posted
I would think it's VERY possible. You can easily get a tick on you that you would never notice..esp if you're black.
Ticks are found everywhere in NY....even the city. Been to a park? Had a pet? Walked across grass? Been to the beach?
-------------------- --Lymetutu-- Opinions, not medical advice! Posts: 96222 | From Texas | Registered: Feb 2001
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glm1111
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 16556
posted
Have you ever gone to Long Island or traveled to other endemic areas outside of the city? I once spoke to a woman who told me her son got bitten in one of the casinos in Atlantic City.
She said apparently a tick was in the carpet carried in somehow. The other possibility is that there is more evidence that it can be sexually transmitted.
Lyme disease is not discriminatory. I had a very good friend of mine who happened to be black, pass away from it 3 yrs ago.
City person also, but he had a girlfriend in Bucks county which was highly endemic. I hope this gives you some insight,
Gael
-------------------- PARASITES/WORMS ARE NOW RECOGNIZED AS THE NUMBER 1 CO-INFECTION IN LYME DISEASE BY ILADS* Posts: 6418 | From philadelphia pa | Registered: Jul 2008
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cactus
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Member # 7347
posted
Yep - you can get Lyme with never camping, never going in the woods, and living in the city.
Think of it this way -
Where there are birds, there can be ticks.
If a bird can fly there, a tick can drop off and make a meal of the next warm body to come along.
So maybe a nice bird dropped a tick, the tick crawled up a convenient bench (they like stone walls, cement walls, benches, etc) or maybe it was climbing on landscaping near a bench or wall...
Then maybe you sat down, or stood near the bench or wall.
And there you have it - you are that tick's next meal.
Ticks are stealthy, you probably never felt it, and when it was finished, it dropped off.
I can imagine a few other scenarios, but you get the idea.
I'm sorry you have to deal with this.
It stinks.
-------------------- �Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?� - A.A. Milne Posts: 1987 | From No. VA | Registered: May 2005
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cactus
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posted
P.S. Check out yahoo groups for the NY Lyme support group - most of the members live in the city.
-------------------- �Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?� - A.A. Milne Posts: 1987 | From No. VA | Registered: May 2005
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glm1111
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posted
Ahhh, TuTu makes a good point. Ever go to Central Park?
I live in Philadelphia and I have seen signs "Beware of ticks" in the parks here,
Gael
-------------------- PARASITES/WORMS ARE NOW RECOGNIZED AS THE NUMBER 1 CO-INFECTION IN LYME DISEASE BY ILADS* Posts: 6418 | From philadelphia pa | Registered: Jul 2008
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joalo
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posted
I was told they can drop out of trees, too.
Ticks don't discriminate against race or nationality, etc. If you have warm blood...you can be their next meal.
I never saw a tick or a bulls eye rash. So sorry this happened to you!!
-------------------- Sick since January 1985. Misdiagnosed for 20 years. Tested CDC positive October 2005. Treating since April 2006. Posts: 3228 | From Somewhere west of the Mississippi | Registered: Aug 2007
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lymednva
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posted
I've found myself leaning up against walls in NYC only to stop myself and think, I could get bitten doing this.
Sometimes the fatigue is so much that I don't care, and I am treating Lyme, so probably OK for me now, but it's possible to get it in the city.
-------------------- Lymednva Posts: 2407 | From over the river and through the woods | Registered: Apr 2006
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Maybe someone else who went to your gym ran there through some grass or under some trees and they had a tick fall off of them and it crawled on to you.
Posts: 111 | From northeast Iowa | Registered: Oct 2006
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TF
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 14183
posted
A person told me that many people in New York City have lyme disease and they get it from the mice that inhabit the apartments there.
Mice carry ticks. She told me that many NY apartment dwellers get lyme, and they never see deer or go into woods. That's how it happens. Birds, mice, squirrels, etc. all carry ticks.
I know a girl in another state who never does anything outdoors. Her husband told me they once lived in a house with mice. He killed some and saw the ticks on the mice. We figure that is how this girl got lyme disease--right in her own home.
Posts: 9931 | From Maryland | Registered: Dec 2007
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cantgiveupyet
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
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posted
Curious Gael which parks you have seen these signs?
quote:Originally posted by glm1111: Ahhh, TuTu makes a good point. Ever go to Central Park?
I live in Philadelphia and I have seen signs "Beware of ticks" in the parks here,
Gael
-------------------- "Say it straight simple and with a smile."
"Thus the task is, not so much to see what no one has seen yet, But to think what nobody has thought yet, About what everybody sees."
-Schopenhauer
pos babs, bart, igenex WB igm/igg Posts: 3156 | From Lyme limbo | Registered: Oct 2005
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My mom has a friend who got bit in Central Park by a tick that caused a bullseye rash and lyme.
Also, on my property in upstate NY, the MICE are the main lyme vector and they live in the walls of my drafty old farm house. The mice have ticks and the ticks have lyme and the mice can run through the house, especially at night when we're asleep.
So if there are any mice near your place, you could have gotten lyme from a tick, transported by a mouse!
The good thing is YOU Have Figured it OUT! At least you now know what you are facing and there are so many others who have no idea they could be dealing with lyme disease or coinfections.
Posts: 524 | From Hudson Valley, NY | Registered: Jul 2007
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Vermont_Lymie
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Member # 9780
posted
I know two doctors who got lyme in New York City.
Yes, it is possible. Mice and birds can carry ticks, and they are awfully hard to see much of the time. There is definitely lyme in New York City.
Posts: 2557 | From home | Registered: Aug 2006
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Urban, suburban and rural. Of every background, skin color and gender and socio-economic bracket.
We do not have to live in or near the woods or go on vacation outside the city.
I was bitten in the city last summer. I live in THE most-densely populated in New England. The 17th most-densely populated city in the US.
Concrete Jungle. I step outside my door onto concrete. I have never had the money to go on vacation like other people.
I wasn't bitten in a park. I wasn't bitten standing on a patch of grass in someone's front yard.
There is a large rodent population in the area + birds in the (overhanging) shrubbery lining the sidewalks on my street.
I used to live in an apartment with a persistent seasonal mouse problem in the house. Looking back, I think this may have been how I was first exposed.
Rodents and birds are a far larger factor than what we have been mislead into believing as the prime host -- deer; Thru the use of the term "deer ticks" vs. black-legged ticks.
Dogs in NYC are diagnosed with lyme every day. And where dogs get lyme so do humans.
Where there are rodents there are tick-borne diseases.
Posts: 571 | From Massachusetts | Registered: Oct 2008
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