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Welcome back to the new NEFF. Take a break from Twitter and Facebook. You don't go to Dicks for your fly fishing gear, you go to your local fly fishing store. Enjoy!

Ticks - Not to be taken lightly!

Scott

Scott

Salmo salar Sebago finatic
I just wanted to post a friendly reminder to everyone - with the heat this summer and dry weather, the ticks have been pretty much dormant. With cooler temperatures and (hopefully) rain the ticks will be coming out of dormancy, and looking to eat.

Lyme disease is not something to be taken lightly. Lyme that is untreated for a long period can have serious, long term, debilitating effects. What's worse, the Lyme bacteria can lie dormant for years, only to re-emerge later.

I know too many people (including my wife) who continue to suffer from the long term effects of PLS (Persistent Lyme Syndrome).

So keep an eye out for those ticks - and if you get bit save the tick, and seek medical treatment immediately.
 
They also make GREAT bait once they get stuffed full of the good juice. They stay on the hook suprisingly well, and the trout will gobble them up.

GBS
 
Green Butted Skunk said:
They also make GREAT bait once they get stuffed full of the good juice. They stay on the hook suprisingly well, and the trout will gobble them up.

GBS
Click to expand...
My wife has had serious medical problems from going undiagnosed for Lyme for over a year. All the normal blood tests for Lyme showed negative until she went to a doctor who knew what to do and had a DNA test done, and we learned she had extremely high levels of Lyme bacteria DNA in her system. She completed her Lyme treatments two years ago.

She now has debilitating joint pain & arthritis in her arms & shoulders, and recuring headaches that just dont go away.

Here's the kicker - she just spent the past few days in the hospital to have a cardio catheterization done because we've just learned she has a heart problem (cardiomyopathy) that almost resulted in her dying last week from an occurence of ventricular tachycardia.

She now has to wear a defibrolator vest for the next month or two to see if she improves with treatment. If she doesn't, she will have to have a defibrolation device surgically implanted.

The really funny part? She just turned 40 a month ago.

So I apologize if I'm not laughing.
 
Wife & Lyme

Scott,
My wife had a similar situation in '97 & '98
Long term Lyme disease misdiagnose3d as Multiple Sclerosis.
Best wishes for yours.........
Late for me, more tomorrow...

Greg
 
Sorry to hear of your wife's troubles, Scott. It's not the first time I've heard of severe effects from that disease, even from people who are careful and seeking treatment. You mentioned nothing coming up in the routine tests, and only a special DNA test showing the Lyme... I've heard that before as well. But what I never looked into is the detail behind that -- do you know what circumstances cause a false negative in that 'normal' test?
 
There are several ways that lyme is tested for, and the trouble is there is no test that is specific for Lyme.

The most common test is an antibody test, which is why many people get a false negative result. I'm pretty sure the test that finally proved my wife had Lyme was the PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) test.

A good source of information is the Lyme Disease Foundation, which actually works with all tick borne diseases. (http://www.lyme.org/otherdis/ld.html)

There is much more to it than I know, I am far from an expert. I've just seen what can happen.

I had a classic case of Lyme about 12 years ago. My Lyme developed rapidly, with all the classic symptoms - fever, headaches, muscle aches, and the bullseye rash. I count myself lucky, as I had it for about a month before I was diagnosed (thanks to the rash). I took a high dosage of amoxicillin for 30 days, and was pronounced cured. I certainly hope so, but we'll see...
 
I also had the classic bullseye pattern last summer and did the same regimen of antibiotics. Nasty ticks.

Curious Greg about how your wife was misdiagnosed with MS, as that is a tough
disease to diagnose in the first place and is usually the last thing diagnosed!

My wife has MS, thankfully not debillitating to this point, 7 years after her initial diagnosis.

-- Rob
 
Hey Scott--

I'm sorry to hear about your wife. I wish her the best and hope for a quick recovery.
 
Thanks for all the good wishes guys, I appreciate it (as does my wife).

I didn't post any of that stuff originally because I was just trying to put out a sort of public service announcement. Looking out for the health of my fellow flyfishers, if you will.

As you might expect I've been sort of upset about the whole thing recently so I maybe overreacted a little to GBS's post. Sorry about that.
 
I've been lucky to this point. After practically growing up in the woods, and now working in the woods, I haven't had any signs of Lyme. I've been bitten more times than I can count, too. I'm just thankful chiggers don't carry any diseases (yet), as I have about a thousand bites right now. Where I used to live, the 2 second walk from my front step to my truck resulted in about 50 deer ticks on my legs in the summer and fall. Where I live now is not nearly as bad, but still pretty loaded.

I have noticed that more people from the city or suburbs tend to get Lyme than the people who live and work in Lyme infested areas. I wonder why that is? Possibly city folk don't know to look out for ticks, or that people inundated with tick bites have built up immunities. There is no possible way that I haven't been bitten by a Lyme infected tick up to this point, so I have no explanation for it.
 
I came down with Lyme about 4 years ago. Never got the bulls eye rash, had a fever and it was stage 2 already. Antibiotics cleared it up, knock on wood.

What I want to know is, why in the last fifteen years have ticks become so abundant? I grew up in the woods in Sussex County and did not get a single tick until I was about 20 years old. What's the deal with this? Shouldn't someone be studying this, re: the tick as the new mosquito?

Same thing with bears - never heard of a bear in Sussex County until the last decade. Now they are everywhere.

Crazy!
 
CR:
Ticks are major parasites of rodents. The more rodents you have in an area, the more ticks. Just because some are called Deer Ticks doesn't mean that deer bring them into an area, as many people believe. Ticks have been a problem down my way for as long as I can remember. I think people just notice them more now that Lyme is so prevailent.

Same with bears. People wouldn't notice them so much if every two seconds something wasn't written about them in every NJ paper or fishing bulletin board... :p ;) No, truely, with the amount of development going on in NJ, it's only logical that people would be seeing more wildlife in their backyards, as they have nowhere else to go anymore. The problem with deer in NJ is there are no natural predators (coyotes aren't that big a threat), and with all the development in north NJ, no one wants hunters in their backyards.
 
I once came back from Big Reed pond in Montauk with 7 ticks on my body. I got lucky. I came down with nothing. I think ticks are spreading due to global warming. Years ago we had never saw ticks up in the Catskills. I was told it was due to really cold winters. I did not get any up there this year ( it was a cold winter last year ) , but two years before I had one on me after coming home from hunting in December ! That day it was 70 degrees! That winter we had very little icefishing because it was so warm. The 2 winters after that were cold so no ticks. Let's see what happens this winter.
 
Actually deer ticks get their name because their favorite hosts are deer mice, not whitetail deer.

Deer I've killed in an area with lots of hawks and foxes seem to have a much lower tick count than areas with fewer predators.

Hardly a scientific study, but just an observation.

I've been out bird hunting - the dogs get TopSpot every month - and seen 50+ ticks drop off the dog after only a few hours. One good frost, and I'll find none. A couple days in the 50's, and they're back.

I've been treating all my non-waterproof hunting clothes with Permanone the past few years. I treat my brush pants, and upland jacket including the inside of the sleeve cuffs and the bottom 10", and hat.

During a deer drive a couple of years ago, I had no ticks on me, and my fellow hunters had lots all over them, so it really works. Good stuff.
 
Lyme, more........

My wife and I used to do a fair amount of camping.
As the years progressed, she became more and more lethargic and easily exhausted.

She went to several doctors in NYC ( where we lived at the time ) and
she was referred to a prominent neurologist - who, after multitudinous tests-
in the hospital, diagnnosed her with MS. Apparently, MS has widely varying degrees of
debilitation, and hers did not seem to be ( rapidly ) progressing toward the wheelchair.

But, generally, she was getting worse. My wife had to give up her job in NYC because of extreme exhaustion. Going up a flight of stairs was a major effort.
A friend of mine's wife had similar symptoms and was being treated by a Dr ( specialist ) in NYC who was able to alleviate some of Mrs P's exacerbations. About this time, Lyme disease was being more publicly discussed and we went to our Internist in NJ - who could find no cause for my wife's malaise.

We got a referral to my friend's Dr in NYC - and subsequent testing revealed Lyme
disease ( at a fairly advanced stage ).

She then had to undergo 3 months of daily ( as I remember it ) intravenous
anti-biotic drip therapy via a mid-line tube ( inserted intravenously to the shoulder ).
The mid-line failed every couple of weeks and had to be re-done -NOT a pleasant experience). FYI - One side effect is that infusing room temperature liquids into the body has a tendency to make the recipient VERY cold for hours.

Finally, she got better and was able to regain enough strength to return to work several years later ( of course, Time, Inc did not hold her job ).

A word to the wise - TICKS CARRY SERIOUS DISEASE - DO NOT TAKE TICK BITES LIGHTLY.
 
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