Yeah- I haven't owned a pet my entire adult life, but 15-16 years ago tamed a family a feral cats outside my front door.
Big mistake. No memory of a tick bite, but used to hike a lot in my youth.
I have zero interest in cats. I know, pretty un- American. But absolutely not interested, won't pet them, I'm done.
Posted by GretaM (Member # 40917) on :
Yes you bet.
I was bit by a gazillion sand fleas in December.
It's been downhill since.
I am certain I had bartonella before, but whatever toxic cocktail was in the sand fleas overtaxed my body.
I hate bartonella with a passion.
And anyone who hates anything with a passion, surely has bartonella.
Haha.
Posted by surprise (Member # 34987) on :
I actually LOL Greta, and my H watching football looked over at me.
Can't explain it to him. Ditto!
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
Scares me to death because my FIL has an indoor/outdoor cat full of fleas. We could not convince "Dad" that his cat had fleas.
I knew I could get bart from them, but so far so good.
Posted by lpkayak (Member # 5230) on :
one of my elderly friends has "adopted" 2 outside cats that were hanging around. i know she isnt getting them shots. shes been going downhill mentally the last 5 yrs ive known her. it is not on her radar this could be a problem. before adopting them the last 2 yrs she was feeding chipmunks...real close to her door onthe porch. i started talking to her about bugs etc then and started going over less. now i dont go over and dont even want her to visit me or get in my car...sad...but i have enough to deal with. i dont know what is going to happen with this...
Posted by Carmen (Member # 42391) on :
so someone said that mice carry lyme disease and others. How would you catch it from a mouse?
Posted by GretaM (Member # 40917) on :
Carmen, the deer mouse carries lyme.
The ticks then feed off the mice.
When full, the ticks drop off the mice. Tick will be engorged with blood, lyme, microfilarial worms and more.
When any mammal brushes by the tick, it latches on and feed off its new host, spreading what's in its belly to a new host.
Songbirds that ground feed are thought to be responsible for dispersing the lyme carrying ticks throughout North America.
Other vectors for bartonella are lice, fleas, sand fleas, mosquitoes.
Posted by Catgirl (Member # 31149) on :
We've had pets our whole lives. My husband doesn't have bart. I ask him all the time about his symptoms (his LLMD too). Bart has never popped up. We are exposed to fleas too, so they actually haven't been a bart problem for us.
I never EVER got depressed until I got bit by a tick here on the east coast. That was when my bart symptoms appeared. Sore feet, anxiety, depression, etc. I guess it's possible fleas could carry them, but after having pets for decades and it never presenting, I think the odds are low. For us, we never got it from fleas.
Posted by seibertneurolyme (Member # 6416) on :
Actually it is not a bite from the flea that transmits bartonella. It comes from the flea poop. If you have an open wound and get flea poop on it you can get bartonella. So if you got bit by a flea and then the poop got into the bite you could get it that way.
Gross I know.
Bea Seibert
Posted by surprise (Member # 34987) on :
Do you think it's possible to get Lyme (Borrelia) from a cat/ fleas?
I'm sure I must have gotten an unknown tick bite.
Posted by Catgirl (Member # 31149) on :
I doubt it. I know exactly when I was bit by ticks. Prior to that, I was exposed to many pets, and no lyme symptoms. There is also something about how the tick feeds.
Posted by surprise (Member # 34987) on :
Well, believe it or not, if I was bit by a tick earlier than 4 years ago, unless I saw it, I would not have known.
Furthermore, if I saw a bullseye rash, I would have thought it a spider bite or a mosquito bite.
I'm not kidding. I knew absolutely nothing about Lyme disease. Nothing.
Posted by Catgirl (Member # 31149) on :
Same here, and I believe you. I am sure I was bit many other times here and elsewhere without me knowing. Looking back, I remember the symptoms after my bite (child).
Surprise, I'm saying I doubt it about the fleas, just my opinion, but yes, you can get lyme from a cat with a tick on it.
Posted by GretaM (Member # 40917) on :
Ha! Exactly!
I thought the tick I found on me was a really pretty, slow moving beetle.
I released it back outside because I don't kill bugs.
Then when I was dx'd with lyme and found out what ticks look like...argh.
Posted by betty1939 (Member # 18240) on :
I know for sure that I was only bit by a flea. I found a flea in my bed when I rented a pet friendly cabin. I had flea bites on my knee.
One week later, I was very ill with flu like symptoms, joint pain, horrible headpressure headaches, fever, CNS irritability.
I was diagnosed 9 mos later with lyme, and babesia microti. Bartonella did not show up until a MSA test that I had done. I know that flea made me ill.
I never saw a tick, nor did I have a rash of anykind. Only the flea bites on my knee. We didn't really go into the woods and when I took my chihuahua out for walks, we really didn't go into grassy areas that had tall grass.
We only went on patches of grass near the driveway.
The very first doctor that I saw, my PCP was informed of this and I felt the flea bites were significant from the start. I believe this is how I became ill and later how my dog (chihuahua) became ill too as she slept in the bed with us.
It was definitely a flea because how it jumped around and I remember crushing it.
Posted by Muscle Car55 (Member # 34707) on :
Hmmm bartonella, then why not borrelia too CDC?
Posted by surprise (Member # 34987) on :
Wow Betty, thanks for sharing.
Posted by droid1226 (Member # 34930) on :
Catgirl, the article shows presence of bartonella transmission in fleas.
Posted by Catgirl (Member # 31149) on :
I get that, I'm just saying it didn't happen to me that way, that's all folks. I got bart after a tick bit me and we had pets long before that happened (pets with fleas). I would think the odds of getting bart from a flea are lower due to the amount of time a flea spends biting a human. Ticks stay on a lot longer as well. For my husband and I, we got lyme from ticks, and I got bart from a tick. Peace.
Posted by droid1226 (Member # 34930) on :
Ya I mean lots of people got it by through the placenta, doesn't mean it can't get passed through ticks.
This just interests me because I know I got sick after a bunch of flea bites. I have bart streaks, a pos test, and all the symptoms. Never a tick bite.
Posted by GretaM (Member # 40917) on :
I forgot about flea poop.
Yuck.
Posted by TF (Member # 14183) on :
This is how you catch lyme disease from a mouse:
The mouse has ticks on it. The mouse comes in your house. The ticks drop off the mouse while it is in your house. Now, you have ticks in your house.
This happened to a couple I know who live in Florida. They rented a house that turned out to have lots of mice. The husband was always killing the mice. He noticed that they were full of ticks.
His wife got lyme disease. She never goes outside and is not an outdoors person at all. The husband also has lyme, but the wife does not have the same diseases as the husband. So, it appears that the wife got lyme from ticks brought into the house by mice.
Also, people who live in high-rise appartments in New York City are getting lyme disease from the mice in the building. These people are surrounded by concrete. Yet, they get lyme disease.
So, beware of mice in your house. As the weather gets cold, they will be coming in!!
Posted by merrygirl (Member # 12041) on :
I grew up on a farm and was a vet tech for 12 years before I got sick in 2011. I still have pets. I STILL test neg for bartonella despite have an ex ILADS president diagnose me with bart due to really bad bart rash.
But I have been bitten by fleas, scratched and bitten I still test neg....but I am immune deficient so maybe thats why.
By the way there is an AWESOME product I used on my cats and dogs.
Its called seresto collars. They repel and kill fleas and ticks on BOTH cats and dogs. The collar lasts up to 8 months. It has a breakaway feature in it. I found them cheaper online than at the vet. This is not the usual flea collar.
Frontline isnt working anymore in our area for cats, even indoor cats. But even frontline does not repel ticks.
Posted by Carmen (Member # 42391) on :
Reviews on the Seresto collar are quite good. but $50? another pharmaceutical rip.