WEBlue

In New England we've had an exceptionally cold and snowy winter lasting well into spring, but I was shocked the other day to hear on the radio that most tick varieties don't die in the snow & cold of winter. They simply go dormant at temperatures below freezing, then "wake up" and look for a blood meal when it warms up even a little bit.

So be careful as spring begins, everyone. Unless you live in the middle of a big city, your type of local ticks are probably already looking for you, whether it's the western blacklegged tick, Lone Star tick, Gulf Coast tick, or the common deer tick aka eastern black-legged tick.... Cover up and use repellent.

A map of tick distribution across the USA, also detailing diseases carried by each species:
CDC - Geographic Distribution - Ticks

Clrsth

It certainly is - we removed 4 ticks from our Jack Russell after a walk on Saturday here in Pennsylvania.

MsElui

i read just yesterday that the singer Avril Levigne has been out of the limelight recently because she caught Lymes disease and its taken months of recovery.

Nutek

Lymelight perhaps?

kins

Our tick season is going to be even worse since my neighbour has been feeding the deer over the winter. I think every deer in the area has moved into our woods/yard.

scrubbedexpat091

Sometimes I wonder if I had lyme disease at one point that was/has never been diagnosed. About 20 years ago, I had a strange red rash show up and then go away after a couple weeks. Doctors (went to 5 or 6) couldn't figure out the cause, and then it went away.

But ever since then I have had certain symptoms that are consistent with Lyme disease.

The trouble has been getting a doctor to take my concerns seriously, they keep saying its not likely, and if I did have it, the doctors back then would have figured it out.

But ever since that rash, my health has never been the same.

I do my best to avoid any wooded area, so far seems to work, never find any on me, this year have to keep a close eye on the dog, but she doesn't go off into the wooded regions either, and we do use tick/flea pill to help reduce the risk.

Nutmegger

You don't have to be in the woods to encounter ticks -- birds and field mice also carry them.

scrubbedexpat091

I know but it decreases my risk by avoiding the woods and wooded regions. So far it's worked to avoid the suckers.

WEBlue

Pretty interesting! Apparently there were all kinds of rumours that she was wasted on drugs when she stopped touring & holed up at home in Canada....

The first story that turned up about her on a google search was the Daily Fail's account, which wrongly stated, "Avril explained her hiatus from the public eye was down to contracting the debilitating bacterial infection, which can be caught from tick, flea or mosquito bites."
Avril Lavigne's husband Chad Kroeger relieved Lyme disease battle is out in the open | Daily Mail Online

There's never been ANY evidence that fleas or mosquitoes transmit Lyme to humans (thank goodness)...ONLY certain kinds of ticks. Idiots!
Lyme disease transmission

steveq

What annoys me is that anti-vaccers got the only working Lyme disease vaccine scrapped.

WEBlue

Oh I agree! There's a vaccine for dogs (not cats, though).... It can't be that difficult to develop a human vaccine, as they did it once before.

Apparently the human Lyme vaccine that was developed was discontinued in 2002 (?). Some sources say it was not effective in a high enough percentage of cases, thus the demand was not great. But Lyme prevalence has spread to new areas and intensified in former areas since 2002... I think more people would take ANY vaccine rather than nothing. I know I probably would.

scrubbedexpat091

Maybe a new vaccine on the horizon?

New Lyme Disease Vaccine Shows Promise In Preventing Bacterial Sources Of Infection

It would also help if it wasn't such a difficult disease to diagnose, doctors misdiagnose it for other things quite often and in Canada doctors frequently don't recognize Lyme Disease. It's a difficult disease to diagnose apparently because of the lack of accurate testing for it and the labs that do are in the US so not available to us unless we can pay out of pocket.

scrubbedexpat091

Whatever happened to Lyme vaccine? | CTV News

Seem's the vaccine was a combination of not selling well enough to justify the threat of class action lawsuits, can't say I blame the company for pulling it.

Seems it didn't provide immunity to the human though, and that it worked by vaccinating the tick?

I just did this http://canlyme.com/wp-content/upload...burrascano.pdf and I ticked a lot of those things off, and they all started after an unexplained rash on my arm that happened in 1997.

I am really going to ask the doctor now, especially since all the testing thus far haven't been able to figure out what is causing most of the issues.

Can't hurt to ask, right?

WEBlue

Oh dear, I agree it would be good if you talked to your doctor about this, Jsmith. The blood tests for tick-bourne diseases aren't the most accurate, as you've pointed out. But they're somewhere to start if a tick disease seems possible....

A friend of mine (in CT) was infected with Lyme in the late 90s, and struggled for a few years b/c the doctors she saw misdiagnosed it--one I recall was certain it was a brown recluse spider bite, even though those spiders are extremely rare in the northeast USA. Finally she found an infectious disease specialist who diagnosed Lyme and got her the heavy-duty antibiotics that helped turn it around for her.

I was bitten by a deer tick around this time last year. I was able to pull off and save the tick. Luckily there was a pilot program at a university here which would identify and test your tick for 3 diseases (Lyme, Babesia, and Anaplasmosis). Mine tested positive for Lyme and Babesia (a blood infection akin to malaria). That was the bad news.

The good news was that it probably was attached to my skin for less than a day, & both those diseases usually require longer (at least 24 hrs) for effective transmission. I've told my doctor but so far haven't felt anything amiss, so I've had no tests yet. But...I did get a prophylactic dose of antibiotic immediately after the bite.

scrubbedexpat091

I don't know for sure if I was bitten by a tick as I didn't see one. I just woke up with a small rash on my arm and thought nothing of it, and then 2 days after the start of the rash, my whole arm was red. I did go to the doctor back then who had no clue what the rash was and he sent me to another doctor, who had no idea and brought in several other doctors, the best they could conclude was that it was a rash, but they had no idea what caused it.

It went away and I went on with life, but then things started to happen, and I'd go the doctor, and they would run tests and such but nothing they ever tested for came back positive.

But finding that checklist today and checking things off, man alot of them apply to me, and I would not be surprised now putting things together that it could be lyme.

I was in an area with lyme at the time of the rash, I was active and spent a lot of time in area's high risk for ticks.

I see my doctor in 2 weeks, and I am going to take that check list in with me, and inquire.

Not sure if its fixable after this many years?

My rash looked like this photo from CDC but on my arm.