Lyme Disease and/or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever!

[pintail_drake2004]

Howdy yall. well seeing as we didnt not have a decent winter, the ticks are pretty thick. I have been doing some ADC work for a feller and i had 4 ticks bite me in the past 2 weeks. I am good about spraying down with deet, and whatever that stuff is that they sell at the army supply store that kills the ticks on contact, and shower when im done...My thought is you can not be too careful. Well, yesterday i was deathly ill, and had to go to the doctor...not a pleasant experience. He gave me some antibiotics to take care of this mess. Im still not feeling up to par.

Please be careful of these lil blood suckers!

[kennym]

Been there,done that a couple years ago,glad you caught it early. I guess its bad to let it go!

[GMASIUK]

I spent five days in the hospital two years ago on an IV due to lymes. I had the tests after the bites and they came back negative. The symptoms were there for 2.5 months after but not bad (nothing I could really put my finger on). Then one morning I could not get out of bed they had to take me out by ambulance. To make a long story short if you get bit, get the full 20 day treatment, not!!! the two pill mini dose. The test are not fool proof and the mini treatment does not work. I thought I was a dead man, the pain was unbearable, it was the worst experience of my life. Please, if have any questions PM me.

[DannyBows]

My brother died on Memorial Day 1975 from "Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. He was 14 at the time, I was 16. His dog picked-up some Tics during a visit with relatives in West Virginia. The Doctors at first thought it was "Scarlet Fever", until it was too late. I have some relatives there that ended-up with bad eyes from less severe cases of it.

[Shawn Leonard]

I had lyme over a year ago. i had the mini treatment and all seemed well. I tested negative 3 times by th way. This year I was not feeling well and everything ached. I developed another bulls-eye near the original bite. I went and was tested again negative, but i told the doctor I want the full treatment of Doxycylcline, well he said we do not like to do that if we are not sure. My response fine, but if in a few weeks or month I am deathly ill expect a visit from my attorneys!! His response, where do ya want to pick up your script!! I recently finished the medicine and feel much better. I had a more advanced test and it turned out I had stage two lyme disease. If ya think ya have it, get treated!! Shawn

[Hattrick]

Does lyme all ways have symptoms?? Whats the best test???

[Osagetree]

Just finished two weeks of antibiotics for suspected lymes. It is not prevelent here but I had the bullseye spot and other symptoms.

[Aeronut]

Put lyme disease in your google search engine and you'll have enough reading to last you a week.

 http://www.google.com/search?q=lyme+disease&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=FlockInc.:en-US:official&client=firefox

Dennis

[Steve Nuckels]

Got bit about three weeks ago got antibiotics and just finished the pills.  Will any antibiotics work or is there a specific drug?

Steve AKA Tillerboy

[pintail_drake2004]

Besides totally staying out of the woods, spraying, boots, shower, etc....what else can a feller do to help prevent ticks?
I have always used knee high boots, jeans tucked in, duct tape, spray, etc... yall got anything else?

[bowless]

The past few seasons I've used peramone(sp) from Walmart and haven't found a tick on me since using it.

[fxe]

My hunting partner is a tick magnet.He will find 4 or 5 and me 0,I just try to get him to go first.  

[Jeremy]

Lyme doesn't always display all the typical symptoms.  It's actually pretty common NOT to have the bulls eye rash.  I normally pull a dozen or so off me every year and about 3x that off my wife.

Check out the CDC site for Lyme and other tick borne illnesses.

A common screwup most people do it burn the tick off or cover it in vaseline.  That's a sure fire way to get the tick to puke the contents of its stomach right into you and the chances of getting infected skyrocket!!!!

I hate the little blood suckers, but haven't gotten infected yet. I'm pretty careful about checking after I get out of the woods and don't use any of the repellents.  Look yourself over carefully and get the tick shortly after (or before) it attaches.

-Jeremy (Lyme is just down the road from me)

[JAG]

This was sent to me by a friend!

It's that time of year again....  good advise.. (**the tar based soap/shampoo works best** kills 'em grave yard dead!!!)

Tick Removal

A little trick for all you hunters/fisherman/woods walkers etc......

Subject: How to remove a tick

Please forward to anyone with children or hunters, etc!! Thanks!

A School Nurse has written the info below -- good enough to share -- And it really works!!

I had a pediatrician tell me what she believes is the best
way to remove a tick. This is great, because it works in those places
where it's sometimes difficult to get to with tweezers: between toes, in the middle of a head full of dark hair, etc.

Apply a glob of liquid soap to a cotton ball. Cover the tick with the
soap-soaked cotton ball and let it stay on the repulsive insect for a few seconds (15-20), after which the tick will come out on its own and be stuck to the cotton ball when you lift it away. This technique has worked every time I've used it (and that was frequently), and it's much less traumatic for the patient and easier for me.

Unless someone is allergic to soap, I can't see that this would be
damaging in any way. I even had my doctor's wife call me for advice because she had one stuck to her back and she couldn't reach it with tweezers. She used his method and immediately called me back to say, 'It worked!'

[Rob DiStefano]

If yer afield or in the woods, yer a target for Lymes disease - way more so in this century than the last.

I've had Lymes.  I'm now "cured".  

There is NO PROOF POSITIVE TEST for Lymes.  Blood tests are poor guess at best.  There may never be a physical rash (as in my case) at the bite area.  

My suggestion, based on my own experience with Lymes, is do not rely on Western medicine.

I was being treated for "tennis elbow" with anti-inflammatories for over 7 months before my wife slapped some sense into me and I visited a Naturopath doctor who detected the Lymes within 20 minutes.  Subsequent herbal supplements knocked out 90% of the symptoms within 3 weeks and 5 months later the bug couldn't be detected in me.  I get a checkup once a year.  Still bug free.

Tick removal is never easy.  NEVER coat the tick with any substance, nor aggravate it with heat - this will only induce the bug to vomit it's stomach contents - and the Lyme Borrelia bacteria - into yer blood stream.  Grab it by the HEAD with pointed tweezers and yank out.  It's OK if the bug's proboscis, or even entire head, remains in yer skin.  You want to get that bug OUT of yer skin ASAP to lessen the chance of any of its stomach contents going into yer blood stream, so even yanking or scraping it off ya is better than nothing.

YMMV - but it really shouldn't.

[The Vanilla Gorilla]

I've had RMSF. 4 years ago.  Its a pretty rank fever. Should have gotten on it sooner than what I did because by the time I started on antiobiotics, the infection had inflamed the area around my heart (pericarditis) and had caused a lot of strain on my heart. 4 days in the hospital in the cardiac intensive care unit. I was living going to school in Tulsa, and city doctors don't see a whole lot of tick borne illnesses.  They just couldn't understand how a 26 year old could have any kind of heart problems, regardless of what bit me.

So, these days I spray down with Coulston's Duranon Tick Repellent.  Its 50% Permethrin. When I first got told about this crap, they told me it kills ticks as they crawl on your clothes.  I thought, "Hogwash."   Well, it ain't no lie!  I've been chasing hogs for the past 2 evenings on our land and seeing many ticks crawling on me, but they never last very long.  I did find one crawling on my side, but I suspect he sliped up under my shirt before I remembered to tuck my shirt in.

The Permetrin works! It'll probably give me cancer in 10 years with all of it I use, but at least I won't have RMSF or Lymes!

Cam

[Morning Star]

Rob, I'm curious how your doctor detected the disease?  I recently had a blood tests come back negative, western blot and the other common one.

[Rob DiStefano]

Originally posted by Morning Star:
Rob, I'm curious how your doctor detected the disease?  I recently had a blood tests come back negative, western blot and the other common one.

My Naturopath uses a Vega computer that compares your body energy with known toxins.

[pintail_drake2004]

I use the Permethrin stuff because it is the best i have found. The last few years i have cruised alot of timber, and written a couple management plans so i spray down heavy. I like the fact that it works even after it drys for days. I have been talking to folks who say garlic pills help ward off blood sucking critters...but i dont know. Especially if you want to go hunting, that dont seem like a good idea as other critters may detect you quicker.
My doc told me to save $$$ that a blood test was a waste of time. He said that the person who was bit (me) has a better understanding of whats going on than some feller drawing blood. I know i was bit-proof enough to be a lil concerned. The symptoms of Lymes and RMSF appeared and i didnt waste one second getting to the doc. The meds he gave me though, he said to avoid direct sun light for the week im taking this stuff. IS that what yall had to do? He just told me to cover up, and wear a hat or this stuff could make you turn red.

[Rob DiStefano]

I avoid antibiotics like the Black Plague and I reserve their use as the final last resort.  Then again, I walk a different path from most folks when it comes to both physical healing and food.