That poppy seed you flicked off your pants a minute ago -- what if it didn't just fall off your breakfast bagel? What if it had snagged your pantleg as you brushed against a stalk of trailside grass? And what if it wasn't a poppy seed at all, but a bloodsucking arachnid with eight legs, tiny curved teeth, and a spiral pathogen burning in its gut? What if it could give you Lyme disease?
________________________________________
For more information, check out these informative articles from Backpacker.com.
Lyme by the Numbers
Reality Bites
Can Lyme Disease Become Chronic?
Symptoms of Lyme Disease
Other Tick-Borne Diseases
________________________________________It's time you got to know America's most common tick-borne illness. Lyme disease is an infection caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, a corkscrew-shaped bacterium that spreads to humans exclusively through the bite of an infected tick (never from person to person). But don't panic: Most tick bites don't lead to the disease. Even in high-risk hot spots such as Connecticut and New York, only about one in four of these tiny arachnids carries the disease. And when an infected tick bites, transmission is not spontaneous, says Richard Falco, Ph.D., a medical entomologist at Fordham University. Studies show it takes 36 to 48 hours for Borrelia burgdorferi to move from tick to human, in part because the bacteria must migrate from the creature's midgut to its salivary glands before passing to a human host. If you remove a tick within the first 36 hours, your odds of contracting Lyme disease are slim -- less than 4 percent -- says Gary Wormser, M.D., chief of infectious diseases at New York Medical College. If you're approaching (or past) that time limit, a single 200-milligram dose of the antibiotic doxycycline can cut your risk to almost nil.
While the risk is low, the disease can be devastating if it's left untreated. The first symptom to appear is a rash that expands outward from the tick bite, often in a bull's-eye pattern. A variety of other flulike symptoms may accompany the rash, but at this stage, the illness quickly capitulates to antibiotics. Still, studies indicate that about 20 percent of people who contract Lyme never develop or notice the telltale rash, and without prompt treatment, more serious symptoms such as temporary facial paralysis, heart palpitations, swelling and pain in the joints, debilitating fatigue, meningitis, nerve pain, and cardiac arrhythmia can develop. Though antibiotics still can cure the infection once these more severe problems set in, it may take months for symptoms to subside in the worst cases.
That's why early detection is so important. In the United States, Lyme disease is spread by two ticks -- the deer tick (Ixodes scapularis) on the East Coast and Midwest, and its close cousin, the Western black-legged tick (Ixodes pacificus) in California and Oregon. (Anyone bitten by a tick should save it for future reference and testing.) Most Lyme cases arise from bites delivered by a tick in the nymph stage. At this point in their lives, ticks appear to be about the size of a poppy seed, so they're easy to overlook. "If you aren't scanning for something that small, you'll miss it," says medical entomologist Joseph Piesman, D.Sc., chief of the Lyme Disease Vector Section at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Most cases of Lyme disease occur in June and July, a spike that coincides with the nymph stage in the tick's life cycle.
Unfortunately, ticks lurk in many of the same environments that hikers favor. Hardwood forests with lots of leaf litter provide ideal habitat, says Piesman. Swampy regions and areas with woody shrubs also commonly harbor ticks.
Though Lyme disease has turned up throughout the country (only three states report no cases, in part because travelers may not realize they've contracted it until they return home), it occurs most often in three regions (see "Lyme by the numbers" from Backpacker.com) -- the Northeast, upper Midwest, and, to a lesser extent, northern California and Oregon. If you're diagnosed with Lyme disease and you live in a state south of Virginia, "You need a second opinion," says Wormser, since there's a high probability you have something else.
Reported cases of Lyme disease have more than doubled since the early 1990s, and the CDC itself acknowledges that these figures are probably underestimations of the actual numbers (due to undiagnosed cases, limitations of nationwide reporting, and the stringent diagnostic criteria for national data collection purposes). Some researchers predict that the numbers could rise further if climate change allows Lyme-carrying ticks to extend their range.
Avoid the Enemy
To protect yourself from ticks -- and reduce your risk of contracting Lyme disease -- follow these steps.
Steer clear of marshy areas, and minimize your contact with high grass, brush, and woody shrubs.
Wear long pants and tuck them into your socks to prevent ticks from crawling up your legs.
Tick researchers wind duct tape around the sock-pant junction to keep ticks out.
Wear long sleeves and tuck your shirt into your pants to keep ticks off of your torso.
Wear light-colored clothing so you can spot ticks more easily.
Spread deet on your skin, or spray the insecticide permethrin on your clothing.
At least once a day, do a tick check. Think little -- nymphs, which spread Lyme disease far more than adults, are usually smaller than a tiny freckle.
Blood Tests for Lyme?
Though it's tough to diagnose the disease without an evident bull's- eye rash, several tests can detect antibodies to the Lyme bacteria. The CDC recommends several tests -- including ELISA, IFA, and the Western blot -- that can help support a diagnosis. The agency recently warned patients to stay away from other tests, which have not been clinically validated.
Whatever Happened to the Lyme Vaccine?
In 1998, the U.S. Food and Drug Adminis-tration gave market approval for LYMErix, the first vaccine for Lyme disease. It works by spurring the body's immune system to produce an antibody against the Lyme bacteria. "It is a transmission-blocking antibody, so the bacteria never get into the body," says Markus M. Simon, Ph.D., an immunologist at the Max Planck Institute in Freiburg, Germany, who worked on the vaccine.
Preapproval testing on more than 500 people showed that it was safe and effective, but shortly after LYMErix's release, advocacy groups raised fears that the vaccine could spur serious autoimmune reactions in which the body attacks its own proteins as well as the Lyme bacteria. However, an investigation by the FDA and the CDC into 900 reports of possible adverse events from the vaccine found no evidence linking it to autoimmune symptoms. Even so, consumer backlash and lawsuits against the vaccine led GlaxoSmithKline to pull it from the market in February of 2002.
"People claimed it did harm, but the science never showed that," says Lyme disease expert Henry Feder Jr., M.D.. Still, he questions whether, for most people, the three to four initial shots plus the yearly booster the vaccine required was worth the protection it offered. "Lyme disease is very treatable. Do we really need a vaccine?"
Vienna, Austria-based Baxter Vaccines thinks so. The company is currently developing a new Lyme disease vaccine designed to circumvent the suspicions that hounded LYMErix. Nearly identical to that vaccine, the new one is slightly altered to remove a protein that some claimed might spark an autoimmune reaction. It's too early to tell if this vaccine will gain FDA approval, but public approval could prove even more important.
I am writing you about a recent article Mens Health June 2006 article.
This article was a very one sided article with so much misinformation from Dr. Wormser, who refuses to look at new data concerning treating and recognising Lyme Disease. We have thousands of people in the lyme community that are being threatened by this doctor, he personnaly is going after our lyme doctors who are treating us and making us well. With doctors like Wormser no one will recognise that they have lyme and won't get treated at all.
While it is extremely important to spread the news about Lyme disease, it is also just as important to have correct information. For example:
"Studies show it takes 36 to 48 hours for Borrelia burgdorferi to move from tick to human, in part because the bacteria must migrate from the creature's midgut to its salivary glands before passing to a human host. If you remove a tick within the first 36 hours, your odds of contracting Lyme disease are slim -- less than 4 percent -- says Gary Wormser, M.D., chief of infectious diseases at New York Medical College. If you're approaching (or past) that time limit, a single 200-milligram dose of the antibiotic doxycycline can cut your risk to almost nil."
This whole statment is out an out FALSE. My whole family has LD (11 in all) none of us have ever had a tick attached for that long. and only one of us has ever had a bullseye rash. We are all on long term antibiotics and are finally getting better after years of suffering. If it were up to doctors like Gary Wormser we still be looking the other way for anwsers and still suffering!
I see one of the leading lyme specialist in the country (In New York I live in Michigan). Most doctors are told old information that is outdated, such as how long a tick has to be attached to transmit any disease. Testing is also a problem, they give a test that is 70% inaccurate and if it comes back negative they tell you to look somewhere else for you health problems. Meanwhile the bacteria is multipying rapidly. Most doctors won't even give you the more accurate test because insurance companies won't pay for it. And the bigger problem with testing is if you have had the disease for too long (years) your body will stop producing the antibodies needed for a positive test. (Most lyme tests are antibody tests) So may indeed be infected with Bb but come up with a negative test. Your then in a lose - lose situation.
Most people don't get bullseye rash and most go on for many years misdiagnosed, because doctors don't know how to diagnose lyme or even read the tests properly. It is so often misdiagnosed for MS, Lupus, Fibromyalgia, Parkinsons, Epstein Barr Virus, ALS, Crohns Disease, Alzheimer, and too many more to list.
This a link to basic information about lyme that is correct and many doctors and researchers have published. http://www.ilads.org/basic.html
Thank you for publishing this article I just wish it was a little more informative with the correct information.
That poppy seed you flicked off your pants a minute ago -- what if it didn't just fall off your breakfast bagel? What if it had snagged your pantleg as you brushed against a stalk of trailside grass? And what if it wasn't a poppy seed at all, but a bloodsucking arachnid with eight legs, tiny curved teeth, and a spiral pathogen burning in its gut? What if it could give you Lyme disease?
________________________________________
For more information, check out these informative articles from Backpacker.com.
Lyme by the Numbers
Reality Bites
Can Lyme Disease Become Chronic?
Symptoms of Lyme Disease
Other Tick-Borne Diseases
It's time you got to know America's most common tick-borne illness. Lyme disease is an infection caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, a corkscrew-shaped bacterium that spreads to humans exclusively through the bite of an infected tick (never from person to person).
But don't panic: Most tick bites don't lead to the disease. Even in high-risk hot spots such as Connecticut and New York, only about one in four of these tiny arachnids carries the disease.
And when an infected tick bites, transmission is not spontaneous, says Richard Falco, Ph.D., a medical entomologist at Fordham University. Studies show it takes 36 to 48 hours for Borrelia burgdorferi to move from tick to human, in part because the bacteria must migrate from the creature's midgut to its salivary glands before passing to a human host.
If you remove a tick within the first 36 hours, your odds of contracting Lyme disease are slim -- less than 4 percent -- says Gary Wormser, M.D., chief of infectious diseases at New York Medical College.
If you're approaching (or past) that time limit, a single 200-milligram dose of the antibiotic doxycycline can cut your risk to almost nil.
While the risk is low, the disease can be devastating if it's left untreated. The first symptom to appear is a rash that expands outward from the tick bite, often in a bull's-eye pattern.
A variety of other flulike symptoms may accompany the rash, but at this stage, the illness quickly capitulates to antibiotics. Still, studies indicate that about 20 percent of people who contract Lyme never develop or notice the telltale rash, and without prompt treatment, more serious symptoms;
such as, temporary facial paralysis, heart palpitations, swelling and pain in the joints, debilitating fatigue, meningitis, nerve pain, and cardiac arrhythmia can develop.
Though antibiotics still can cure the infection once these more severe problems set in, it may take months for symptoms to subside in the worst cases.
That's why early detection is so important. In the United States, Lyme disease is spread by two ticks -- the deer tick (Ixodes scapularis) on the East Coast and Midwest, and its close cousin, the Western black-legged tick (Ixodes pacificus) in California and Oregon.
(Anyone bitten by a tick should save it for future reference and testing.) Most Lyme cases arise from bites delivered by a tick in the nymph stage. At this point in their lives, ticks appear to be about the size of a poppy seed, so they're easy to overlook.
"If you aren't scanning for something that small, you'll miss it," says medical entomologist Joseph Piesman, D.Sc., chief of the Lyme Disease Vector Section at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Most cases of Lyme disease occur in June and July, a spike that coincides with the nymph stage in the tick's life cycle.
Unfortunately, ticks lurk in many of the same environments that hikers favor. Hardwood forests with lots of leaf litter provide ideal habitat, says Piesman. Swampy regions and areas with woody shrubs also commonly harbor ticks.
Though Lyme disease has turned up throughout the country (only three states report no cases, in part because travelers may not realize they've contracted it until they return home), it occurs most often in three regions (see "Lyme by the numbers" from Backpacker.com) -- the Northeast, upper Midwest, and, to a lesser extent, northern California and Oregon.
If you're diagnosed with Lyme disease and you live in a state south of Virginia, "You need a second opinion," says Wormser, since there's a high probability you have something else.
Reported cases of Lyme disease have more than doubled since the early 1990s, and the CDC itself acknowledges that these figures are probably underestimations of the actual numbers (due to undiagnosed cases, limitations of nationwide reporting, and the stringent diagnostic criteria for national data collection purposes).
Some researchers predict that the numbers could rise further if climate change allows Lyme-carrying ticks to extend their range.
Avoid the Enemy
To protect yourself from ticks -- and reduce your risk of contracting Lyme disease -- follow these steps.
Steer clear of marshy areas, and minimize your contact with high grass, brush, and woody shrubs.
Wear long pants and tuck them into your socks to prevent ticks from crawling up your legs.
Tick researchers wind duct tape around the sock-pant junction to keep ticks out.
Wear long sleeves and tuck your shirt into your pants to keep ticks off of your torso.
Wear light-colored clothing so you can spot ticks more easily.
Spread deet on your skin, or spray the insecticide permethrin on your clothing.
At least once a day, do a tick check. Think little -- nymphs, which spread Lyme disease far more than adults, are usually smaller than a tiny freckle.
Blood Tests for Lyme?
Though it's tough to diagnose the disease without an evident bull's-eye rash, several tests can detect antibodies to the Lyme bacteria.
The CDC recommends several tests -- including ELISA, IFA, and the Western blot -- that can help support a diagnosis.
The agency recently warned patients to stay away from other tests, which have not been clinically validated.
Whatever Happened to the Lyme Vaccine?
In 1998, the U.S. Food and Drug Adminis-tration gave market approval for LYMErix, the first vaccine for Lyme disease. It works by spurring the body's immune system to produce an antibody against the Lyme bacteria.
"It is a transmission-blocking antibody, so the bacteria never get into the body," says Markus M. Simon, Ph.D., an immunologist at the Max Planck Institute in Freiburg, Germany, who worked on the vaccine.
Preapproval testing on more than 500 people showed that it was safe and effective, but shortly after LYMErix's release, advocacy groups raised fears that the vaccine could spur serious autoimmune reactions in which the body attacks its own proteins as well as the Lyme bacteria.
However, an investigation by the FDA and the CDC into 900 reports of possible adverse events from the vaccine found no evidence linking it to autoimmune symptoms.
Even so, consumer backlash and lawsuits against the vaccine led GlaxoSmithKline to pull it from the market in February of 2002.
"People claimed it did harm, but the science never showed that," says Lyme disease expert Henry Feder Jr., M.D.. Still, he questions whether, for most people, the three to four initial shots plus the yearly booster the vaccine required was worth the protection it offered. "Lyme disease is very treatable. Do we really need a vaccine?"
Vienna, Austria-based Baxter Vaccines thinks so. The company is currently developing a new Lyme disease vaccine designed to circumvent the suspicions that hounded LYMErix.
Nearly identical to that vaccine, the new one is slightly altered to remove a protein that some claimed might spark an autoimmune reaction. It's too early to tell if this vaccine will gain FDA approval, but public approval could prove even more important.
Letters to the Editor: [email protected] -------------------------------------------------
I emailed them --- this is what I wrote ---
I am writing you about a recent article Mens Health June 2006 article.
This article was a very one sided article with so much misinformation from Dr. Wormser, who refuses to look at new data concerning treating and recognising Lyme Disease.
We have thousands of people in the lyme community that are being threatened by this doctor, he personnaly is going after our lyme doctors who are treating us and making us well. With doctors like Wormser, no one will recognise that they have lyme and won't get treated at all.
While it is extremely important to spread the news about Lyme disease, it is also just as important to have correct information. For example:
"Studies show it takes 36 to 48 hours for Borrelia burgdorferi to move from tick to human, in part because the bacteria must migrate from the creature's midgut to its salivary glands before passing to a human host.
If you remove a tick within the first 36 hours, your odds of contracting Lyme disease are slim -- less than 4 percent -- says Gary Wormser, M.D., chief of infectious diseases at New York Medical College.
If you're approaching (or past) that time limit, a single 200-milligram dose of the antibiotic doxycycline can cut your risk to almost nil."
This whole statment is out an out FALSE. My whole family has LD (11 in all); none of us have ever had a tick attached for that long. and only one of us has ever had a bullseye rash.
We are all on long term antibiotics and are finally getting better after years of suffering. If it were up to doctors like Gary Wormser, we still be looking the other way for anwsers and still suffering!
I see one of the leading lyme specialist in the country (In New York I live in Michigan).
Most doctors are told old information that is outdated, such as how long a tick has to be attached to transmit any disease.
Testing is also a problem, they give a test that is 70% inaccurate and if it comes back negative they tell you to look somewhere else for you health problems. Meanwhile the bacteria is multipying rapidly.
Most doctors won't even give you the more accurate test because insurance companies won't pay for it.
And the bigger problem with testing is if you have had the disease for too long (years) your body will stop producing the antibodies needed for a positive test.
(Most lyme tests are antibody tests) So may indeed be infected with Bb but come up with a negative test. Your then in a lose - lose situation.
Most people don't get bullseye rash, and most go on for many years misdiagnosed, because doctors don't know how to diagnose lyme or even read the tests properly.
It is so often misdiagnosed for MS, Lupus, Fibromyalgia, Parkinsons, Epstein Barr Virus, ALS, Crohns Disease, Alzheimer, and too many more to list.
This a link to basic information about lyme that is correct and many doctors and researchers have published. http://www.ilads.org/basic.html
Thank you for publishing this article; I just wish it was a little more informative with the correct information.
timaca
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6911
posted
Here's my letter~
June 28, 2006
I read with interest your article entitled ``Lyme Disease and You.''
I have Lyme disease. I live in Arizona. I believe I contracted the disease in Arizona. It took over a year and a half for me to get a diagnosis. I went to, or talked with 17 doctors. They did not know what was wrong with me. I had gone from being a very active person who used to backpack in the Grand Canyon on a regular basis to someone who had difficulty walking to the mailbox.
My medical costs last year were in the $65,000 range.
While your article was informative, there were some errors in it.
(1) It takes less than 36 to 48 hours for Bb to move from a tick to a human. Symptoms have been recognized in as little as 6 hours after a bite.
(2) It may take years, not months, for symptoms to subside in the worst cases. It took me 4 1/2 months of IV and oral antibiotics for me to feel like I was in the land of the living again. I am still undergoing treatment after a year. I am much improved, but not yet well.
(3) Dr. Wormser's comment about needing a second opinion if you are diagnosed with Lyme disease if you live in a state south of Virginia because it is likely another illness, contributes to the ignorance of doctor's outside endemic areas for Lyme disease. It is dangerous to propagate that information. I ended up having to be diagnosed at Columbia University Medical Center because Arizona did not have a doctor that knew why I had deteriorated so badly. Just recently, another person was diagnosed with Lyme disease in my town in Arizona. Last summer, someone was diagnosed with it at our local ER. Dr. Wormser needs to be made aware that Lyme disease is in Arizona too, as well as many other states.
(4) It should be noted that Lyme disease is a clinical diagnosis and that lab tests are supporting ONLY. It should also be noted that tests for Lyme disease are poor at best.
Thanks for bringing lyme disease to your reader's attention. Unfortunately, it is not an easy disease to diagnose or treat, as your article implies. It has devasted my life, and the lives of many others.
Posts: 2872 | From above 7,000 ft in a pine forest | Registered: Feb 2005
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5dana8
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 7935
posted
Man O Man that article is dangerous. how many people will suffer becuase of it?
Fabulous letters Lisianthus and Timac. Thankyou. I hope they print a rebutal.
-------------------- 5dana8 Posts: 4432 | From some where over the rainbow | Registered: Sep 2005
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