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NEED HELP!! I have a court hearing on Monday about my worker's comp case regarding lyme. I was bitten when on a school out of doors week long trip. My tick was attached for only 36 hours (not the 72-84 hours that is so commonly sited in most literature!) Apparently the doctor for the ins. company has some of those articles in his statement. I am in need of an article stating that the tick does not have to be attached that long --- I know I have seen this in some literature but am unable to find it now that I need it!!!!!!
THANKS!
Posts: 46 | From Norman, OK, USA | Registered: Jun 2004
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I hope that someone will know how to locate the following info:
The Lyme Disease Foundation ( www.lyme.org ) has an International Lyme Disease Conference each year.
If I remember correctly - Some years ago, a featured speaker was Dr Willy Burgdorfer, discoverer of Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb), the spirochete named for him. He said that they had found that some ticks have the Lyme spirochetes in the salivary glands when they bite. In those cases, bacteria can be transmitted immediately.
I don't know if a published article includes this info or not.
And, A well-known LLMD told me that the statements about "48 hours or longer attachment time" were the result of experiments in labs where ticks were removed with proper techniques. In the "real world", that rarely happens.
Also - In "Diagnostic Hints & Treatment Guidelines...." Fourteenth Edition - November, 2002 printed - about 32 pages www.ilads.org/burrascano_1102.html
Last section: "Rationale for Treating Tick Bites.... Prophylactic antibiotic treatment upon a known tick bite is recommended for those who fit the following categories.... #3. Persons bitten by a tick capable of transmitting B.burfdorferi, where the tick is engorged, or the attachment duration of the tick is greater than four hours..."
Denise Lang's book,"Coping With Lyme" page 8 under Vectors and Hosts section says "tick must be connected four to twenty-four hours..."
But I believe Karen Vanderhoof-Forschner's book "Everything you need to know about Lyme Disease" will serve you better in the section on page 26 Systemic versus Local Infection. One passage explains that ticks which have fallen off another host while they were attached and sucking blood then have the Bb all ready in their salivary glands and can infect immediately.
She also writes that systemically infected ticks can "..tramsmit a pathogen in only a few hours."
Posts: 422 | From Luck home | Registered: Sep 2005
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Of note: I believe I read in an article (maybe PubMed) that the BB pathogen needs to be introduced into the skin. Without this staging area it cannot infect the potential host.
I'm going to try and find this. I'll be right back. Posts: 294 | From nevada | Registered: Sep 2005
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I (too) have read on multiple occasions that the tick only needs to be attached for 24 hours to spread the infection.
Posts: 76 | From South Eastern PA | Registered: Sep 2005
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To place an arbitrary time frame on a biological pathogen is idiotic in my opinion. Kind of like claiming a building is "earthquake proof" based on some man made richter number. Any bite that draws blood, from any wild creature, particularly a parasitic one should be considered a dangerous vector. The info below supports the conclusion that if you do acquire the "bulleye" no further testing is necessary, you have acquired Lyme infections. This is the staging and morphing "area" which allows for a fullblown assault on the body.
One prominent feature of Lyme disease is vascular injury (2, 42), and damage to vascular endothelium results in localized aggregation of activated platelets. Binding of B. burgdorferi to activated platelets may, therefore, facilitate tissue colonization by concentrating spirochetes at these regions. Alternatively, binding of B. burgdorferi to platelets at the site of inoculation in the skin might provide a foothold for the establishment of infection-e.g., a niche where the bacteria can replicate while protected from the host defense system by a surrounding thrombus. In support of this hypothesis, in the mouse model it appears that dissemination of B. burgdorferi from the site of the tick bite is delayed for several days (3). Alternatively, attachment to platelets may be more important in the natural vector-reservoir transmission cycle of B. burgdorferi, for example, by increasing the local concentration of spirochetes available for ingestion by an uninfected tick. It is less likely that binding to the hematogenous dissemination of the spirochete, as activated platelets are not abundant in the circulation.
Page is here. Microbial adhesion to and colonization of host tissue is an early, critical event in an infection process. In the case of Lyme disease, host tissue adherence appears to be of importance during different stages of the disease process. Initially, during an infected tick's blood meal, a small number of spirochetes are deposited in the dermis of the host, where the bacteria appear to colonize collagen fibers (4, 5). As the infection disseminates to other tissues, bacteria may colonize additional extracellular matrix structures, and host cells may be involved. We previously showed that adherence of B. burgdorferi to collagen fibers involved a specific binding of the spirochete to decorin, a dermatan sulfate proteoglycan that is associated with and "decorates" collagen fibers, whereas a direct binding to collagen could not be demonstrated (6-9). A dermal route of entry into the host appears to be important for the development of disease. Spirochetes administered intravenously are rapidly and effectively cleared by Kupffer cells in the liver (10), whereas those inoculated intradermally consistently establish infection (11). Perhaps the initial dermal colonization allows the organism to adapt to in vivo conditions before blood stream dissemination.
I attended a lecture by Dr an New Jersey Dr, Dr G. She said that a tick didn't have to be on very long at all. I know from personal experience that this is true, as I developed Lyme after flicking a tick from my hair. I think that it nipped my finger and that was enough.
Perhaps you can get something in writing from Dr G. She may know what documentation you need to support this...
Best of luck-
Sarah
Posts: 119 | From new york, NY, USA | Registered: Apr 2005
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