Ticks in the NE

[Robot870]

Ticks will destroy your life - used to live on Long Island and it was a disaster dealing with those things.......Lots of friends have major issues from limes!

[AngryScientist]

do you think it has to do with the swampy hot humid weather we have been having the last couple weeks?

i know it's july, but it seems like it has been more days in the really bad hot/humid zone than years before this season?

[slambers3]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

do you think it has to do with the swampy hot humid weather we have been having the last couple weeks?

i know it's july, but it seems like it has been more days in the really bad hot/humid zone than years before this season?

Probably the abnormally warm winter we had

[daker13]

I have to say along with benb, I've seen far fewer ticks this summer than in past summers. I saw few last year as well. I live in a high tick area like a lot of other people posting, but I haven't seen one tick this summer, on either me or my dog. My parents live in northern NH, and there were never ticks there until about 20 years ago, then suddenly ticks (deer and dog) all over the place; this summer my dad hasn't seen any ticks.

I got lyme disease around 2000 (I'm pretty sure from mountain biking at Big River here in RI), thank god no lingering effects, but I'm super-tick obsessive and always pay attention to ticks. It's been very dry here, so that might have something to do with the lack of ticks in my area. But anytime I read an article about ticks, it always says that there are more ticks than ever and the tick population is doing nothing but growing. Having spent a lot of time in RI when you couldn't go out in the woods without a scene like the one the op describes, I find it weird that people around here seem to be acting like the tick population hasn't changed. (Now I'm sure to find a tick on me when I go out tomorrow.)

[djg21]

Originally Posted by Mikej

Permethrin is the way, ticks laugh at DEET, regardless of the %

Don’t use DEET on dogs; and it’s not a good idea to use Permethrin on you or your dogs if you have cats. DEET is toxic to dogs, as Permethrin is to cats.

I use a Picardin-based repellant, and I spray some in my hand and rub it on my dogs’ chest and the top of their heads before we venture into the woods. This is on top of Frontline.

[oliver1850]

I have only seen one here this year - on the kitchen counter presumably brushed off my arm while at the sink. Thickest I ever saw them was on a ride with buldogge (Mark) in west central IL several years ago. We were in a wooded area, trying to find a bridge/ford across a creek that was on the maps but which we never did find. At some point while walking in the woods, we looked down and saw hundreds/thousands of ticks on the ground and climbing.

[Mikej]

Originally Posted by djg21

Don’t use DEET on dogs; and it’s not a good idea to use Permethrin on you or your dogs if you have cats. DEET is toxic to dogs, as Permethrin is to cats.

I use a Picardin-based repellant, and I spray some in my hand and rub it on my dogs’ chest and the top of their heads before we venture into the woods. This is on top of Frontline.

I thought we were talking people- but good advice on the household animals- I generally use the vet supplied Frontline. Ticks just aren’t repelled, they have to be killed with chemicals.

[R3awak3n]

Originally Posted by Mikej

I thought we were talking people- but good advice on the household animals- I generally use the vet supplied Frontline. Ticks just aren’t repelled, they have to be killed with chemicals.

yeah we use Frontline too and it works well.

[djg21]

Originally Posted by Mikej

I thought we were talking people- but good advice on the household animals- I generally use the vet supplied Frontline. Ticks just aren’t repelled, they have to be killed with chemicals.

Both sort of. Dogs are more likely to pick up ticks than people, given that they’re running through grass and vegetation and unable to remove ticks that have not yet embedded. You can use a Picardin repellent on your dog in addition to Frontline. Frontline kills ticks after they’ve embed, but before they can transmit pathogens that cause Lyme or other tick-borne diseases. It doesn’t repel ticks. If ticks get on your animal, they can drop off in your home before they embed.

[NHAero]

We use Frontline and a tick collar

Originally Posted by djg21

Both sort of. Dogs are more likely to pick up ticks than people, given that they’re running through grass and vegetation and unable to remove ticks that have not yet embedded. You can use a Picardin repellent on your dog in addition to Frontline. Frontline kills ticks after they’ve embed, but before they can transmit pathogens that cause Lyme or other tick-borne diseases. It doesn’t repel ticks. If ticks get on your animal, they can drop off in your home before they embed.

[54ny77]

yes it can be life altering. good friend had it very bad, from tick bite.

Originally Posted by Robot870

Ticks will destroy your life - used to live on Long Island and it was a disaster dealing with those things.......Lots of friends have major issues from limes!

[fmradio516]

Ugh i hate them. Ive never had one but my wife and MIL both had Lyme and it doesnt sound fun.

Whats weird is that Ive been going mountain biking pretty much every week, sometimes multiple times a week for the past two seasons and i fall into all kinds of stuff off the trail. ive never had one on me once. Really weird..

If I could go back in time and stop that ex-Nazi scientist on Plum Island....

[Toddtwenty2]

Ticks are aweful.

Our dog just almost died from Rocky Mountain Tick Fever, despite being on Tick prevention medicine. He was effectively paralyzed within three days of showing symptoms with a terrible fever and some vertigo/stroke symptoms. Heavy doses of Prednisone brought him back, but it seems to have aged him years.

We have been doing controlled burns in MI to try to help, but it doesn’t seem to be working particularly well. I believe we are better off than the NE, but doubtfully by any large measure. Perhaps we breed and release huge numbers of roads and guinea fowl next?

[daker13]

Originally Posted by fmradio516

If I could go back in time and stop that ex-Nazi scientist on Plum Island....

Word. I was just describing some of the various tick-related conspiracy theories to my brother in law...

[paredown]

There was a study for tick prevention in the NE that was proving effective--IIRC the test site was Fire Island? The cycle is ticks pick up the infection from white mice, then they must feed on a large mammal to grow, so where you have mice and deer, you have ticks carrying Lyme. They set up salt licks for deer, with a set of paint roller type attachments, so that when the deer stuck their heads in to lick the salt, these rollers, treated with permethrin would brush across the heads/necks of the deer. Simple, cheap and as far as they studied--quite effective. But they got their funding pulled, and it was never studied in enough detail, nor did they have time to figure out if it would scale. It is not a conspiracy, just indifference.

Government conspiracies aside--the lack of effective treatment for Lyme is a public health scandal on the scale of the denial over AIDs, except the gay community forced the CDC to fund research for the latter.

For Lyme, the CDC and Center for Infectious Disease protocols rely on basic studies that were badly done, a blood test that is a titer (studies the byproducts of infection) that is not accurate and does not provide results in the critical first week or two as the infection takes hold, and a treatment protocol which works in most cases, but leaves others suffering residual effects.

After years (15-20?) of dismissing the concerns of thousands upon thousands of patients who had ongoing effects from Lyme infections (and who were being told by their doctors that they were more or less imagining their symptoms), and vigorously attacking other doctors who insisted that there were residual effects under the rubric of 'Chronic Lyme'--which the Center for Infectious Disease and the CDC insisted DID NOT EXIST--they changed their minds, except they had to rename the problem to save face.

So now the medical establishment are calling these lingering effects "post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome" (PTLDS)--and actually admitting that the doctors (who for years were attacked and reviled for pointing out that they had sick patients who had been healthy up to the point they got Lyme, who had been treated with standard protocols and yet had lingering and often debilitating health effects) had been right! Sort of.

And yet--we still have inadequate research, an inadequate test (Western Blot titer), a standard therapy (the full course of Doxy) which is not always effective--and apparently very little research that is ongoing. Part of this is that health insurance companies are all in when something can be provided cheaper. There is a better blood test but it is expensive for example.

For an example of bad science--the CID treatment protocol of a full course of Doxy relies on an early study where they excluded from treatment those who were infected with Lyme but DID NOT display the classic bullseye rash, and this has been the foundational study for the standard Doxy treatment. And yet--more recent studies have shown than only a small subset will get the bullseye rash (some studies put it as low as ~20% of infected people).

I could go on--but anyone who knows someone who has suffered with Lyme, the best book I have read--not a quack, but a solid thinking MD who is a good clinician:
"Why Can't I Get Better? Solving the Mystery of Lyme and Chronic Disease: Solving the Mystery of Lyme and Chronic Disease"