Our son contracted Lyme Disease from mosquito bites many years ago. He had an oval red rash (which I discovered later was a form of the bull's-eye rash) on his thigh with many mosquito bites.
We never saw any ticks.
Posted by jarjar (Member # 8847) on :
Here is a study back from 2007 showing mosquitoes as lyme vectors. I have heard/read many stories over the years of people assuming they got lyme from mosquitoes.
I don't know what bit me when I got my EM rash. It looked like a mosquito bite at first then got huge.
There were deer and mosquitoes in the area.
Posted by BobG (Member # 39642) on :
And the U.S. Government thinks of Lyme about as seriously as a headache, take two aspirin and call me in the morning. Inexplicable.
Posted by CherylSue (Member # 13077) on :
I never saw a tick. Never had the rash. But I had numerous mosquito bites, sometimes all at once.
Posted by Nula (Member # 38409) on :
Then again ... the main question is not which vectors carry Lyme, but which ones can actually transmit it.
I remember reading (somewhere) that the transmission needs the "mechanisms" of a tick bite -- i.e. the biting and the subsequent vomiting of infective fluids into the host.
Posted by Judie (Member # 38323) on :
I read that if a tick has just fed elsewhere, the infection is already at the mouth and ready to go.
Nothing was attached to me very long when I got infected. I believe the whole "vomit" idea is only part of the picture.
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- Ditto to Judie's note. The whole "vomit" theory is ridiculous to think that is the only way it works.
It's also ridiculous to think that you can have two different kinds of ticks. They both get a blood meal from a mammal with lyme. Then they each bite a person, one tick per person, each person got a different kind of tick.
That only one tick could transmit disease is outrageous. If this were a needle prick it could transmit the infection.
Any vector that gets a blood meal that carries infection has that in their mouth parts. The instant there is a break in skin in their next host, that instant, blood with microbes meets new blood and infection can take off. -
Posted by Marnie (Member # 773) on :
Misleading...the team did not find actual spirochetes, they found Borrelia DNA in ten Culicidae species of mosquito, comprising four distinct genera.
Plasmid = small DNA molecule that Bb loses.
Bear with me...
“The main culprit responsible for the
***tolerance of pathogens to antibiotics***
is a specialized survivor – a persister,” states Hodzic.
Since persisters are non-growing dormant cells, antimicrobials cannot kill them and they cannot be cultured.
For antibiotics to work effectively, there must be active target cells to attack.
During the course of infection, Borrelia burgdorferi proliferates,
***generating ‘attenuated’, or weakened, spirochetes that have
LOST one or more small plasmids
(small DNA molecule within a cell).***
The attenuated spirochetes remain viable
but because of their plasmid loss, they
divide slowly.
This makes them tolerant of antimicrobials and non-cultivable.
(A plasmid is a small DNA molecule within a cell that is physically separated from a chromosomal DNA and
***can replicate independently***.)
So much for attenuated spirochetes (post abx. and supposedly non-infectious) being not capable of continuing to do harm.
By spinning off a plasmid (small DNA molecule)= Bb continues to survive?
"Mosquitoes do not transmit HIV. The virus that causes AIDS does not replicate in mosquitoes and is actually digested in their stomachs, so it's broken down without being passed on."
Why would not the mosquitoes destroy/"digest" a Bb's DNA plasmid? Or does that only happen when the mosquito has a blood meal?
That would be much like Bb infected ticks feasting on the Western Fence Lizard and being totally wiped out. Compare to Bb's plasmid DNA found in the mosquitoes. When the mosquito feasts on blood is Bb's plasmid DNA is destroyed?
IF Bb's (plasmid) DNA (spun off by spirochetes) was found in the mosquitoes, was the mosquito actually infected with viable spirochetes?
Our cells DO "recognize" foreign DNA and respond accordingly and so do bacteria!
A plasmid "tale" from a molecular biologist(really interesting!):