Ticks and Lyme disease

Note tick under Angie's right eye

On the local news recently, an anchor person claimed about 80% of deer ticks now carry the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.  Deer ticks are the tiny ticks that are often difficult to notice.  Sometimes, their bites hurt.  Other times a person doesn't even know he's been bitten.

Experts say you should wear long clothes and spray yourself with a Deet repellant.  I don't know how well the repellant actually works.  Unfortunately, ticks can be found just about anywhere on my property.  I don't spray myself every time I go outdoors. 

I do know that after you have been outdoors, it is important to check your clothes and yourself for ticks.  It is probably best to take a tape roller to your clothes.  I have even used the rollers on my hands and arms and actually captured ticks this way.  I suppose this could be unpleasant if you have hairy arms.  But don't count on the washer and dryer to kill ticks.  I've heard tales of ticks surviving a laundering.  I wouldn't be a bit surprised.  These creepy little bugs are pretty indestructible and hard to kill.  

If you find a strange little black speck on yourself, it could very well be a tick.  The longer the tick stays attached to you, the greater the chance the tick has of passing the Lyme bacteria into your blood.  That is why it is important to remove the whole tick as soon as possible.  Don't fool around by applying Vaseline and waiting for it to drop off.  This supposedly takes hours.  I don't know if Vaseline  really works because when the tick is done drinking your blood, it will drop off anyway.  This is too long to wait.  

Lyme disease can manifest in many ways.  If you were bitten by a tick that carried Lyme disease you could get a bull's eye rash.  But instead, you might get a weird painful rash that keeps getting bigger.  Or you might not get a rash at all.  You could also get flu like symptoms or just feel under the weather.  Or no symptoms.  Many people have it and never even know.

Lyme disease is diagnosed by a simple blood test.  Unfortunately, even in an area where Lyme disease is common, doctors often don't think of administering the test.  I know this from personal experience.  I got a painful rash that eventually covered an area  bigger than the size of my hand.  It was Doctor #5 that finally thought of Lyme disease and and gave me a blood test. 

A couple years later, although my husband didn't get a rash, he wasn't feeling well.  This time, we asked for the blood test.  It came back positive and he was treated.

There is much unknown about Lyme disease and even among doctors, the theories are conflicting.  They do know that once you have had Lyme disease, the antibodies will always show up in your blood tests.  Because of this, I'm not sure how they can tell if you contract it again.  Nobody knows if having it once will protect you from a repeat experience.  Some doctors don't even believe in Lyme disease.  These doctors shouldn't be practicing medicine.  Some doctors think the twenty something days of antibiotics will cure it for good.  Others doctors claim it should be considered a chronic disease because it can flare up again.  I suspect it's chronic because my rash has since flared up a couple of times.

To sum things up, if you have the misfortune to have a tick attach itself to you, remove it as soon as possible.  Don't freak out and throw the tick or let it go.  Instead, drop the little bugger in alcohol or smash it.  Keep in mind, it isn't easy to smash a tick.  So if a bug is difficult to crush, most likely, it is a tick.  This is gross, but once the tick is bloated from drinking blood, it is easy to crush.  And finally, when in doubt, don't be afraid to ask for a blood test.