Ticks

[Newbiesaukee]

Although the absence of human Lyme disease vaccine in this country IS about money, the underlying cause is the negative publicity and activism of anti-vaccination groups, the legal system and the general low level of public scientific understanding. Politics and the perfect storm ended a decent vaccine.

Actually Lyme disease, particularly what is termed chronic Lyme disease, is a very political issue with its celebrity spokesmen and all that goes with it.

Probably a bit off topic but there is no scientific reason there is not a human vaccine and that is a shame.

[secondcurve]

Originally Posted by Newbiesaukee

Although the absence of human Lyme disease vaccine in this country IS about money, the underlying cause is the negative publicity and activism of anti-vaccination groups, the legal system and the general low level of public scientific understanding. Politics and the perfect storm ended a decent vaccine.

Actually Lyme disease, particularly what is termed chronic Lyme disease, is a very political issue with its celebrity spokesmen and all that goes with it.

Probably a bit off topic but there is no scientific reason there is not a human vaccine and that is a shame.

Celebrity spokesmen? Political issue. Please do explain.

[wifi]

Originally Posted by secondcurve

Celebrity spokesmen? Political issue. Please do explain.

Ummmm... PBF answered your question a few posts back.

No offense to anyone, but its a reoccurring theme that people seem to
repeat what someone else has said a few posts before . Is it that no
one reads the previous posts, or is it that unless they think that if
they don't say it, its not true??

No offense, observation, its been going on for years

[secondcurve]

Originally Posted by wifi

Ummmm... PBF answered your question a few posts back.

No offense to anyone, but its a reoccurring theme that people seem to
repeat what someone else has said a few posts before . Is it that no
one reads the previous posts, or is it that unless they think that if
they don't say it, its not true??

No offense, observation, its been going on for years

I do read previous posts before replying and after your answer I read the posts again and I still don't get it. It must be me.

[Newbiesaukee]

Originally Posted by secondcurve

Celebrity spokesmen? Political issue. Please do explain.

The suggestion was made that Lyme disease needed a celebrity spokesman to bring it to the public attention, such as Michael Fox did for Parkinson's. I do not disagree, but pointed out that Lyme disease is a political issue, particularly chronic Lyme disease and has had its publicity seekers to rally support.

If you spend some time googling it you can see the issues that go beyond just medical science. I was not trying to be obscure, I just get frustrated with everything being divisive and political, including discussions of scientific issues that are relatively clear cut.

[Merrymeeting]

Wifi, you point out the difficulty of carrying on a "conversation" via forums rather than interactively. The opportunity to ask questions during the flow is gone, and the reading of body language (more a part of our human communications than many realize) is non-existent.

I would suggest that the question you reference is still left unanswered due to ambiguity in the prior posts.

PBF made a celebrity comparison to Michael J Fox for Parkinson's Disease, implying that Lyme Disease needs an equally famous celebrity spokesperson.

The next post had this,

Actually Lyme disease, particularly what is termed chronic Lyme disease, is a very political issue with its celebrity spokesmen and all that goes with it.

...implying that Lyme already has "celebrity spokesmen".

I, the poster of the question, and probably others are still awaiting an answer on whom these spokesmen might be.

(FWIW, as I've had Lyme, and have no desire to suffer a repeat, I did a few Google searches and came up empty. I'm aware of the medical and political controversies involved. But I've never heard or seen a "famous" celebrity weighing in on the topic)

[secondcurve]

Originally Posted by Merrymeeting

Wifi, you point out the difficulty of carrying on a "conversation" via forums rather than interactively. The opportunity to ask questions during the flow is gone, and the reading of body language (more a part of our human communications than many realize) is non-existent.

I would suggest that the question you reference is still left unanswered due to ambiguity in the prior posts.

PBF made a celebrity comparison to Michael J Fox for Parkinson's Disease, implying that Lyme Disease needs an equally famous celebrity spokesperson.

The next post had this,

Actually Lyme disease, particularly what is termed chronic Lyme disease, is a very political issue with its celebrity spokesmen and all that goes with it.

...implying that Lyme already has "celebrity spokesmen".

I, the poster of the question, and probably others are still awaiting an answer on whom these spokesmen might be.

(FWIW, as I've had Lyme, and have no desire to suffer a repeat, I did a few Google searches and came up empty. I'm aware of the medical and political controversies involved. But I've never heard or seen a "famous" celebrity weighing in on the topic)

Thanks Merrymeeting. Your summary is exactly how my mind processed the flow of postings and the reason why I still had questions about the topic. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who interpreted the information this way.

[Loony Singer]

You can buy a permethrin spray at EMS or REI. Or, if you're paranoid and/or wealthy, you can buy a line of pre-impregnated clothing from LL Bean. The brand is Ex Officio and the line of clothes is Insect Shield. You can buy everything from shirts and pants to socks and hats. The treatment supposedly holds up for 70 Washings.

Never thought I'd buy brand-new clothing from LL to work in the woods, but after a mild case of Lyme a couple of years back, I now fall in the paranoid category.

Of course, in a few years, they'll probably decide that this stuff causes cancer

[dave603]

One thing I have found online was to plant things that ticks do not like around your yards,
One of them if Rosemary. Which also gives you the added benefit of using it while cooking.
I have tried it at home and it does seem to keep the bugs down some.
For say around $3 a plant most places, it's worth a shot.

[rick35]

I'm trying out a tick repellant concoction for my dog I found on the internet. Its made out of water, distilled vinegar, tea tree oil and lavender oil. When i was at a Walgreens looking for the lavender the clerk told me they didn't carry it but she did say that people plant lavender in their gardens as a natural bug repellant (like rosemary apparently).

I've only used it once but it appeared to be a huge success...only one tick! The time in the woods before that without repellant was awful as we picked off more than 20 ticks. The oil odor is strong out out of the bottle but very mild when mixed. I filled up a small spray bottle and just gave the dog a few squirts. It needs more testing before I'm completely convinced it works but the poster on the hiking blog where I found it swears by it.

[MAXUM]

This may be long winded but figured I'd share.

Last year I had the scare of a lifetime. I was at my camp on vacation and started to feel rather lethargic, had zero energy. I figured eh it's probably the stupidly long and insane hours I work that had finally caught up with me. Well this persisted for a couple of days. Then it went from that to flu like symptoms. Go from having the chills to sweating like a pig. That lasted about 24 hours then all was fine. I was still a little worn down but didn't think to much about it.

A week later I determined that I still wasn't right... something was definitely wrong. I developed abdominal pain unlike anything I had ever felt before. Hmm.. so I grinned dealt with it until one night it was keeping me awake and I said good grief maybe I need to get checked out. It was so bad in fact I decided to go to the ER. Well as it turns out I had a plumbing problem.. as it it wasn't working so I was given some rotor router stuff and sent home. 24 hours later, nope no change... back to the ER. They decided I needed to get a more serious treatment. Well um hmm... I must say by then I was really messed up and in significant pain. Well next thing I know I start feeling all woozy start seeing the milky way and bam I'm out cold. I come to however much time later to being on laid out a bunch of people running around and I hear somebody yelling some stuff, then "got to hit him again" ... clear... BAM - (yes I was fully conscience by then) um what the hell is going on here.

Doc says to me hey you with us? I look up at him and say yeah what the heck just happened? He says you just had a heart attack. Say what? I'm a very fit and healthy young guy, active, eat well, the whole nine yards, how the heck can I have a heart attack? I get moved into ICU and put on observation. Over the course of the next week I have a bazillion tests done to me. Docs can't find a thing wrong with me and are bewildered by why this could happen when my heart is perfectly fine. My case is referred to some specialists in Boston, they look my case over and can't find a thing wrong either.

Well while I'm there, I am also tested for Lyme. I pop positive. I'm immediately put on antibiotics to treat it. Lucky for me they determine that it's a fresh case so they were able to eradicate it.

I had very lengthy conversations with my doc about why this happen and if it's possible that Lyme caused it. In his opinion he says that my symptoms did not match others who have had heart related problems tied directly to Lyme, yet, they never and still to this day have no explanation as to why this occurred. I did have an ICD implant done just to be safe, yet in all the time post this happening there have been no anomalies observed...which by the way is not usually the case - so what to make of it, beats me.

Now on to Lyme. I had very lengthy discussions about it with the infectious disease doc that was treating me at the time. She tells me there is a chance that my heart attack could have been caused by Lyme, but there is so little information out there it's hard to say. She did say that it effects people in different ways and thus far due to lack of case studies they simply have little to go off of. As more research is done they are finding that it is a far more complex disease than they first thought it was. In fact... and this is an important thing to note... the reason why that vaccination is not available is because it only treated a certain type of bacteria but science has shown that there are different and more numerous strains so in a sense it is ineffective and therefore no longer produced. This also can be said for the treatments for pets. More science is needed to study this, but progress is slow mostly because there is little money to be made yet in treating this. In fact in most cases simple antibiotic treatments will get rid of it, but not always. Some people have had it far to long and have to live with the lingering effects the rest of their life. Sometimes, but not always treatments can be done to keep it under control. It can attack your joints, nervous system, heart, etc.. and in rare cases be fatal.

The sad thing is many are misdiagnosed, the symptoms are often times misread or are easily explained away as something far less sinister, in fact it can stop showing signs of infection for a period of time then come back. Even the tests to diagnose it can be inaccurate. It really is pretty scary if you think about it.

Thankfully for me, I'm fine but now have a little life insurance just in case. I'm sure as time goes on more will be done to study this disease and it's effects but for now there isn't much out there. Although this has happened it's certainly not going to scare me out of the woods, or get all freaked out if I find another tick on me, but be aware that if you do get one inbedded and start to feel a little funny it may be worth getting tested for it. While it may or may not catch it, it's a good idea to go back regularly to check especially if you spend a lot of time outdoors where you could be exposed.

[Merrymeeting]

Originally Posted by MAXUM

Last year I had the scare of a lifetime. I was at my camp on vacation and started to feel rather lethargic, had zero energy. I figured eh it's probably the stupidly long and insane hours I work that had finally caught up with me. Well this persisted for a couple of days. Then it went from that to flu like symptoms. Go from having the chills to sweating like a pig. That lasted about 24 hours then all was fine. I was still a little worn down but didn't think to much about it.

This part of your ordeal exactly mirrors mine, though thankfully in my case, without the heart attack.

About a week of the run down, fever, chills cycles, the thing that finally sent me to my doctor was when my left hand inexplicably swelled to almost twice it's normal size. Thankfully one of his first thoughts was to test for Lyme. I was positive and the course of antibiotics seemed to take care of things. This was 2 summers ago. No recurrence... so far.

[windsail]

I am so sorry to hear of your troubles. My daughter lives in Boston and had lymes. The doctors thought at first it may be a brain tumor, if not for her professor who insisted on a lymes test she may of had permanent problems. Time is important because damage to nerves may not heal. Hers surfaced as lymes meningitis. I still say she was very fortunate because of the treatment she seems fine today (two years later) but time will tell. I wish you well, and we all need to think outside the box when we have weird systems.
Mary

Originally Posted by MAXUM

This may be long winded but figured I'd share.

Last year I had the scare of a lifetime. I was at my camp on vacation and started to feel rather lethargic, had zero energy. I figured eh it's probably the stupidly long and insane hours I work that had finally caught up with me. Well this persisted for a couple of days. Then it went from that to flu like symptoms. Go from having the chills to sweating like a pig. That lasted about 24 hours then all was fine. I was still a little worn down but didn't think to much about it.

A week later I determined that I still wasn't right... something was definitely wrong. I developed abdominal pain unlike anything I had ever felt before. Hmm.. so I grinned dealt with it until one night it was keeping me awake and I said good grief maybe I need to get checked out. It was so bad in fact I decided to go to the ER. Well as it turns out I had a plumbing problem.. as it it wasn't working so I was given some rotor router stuff and sent home. 24 hours later, nope no change... back to the ER. They decided I needed to get a more serious treatment. Well um hmm... I must say by then I was really messed up and in significant pain. Well next thing I know I start feeling all woozy start seeing the milky way and bam I'm out cold. I come to however much time later to being on laid out a bunch of people running around and I hear somebody yelling some stuff, then "got to hit him again" ... clear... BAM - (yes I was fully conscience by then) um what the hell is going on here.

Doc says to me hey you with us? I look up at him and say yeah what the heck just happened? He says you just had a heart attack. Say what? I'm a very fit and healthy young guy, active, eat well, the whole nine yards, how the heck can I have a heart attack? I get moved into ICU and put on observation. Over the course of the next week I have a bazillion tests done to me. Docs can't find a thing wrong with me and are bewildered by why this could happen when my heart is perfectly fine. My case is referred to some specialists in Boston, they look my case over and can't find a thing wrong either.

Well while I'm there, I am also tested for Lyme. I pop positive. I'm immediately put on antibiotics to treat it. Lucky for me they determine that it's a fresh case so they were able to eradicate it.

I had very lengthy conversations with my doc about why this happen and if it's possible that Lyme caused it. In his opinion he says that my symptoms did not match others who have had heart related problems tied directly to Lyme, yet, they never and still to this day have no explanation as to why this occurred. I did have an ICD implant done just to be safe, yet in all the time post this happening there have been no anomalies observed...which by the way is not usually the case - so what to make of it, beats me.

Now on to Lyme. I had very lengthy discussions about it with the infectious disease doc that was treating me at the time. She tells me there is a chance that my heart attack could have been caused by Lyme, but there is so little information out there it's hard to say. She did say that it effects people in different ways and thus far due to lack of case studies they simply have little to go off of. As more research is done they are finding that it is a far more complex disease than they first thought it was. In fact... and this is an important thing to note... the reason why that vaccination is not available is because it only treated a certain type of bacteria but science has shown that there are different and more numerous strains so in a sense it is ineffective and therefore no longer produced. This also can be said for the treatments for pets. More science is needed to study this, but progress is slow mostly because there is little money to be made yet in treating this. In fact in most cases simple antibiotic treatments will get rid of it, but not always. Some people have had it far to long and have to live with the lingering effects the rest of their life. Sometimes, but not always treatments can be done to keep it under control. It can attack your joints, nervous system, heart, etc.. and in rare cases be fatal.

The sad thing is many are misdiagnosed, the symptoms are often times misread or are easily explained away as something far less sinister, in fact it can stop showing signs of infection for a period of time then come back. Even the tests to diagnose it can be inaccurate. It really is pretty scary if you think about it.

Thankfully for me, I'm fine but now have a little life insurance just in case. I'm sure as time goes on more will be done to study this disease and it's effects but for now there isn't much out there. Although this has happened it's certainly not going to scare me out of the woods, or get all freaked out if I find another tick on me, but be aware that if you do get one inbedded and start to feel a little funny it may be worth getting tested for it. While it may or may not catch it, it's a good idea to go back regularly to check especially if you spend a lot of time outdoors where you could be exposed.

[Greene's Basin Girl]

I had a tick on my neck after a group of us from the Moultonborough Women's had just finished planting by the town offices. A tick check is very important.

[Lin]

Originally Posted by dave603

One thing I have found online was to plant things that ticks do not like around your yards,
One of them if Rosemary. Which also gives you the added benefit of using it while cooking.
I have tried it at home and it does seem to keep the bugs down some.
For say around $3 a plant most places, it's worth a shot.

Guinea hens will eat ticks too, that's why you see a lot of free roaming chickens where they are allowed.

[Newbiesaukee]

Originally Posted by Merrymeeting

Wifi, you point out the difficulty of carrying on a "conversation" via forums rather than interactively. The opportunity to ask questions during the flow is gone, and the reading of body language (more a part of our human communications than many realize) is non-existent.

I would suggest that the question you reference is still left unanswered due to ambiguity in the prior posts.

PBF made a celebrity comparison to Michael J Fox for Parkinson's Disease, implying that Lyme Disease needs an equally famous celebrity spokesperson.

The next post had this,

Actually Lyme disease, particularly what is termed chronic Lyme disease, is a very political issue with its celebrity spokesmen and all that goes with it.

...implying that Lyme already has "celebrity spokesmen".

I, the poster of the question, and probably others are still awaiting an answer on whom these spokesmen might be.

(FWIW, as I've had Lyme, and have no desire to suffer a repeat, I did a few Google searches and came up empty. I'm aware of the medical and political controversies involved. But I've never heard or seen a "famous" celebrity weighing in on the topic)

I apologize for the apparent ambiguity. If you Google "Lyme Disease Celebrity" the are multiple articles listed....the Huffington Post reports on 8 (or10) celebrities who had Lyme Disease. Another reference details Debby Gibson's struggle with Lyme disease. George Bush had Lyme disease. My point was and is that it is not an obscure disease, celebrities have detailed their difficulties with Lyme disease. It really is more in the area of "chronic Lyme disease" that there is more politics and controversy. Although there are celebrities speaking out about it...there are few diseases so closely associated by the public with a single celebrity as Michael J Fox and Parkinson's.

Anyway...tomorrow I begin my 1700 mile trek to the Lake.