I’m not optimistic this will be all that helpful. Just because the tick you found is negative, that tells you nothing about those you did not find. Just because a tick is positive, that does not mean that it has infected whoever it was attached to.
My understanding is that the ticks only transmit disease after they have been attached long enough to become engorged. None of the ticks shown were engorged.
How about loosening restrictions on deer hunting as part of the policy change to reduce deer populations and, consequently, tick populations, that Governor Healey grandstanded^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H spoke passionately about earlier this year
No, well the point was that noise, chorus, or feedback did not exist. There was no such thing. Therefore, the technical workaround was to place two amplifiers, face to face in order to "mimic" distortion.
This is the way that "Loveless" (1991) was recorded, sans anesthesia.
I didn’t discover that ticks were a problem until I was in my mid 20s, and had been rolling around in deer-filled brush for years. Either I got very lucky, or have a chronic tick-borne disease.
I’ve been battling unexplained anxiety, fatigue, poor sleep and cognitive decline throughout my 30s. I’ve had every blood test under the sun, numerous sleep studies and tried every vitamin. I’ve had no answers and no change.
Sometimes, I've believed that it impacts my performance at work. Sometimes I feel like I should be retiring, but I’m not even 40 yet. Sometimes, it's not so bad.
I saw a video on controlled hypothermia the other day, which seems like snake oil. I guess that’s next on my list to try. I feel desperate, but I’m just having to get used to the feeling of desperation, because there appears to be no answer or solution.
Did you mean hyperthermia? This whole thread sent me down a rabbit hole (I have several close folks afflicted by Lyme) and while at first glance hyperthermia might seem woo-ish, there is real research being done, particularly on hyperthermia + antibiotics. The chief drawbacks are cost (I'm seeing $30k and up and not usually covered) and strain on the body. Friedrich Douwes pioneered much of this.
Douwes F. Komplextherapie der chronischen Borreliose (Lyme disease) - Ein neuer Therapieansatz: die Antibiotika augmentierte Thermoeradikation (AAT). OM & Ernährung. 2018;164:F10.
Douwes F. The successful antibiotic augmented thermal eradication of chronic lyme disease. Paper presented at the 32nd ESHO Meeting, Berlin, 16–19 May 2018.
Recognizable. I try to increase how much of my wage I save, in case I can’t continue working for ever.
My best answer for my own sake is just burnout, exasperated by some underlying depression. I can have good periods when job stress is low and I make good life choices. Incidentally, I had a blood test show borreliosis randomly 10 years ago, but doubt that’s relevant.
Growing up in the UK, I never thought about ticks, ever. I then moved to Poland, and remember thinking the Poles were crazy for worrying about tall grass all the time. It was a huge 'wtf are you doing lol?' moment... Then a friend of a friend got fucked over by Lyme disease.
Now I've developed a case of Polish paranoia and tuck my trousers in socks, even if it's 35 degs :/
it's good to have test for Lyme in case of strange symptoms (joint pain etc.) but check for alpha-tryptasemia which is more probable (5% people have it).
TLDR: A startup called LymeAlert is launching a $40 at-home test (August 2026) that tells you in 15 minutes whether a tick carries Lyme disease. You grind the tick in a container, insert a chemical strip, and it changes color if Lyme bacteria are present. Founded by an MIT Sloan MBA / physician assistant who wanted to save people the $50–$450 and week-long wait of lab testing. Caveat: it only detects Lyme (not other tick-borne infections like Alpha-gal), though a multi-pathogen version is planned for next year. They're also building a smartphone app to crowdsource infected-tick locations.
My pet theory is that lyme disease coevolved to make mamals "addicted" to ticks. Every reinfection and the resulting fever-body pyrolysis, resets the infections malaise sideffects for a while. Thus, if you where outside all the time, you would be conditioned to expose yourselfs to ticks all the time, to feel "healthy" again. If those little bastards secreted fentanyl it would have a similar outcome.
We are giving our dog Fluralaner/Bravecto[1] against ticks which paralyzes and kills them when they bite, drastically reducing potential exposure to Lyme disease. Unfortunately not approved for humans and therefore an interesting inverse: humans can get vaccinated against TBEV but not against Lyme disease whereas dogs can get vaccinated against Lyme disease but not TBEV.
However it is somewhat area specific and Massachusetts is a hotbed when it comes to lyme disease carrying ticks. Lyme really should be treated right away.
I think urgent care wouldn't really be out of the question for a tick bite there. Telehealth is also something that likely could work here. It should be a 5 minute "Hey, got a tick bite, here's the picture of the tick, can I get a prescription for some antibiotics".
Again, I don't think you should be given antibiotics for a tick bite, unless you start showing symptoms, namely the infamous erythema migrans? Most ticks don't carry lyme.
It might be irrational but ticks terrify me (grew up in the Northwest where they aren’t so much a thing) and make me want to avoid moving to the East entirely
Start thinking about α-gal syndrome, even if you're in The North. I just pulled an adult Lone Star tick off my back last night. I had no idea that they had made it to Northern Illinois. Now I get to spend the summer waiting to see if a burger is going to kill me.
For me, vigorous exercise, riding my bike, running, jumping rope, has always made me feel better mentally and physically whether it was a pathogen funk or just life and feeling down or symptomatic as some describe below. I always check my kids and myself after hikes, especially in tall grass or shrubs. I've found ticks here and there over the years. The cathartic effect of high-intensity exercise where you push yourself to what you think is your limit is amazing for your physical and mental well being. The old Sufi saying, "Movement is life; stillness is death" is my mantra. I have friends who avoid hiking for fear of ticks and Lyme disease. It's a shame, since being outdoors in the sun, smelling the woods, and taking in the views while walking are priceless. Movement over pharmaceuticals.
While this at-home test kit is neat, there already are solutions to this problem which are likely more beneficial to the overall awareness of tick-borne illness. In the US, one can send a tick (alive, dead, in shreds) to Penn State’s tick research lab via usps and get results in just a few days. Customers can select what results they’re looking for, as ticks don’t solely carry one “lyme disease” marker.
I would feel better sending a tick that i pulled off of myself or my pets to a dedicated research lab rather than buy some one-off test kits which don’t contribute to the overall incidence rate of tick-borne illness.
I even sent a tick that I found in a potted plant from home depot (never attached to me) which turned out to carry rocky mountain spotted fever. I only sent that random tick in just to see if it carried anything, and since seeing the report from Penn State Ive wondered if i had contracted RMSF what my medical journey would have looked like, since i live on the opposite side of the continent from those ticks and i had found it mid-December. That would have required a Gregory House differential diagnosis where I live.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 50.6 ms ] threadI’m not optimistic this will be all that helpful. Just because the tick you found is negative, that tells you nothing about those you did not find. Just because a tick is positive, that does not mean that it has infected whoever it was attached to.
My understanding is that the ticks only transmit disease after they have been attached long enough to become engorged. None of the ticks shown were engorged.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK545493/table/rc1121.ap...
This is the way that "Loveless" (1991) was recorded, sans anesthesia.
I’ve been battling unexplained anxiety, fatigue, poor sleep and cognitive decline throughout my 30s. I’ve had every blood test under the sun, numerous sleep studies and tried every vitamin. I’ve had no answers and no change.
Sometimes, I've believed that it impacts my performance at work. Sometimes I feel like I should be retiring, but I’m not even 40 yet. Sometimes, it's not so bad.
I saw a video on controlled hypothermia the other day, which seems like snake oil. I guess that’s next on my list to try. I feel desperate, but I’m just having to get used to the feeling of desperation, because there appears to be no answer or solution.
Douwes F. Komplextherapie der chronischen Borreliose (Lyme disease) - Ein neuer Therapieansatz: die Antibiotika augmentierte Thermoeradikation (AAT). OM & Ernährung. 2018;164:F10.
Douwes F. The successful antibiotic augmented thermal eradication of chronic lyme disease. Paper presented at the 32nd ESHO Meeting, Berlin, 16–19 May 2018.
My best answer for my own sake is just burnout, exasperated by some underlying depression. I can have good periods when job stress is low and I make good life choices. Incidentally, I had a blood test show borreliosis randomly 10 years ago, but doubt that’s relevant.
Now I've developed a case of Polish paranoia and tuck my trousers in socks, even if it's 35 degs :/
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluralaner
I might be mistaken, but I don't think you should go to the emergency room with a tick bite..? Do people really do that?
However it is somewhat area specific and Massachusetts is a hotbed when it comes to lyme disease carrying ticks. Lyme really should be treated right away.
I think urgent care wouldn't really be out of the question for a tick bite there. Telehealth is also something that likely could work here. It should be a 5 minute "Hey, got a tick bite, here's the picture of the tick, can I get a prescription for some antibiotics".
Is the reactive strip used in the kit an existing, well-proven product?
https://radiolab.org/podcast/alpha-gal
I would feel better sending a tick that i pulled off of myself or my pets to a dedicated research lab rather than buy some one-off test kits which don’t contribute to the overall incidence rate of tick-borne illness.
I even sent a tick that I found in a potted plant from home depot (never attached to me) which turned out to carry rocky mountain spotted fever. I only sent that random tick in just to see if it carried anything, and since seeing the report from Penn State Ive wondered if i had contracted RMSF what my medical journey would have looked like, since i live on the opposite side of the continent from those ticks and i had found it mid-December. That would have required a Gregory House differential diagnosis where I live.