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Lyme Disease Helpful information on Tick Lyme Disease, Preventing LD
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Most people with LD become infected during the late spring, summer, and early fall when immature ticks are out looking for their meal. Except in warm climates, few people are bitten by deer ticks during winter months.
Deer ticks are most often found in wooded areas and nearby grasslands, and are especially common where the two areas merge, including neighborhood yards where deer occasionally roam. Ticks do not survive long on sunny lawns, they dry out quickly and die.
How to prevent tick bites
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Wear long sleeves and tightly woven clothing that is light in color when walking in wooded areas so the ticks can be seen more easily.
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Wear your shirt tucked into your pants, and your pants tucked into your socks or boots.
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Walk in the center of trails through the woods to avoid picking up ticks from overhanging grass and brush.
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Keep grass trimmed as short as possible.
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Apply tick repellents with DEET to your clothing, shoes and socks before going out. Another tick repellent called permethrin**, designed to be placed on the clothing [Don't put on exposed skin], can be used alone or in combination with DEET. (Although highly effective, these repellents can cause some serious side effects, particularly when high concentrations are used repeatedly on the skin. Infants and children may be especially at risk for adverse reactions.)
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Check yourself, your family, and your pets routinely for ticks, especially after a trip outdoors.
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Shower and shampoo your hair if you think you may have been exposed to ticks.
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Check your clothes for ticks and wash them immediately in order to remove any ticks.
​LD Secondary Infection
Ticks can become infected with more than one disease-causing microbe (called co-infection). Co-infection may be a potential problem for humans, because the Ixodes ticks that transmit Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria which causes Lyme disease, often carry and transmit other pathogens, as well. A single tick could make a person sick with any one—or several—diseases at the same time.
Possible co-infections include Lyme borreliosis, anaplasmosis and babesiosis. In Europe and Asia, Ixodesticks also are known to transmit tickborne encephalitis viruses.
Fortunately, this tickborne viral infection has not yet been reported in the United States, although in rare instances, ticks have been found to be co-infected with B. burgdorferi and Powassan virus.
For more information on this possibility go to the Secondary Infection link on the right.
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Preventive Antibotics
​Preventative antibiotics are not generally used following all tick bites, but may be used in some special circumstances; a recent study showed that such preventive use of antibiotics is very effective.
If you've had a LD infection this is not true - you must get antibotics for Any Tick Bite.
If you are bitten by a tick, the best way to remove it is by taking the following steps:
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Tug gently but firmly with blunt tweezers near the "head" of the tick until it releases its hold on the skin
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To lessen the chance of contact with the bacterium, try not to crush the tick's body or handle the tick with bare fingers
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Swab the bite area thoroughly with an antiseptic to prevent infection
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DO NOT use kerosene, Vaseline, fingernail polish, or a cigarette butt
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DO NOT squeeze the tick's body with your fingers or tweezers.
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Pulling the tick off will not cause any more 'damage' then it has already!
Heart and Lyme Disease​
My main emphasis in studying LD was that my son's heart condition was what brought about his diagnosis of LD.
His particular case involved his heart having "irregular, slow heartbeat, and by dizziness & shortness of breath".
Approximately 8 percent of patients with Lyme disease develop heart complications, according to an article published in the "Canadian Journal of Cardiology."
Some of these complications can be:
- Electrical Abnormalities: disruption of
the electrical signals that coordinate the
beating of the heart.
- Swelling of the Heart: which is
called myopericarditis.
- Congestive Heart Failure: If LD remains
untreated for a long time, some evidence
suggests it may slowly cause heart
failure, which is also known
ascardiomyopathy.
Additional Heart Complications:
- Heart Block
- Pericarditis
- Myocarditis
Please Beware:
The following links on the right should be checked regularly to keep up to date.
QuakeWatch - Questionable Diagnosis and Treatment.
There is no longer a vaccine being made for LD - reason why is found here.
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There ae some sites that follow a very strict diet… no sugar, no wheat, no coffee, no fruit, no dairy but these are long term suffers of LD (those who weren't diagnosed for years). Nothing wrong with this approach if it's works for them. But if you just contracted LD, have had the meds for it and are fine now, I say stay away from this approach.
There are site promoting healthy cures for whatever they are pushing at the moment. Use caution because the research they are using is usually out of date and/or discredited.
You need to look carefully at their claims, what they use for clinical/medical information and if they are just looking for you to buy or signup for something.
Articles & Resources
Fortunately, the cause of Lyme Disease (LD) is known and the disease can be prevented.
Essential to prevention is the avoidance of deer ticks. Although generally only about one
percent of all deer ticks are infected with the Lyme disease bacterium, in some areas more
than half of them harbor the microbe.
Here in New England we're in the more than 1/2 have LD.
