3 year old and Lymes Disease

The deer ticks I have seen are tiny until they have been sucking blood, then they swell to many times their size, that's why it's so hard to remove them, the body will almost explode but the head that you can hardly see will remain if not done properly.

yeah the doc had a hard time removing it

Wood tick mosquitoes and biting flies can transmit it. They dont talk a lot about that but if you go searching for the info it is there.

What is really weird is there is a vaccine for dogs to prevent lyme, like everything else there is still a chance of getting it but, I wonder why there is not one for humans



Eric

Lump - good catch and good news about your daughter's successful treatment. I know what it is like and I don't like it at all. I've had more courses of the antibiotic over the years than I care to count. I've had the bull's eye rash, the fever and all. I could go on about the other problems this insidious disease can cause but you can read that else were.

I don't know what kind of area you live in but there are several easy methods to help eliminate the ticks and the likely hood of them attaching to your person.

First, I treat my outdoor clothing with a product that is sold to prevent ticks from staying on your clothing. There are products containing permetherin designed and sold to treat clothing. Never touches your skin, just clothing. I've never seen a tick on me when wearing the treated clothing. One extreme example is when I was camping in MO with a friend. We did everything side by side: four-wheeled, hiked, chopped wood, fixed equipment and such. At night he'd be pealing at least a dozen ticks off himself, not counting his clothing. There'd be ticks crawling on the camper door step! Never had one on me for two weeks.

Another passive method is used to treat the source of the dear tick's transportation. Ticks don't move far, they need another critter to move them. Ticks drop off of deer but get moved around more by mice that scurry around the ground. It's not a fast treatment but will have a big affect on tick population over a few years. It's simple, just take a scrap piece of medium nap carpet. The carpet piece will fit into a piece of PVC pipe cut to about 1 -2' long. Cut the carpet to length and then just wide enough so it will make a tube that will fit inside the PVC pipe. There should be a path, a little tunnel of carpet the mice can crawl through from one end to another - a cozy place for the mice. Purchase some Sevin insecticidal dust and dust the carpet with the Sevin, curl it up and insert it into the tube. Place a few tubes around the edges of the lawn near woods or litter piles. Mice love the carpeted PVC sanctuaries and dust themselves with Sevin when they visit the tubes. The move the stuff around to where the ticks are and in a few years, you'll have taken a great toll on the tick population. Beats broadcasting insecticides all over the lawn, it's more of a surgical strike using the host to eliminate the ticks

Coalfire wrote:What is really weird is there is a vaccine for dogs to prevent lyme, like everything else there is still a chance of getting it but, I wonder why there is not one for humans



Eric

There was a vaccine for humans. It was a three shot series. I had the first shot and I had a very severe reaction at the injection site. That night it felt like I had been slammed with a baseball bat. My arm hurt so I count get my wallet out of my pocket, with my left arm. I didn't go back for the second or third shot. I heard it said some people got really sick from the vaccine. There where law suits and it has been withdrawn from the market as far as I know.

Coalfire wrote:What is really weird is there is a vaccine for dogs to prevent lyme, like everything else there is still a chance of getting it but, I wonder why there is not one for humans
Eric

There was but production was stopped in 2002. It caused the body to product the antibodies but would mask the presence of active bacteria. The tests for the disease have gotten better but it's still an after the fact test. The bacteria hide in the body in hard to reach places: joints, nerves and the brain. Nasty, just a slow and nasty disease.

Read more at the Center for Disease Control

For what I understand, lyme disease can be hard to detect. I know a woman that had the test 3 or 4 times till it was posative. I was tested years ago with a spinal tap. I had bell's palsy and that is one of the causes. My test was negative and haven't had it ever since. MY BEST WISHES FOR YOUR DAUGHTER.

thank you

Not to alarm you but you really have to know what to look for in terms of symptoms months and years down the line just in case they didnt eradicate it 100%. This is nasty, nasty stuff. Again recommend you find and read the book COPING WITH LYME DISEASE by Denise Lang. It gives a good overview of the chronic form of the disease and what subtle signs to watch out for. Again she is probably going to be fine but YOU have to know what to be on the lookout for just in case. Hate to see some poor little kid have to go through what I/many others have been through. I have no affiliation with the book.

Yes they said to watch for symptoms in the future, but being she is a child, they say that most of the time, there systems will pretty much erradicate it. he emphisised most cases. he said if it comes back they will treat again with antibiotics. but I will be watchful, and I will have to read that book

Believe it or not I have a friend in the Elwood City, Pa. area that got Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever from a tick bite, they figured that someone had brought one back either on their pet or clothing & some how it ended up on him, darn near killed him before they figured it out. Some of those pesky little things can end up creating a big health problem.

I've never seen a deer tick in my life until 2009. That spring I had 5 of them all over my body, after seeing HUNDREDS of them in my outdoor storage area.

Had big red lumps where they all bit, but no bullseyes at all. Itchy as hell. The red lumps lasted almost 2 years before finally going away ... then I got hit with another bastard, right in the belly. Same red nasty lump, but this one was gone in 6 months. Never went to the doctors - not a big fan of them unless it's life or death. Don't really trust them - I have my reasons. I tried soaking them in alcohol, then brake cleaner - neither did a thing. Then I started burning them - first with hot water in the shower, then with a hair dryer at close range. The one that I burnt bad enough to hurt myself went away first, so I kept doing it. Eventually they all went away. Had a few start itching out of the blue, & started looking as if it was coming back, but I burned them again & they've been gone since. Been 9 months since that last tick bite, & over 2 years since the first ones.


EDIT: Just found this pic & I got my times wrong ( damn memory ...) - was there in May (when I always get bit) according to date stamp, & was gone by August - so was gone in 3 months vs. 2 years for the last time, & has only been 5 months since this last one healed.

they say u dont wanna burn em like with a cig, cause it makes em go deeper, n possibly ransmit the disease faster....thats what i have read ne way

No - I yanked them out with my fingers, then burned the bite sites.