbed them that night she collapsed and started to roll down, I caught her and we took her to the vet and she was on antibiotics for two months and is doing good now. The lab across the street from us got Lyme a few years ago and passed away. Some breeds are more susceptible to acute Lyme according to our vet. This year we are pulling more ticks off the horse than ever before too and he is on short grass with no trees in his corral but just outside the fenceline.
So Lyme disease is the most prevalent and talked about tick disease, symptoms can mimic many other diseases, if you get the bull's eye though it is definitely Lyme, other symptoms include fatique, secondary rashes, pain in joints, bell's palsy symptoms, pancarditis, atrioventricular nodal block, myopericarditis, migratory arthritis and more.
We have had employees with Babesiosis too that is fatigue, fever/chills, myalgia, depression, dark urine, cough, sore throat and more.
The Anaplasmosis our dog had can also be picked up by people it includes most of the same as above and can include gastro intestinal problems, stiff neck and confusion.
There are a few others from the deer tick too such as Tularemia, and besides the dog tick and deer tick we now have the Lone Star Tick in some areas of the northeast and that can cause Ehrlichiosis from a tick bite. This really sucks and it is not a pun intended. It hurts both mentally, physically and financially.
There are several good websites out there on tick diseases, but until recently there hasn't been strong voices. There is also a documentary called "under our skin" this documentary is very pro Lyme disease testing and not having doctors that treat patients disbarred. I guess you could consider it an activist documentary but it really awakens you to the damages done by ticks. There are several celebrities that promote tick disease awareness. One that comes to mind is Darryl Hall of Hall and Oates. They had to cancel performances a few years back cause Darryl came down with Lyme disease and couldn't even remember the lines of the songs before he got treatment.
Sorry this is so long but my occupational field has kept me outdoors all my life and ticks are number one enemy. I would like to point out though that just because it is called the deer tick, you could kill all the deer in the world and still have them. White footed deermice are a huge carrier of the tick. Right now the thinking is 24 hours or more that a tick is embedded your chances go up for a tick disease.
Hope this helps some.