Discussion: Lyme disease

If you're interested in Lyme disease and especially if you live in Lyme Country, you will likely be interested in listening to today's Fresh Air. Some is known about Lyme, a lot isn't, and there is much misinformation in between.

Some other Lyme news today (uhhh---yesterday):

http://news.wjct.org/post/unf-researchers-make-big...

Also, C&EN recent issue features a couple articles on lime disease, vaccination, and diagnosis.

Great articles Keg! In addition, the NYTimes yesterday had an article about Stage III or Chronic Lyme Disease...what happens if you do not, or can not, adequately treat Lyme symptoms in a timely manner.

According to the article, Lyme research is terribly underfunded by the NIH. Meanwhile Lyme is becoming a very large and little-understood disease.

...The condition is known as post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, or PTLDS. It is a real disorder, although nobody really knows what’s happening. A lot of patients have been told they’re not really sick, just tired or depressed. But this is not normal fatigue, and it’s not caused by depression...

Intravenous antibiotic therapy for PTLDS is based on disputed reports that these patients may harbor hidden reservoirs of the spirochete causing Lyme disease...But researchers have found it of little or no benefit, and many say the regimen is fraught with hazards that could be even worse than the illness...

This research looks very promising. Kind of like a flu shot.

Let's keep an eye on it and get in on the clinical trials...

First, I always wondered why it took 24+ hours for the tick to pass the bacteria to us.

Second, how creative! Unlike a flu shot which waits for the attack, a pre-emptive strike on bacteria while still in tick's gut! Hope it works.

And, there is this approach. Kill the tick!

hopefully the new vaccine meets with better success than the first.

@Ricka, I was talking to a tick specialist on the plane a while back, and he said yes, gut to saliva takes a while, but... if it has been (interrupted) feeding already, or some such, it could happen faster.

I think part of the reason for the transmission delay is that the tick isn't primarily trying to put stuff into you. It's trying to get stuff out of you.

and why you don't want to squeeze the tick during removal

The new vaccine will ultimately prove to be carcinogenic.

rjb3, thanks for the Poughkeepsie Journal article link. I think (and hope) that I react the same way. In < 12 h I get the itch and welt; and then I twist the sucker off. But it certainly isn't dead, but will be crushed within seconds. Lucky me. I had one last week after some hours of boundary clearing.

I almost always feel them before they bite. And I don't crush them, my preference is to put them in a folded-over piece of clear tape, a sarcophagus from which they will never escape, but I can still see them and feel smug.

I usually set them free so they can spread my disease, although the last two did not survive the removal with cayenne pepper hot sauce and a metal spatula.

More about PTLDS from a Harvard researcher speaking on Martha's Vineyard this month.

Joe - avoid putting stuff on ticks as a way of encouraging them to let go. It can cause them to regurgitate into your blood stream with obvious consequences.