#Lyme disease things

[psalm40speakstome]

Never was underrrated for me because my chronically ill self could have wept all the good tears the first time I saw this moment 😭😭😭😍

dousy appreciation week 2023 - day three: underrated moment

[gin-juice-tonic]

exotic birds? that box clearly says pigeons

[grumpyoldsnake]

So as of Friday’s report I have technically tested positive for Lyme disease.

And I do technically experience occasional shooting nerve pains, and very occasional unexplained joint pain that comes and goes, and occasional headaches with very faintly stiff neck when they’re of a tension sort.

But. Like.

Look.

I know how that list sounds. But at the same time I am looking at the prevalence of false positives for this test, and the mildness of my own symptoms, and I am thinking that this is probably not the problem??

Anyway. The effort to diagnose my twitches/jolts continues, without much luck and with some side-tracks. 😂

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[timesthatneverwere]

Ah, shit. Shit shit shit tick on my arm tick on my arm and I think it's brokennnnn shiiit

[gutsandeverything]

can we hear more about the tick jar (im not judging i used to have a jar of moths before my mom made me throw it out)

just a jar that acts as a torture chamber for ticks i find on myself...... because sometimes you live in the forest and you have two dogs that you walk every day for hours and your dogs have all this expensive medication to prevent the ticks from biting them but you only have your pants and your leg hair. and maybe the first ten ticks you take off yourself will be disposed of properly (by burning) but then you get too lazy to do that because there's at least four of them everyday. so you suffocate them in the jar. because you have a cruel soul that feeds off others' suffering.....

[buggbuzz]

starting a little diagram journal about the changes in my joint pain throughout my experience with lyme disease.

it began to affect me sunday night, and today, tuesday 9/10, marks my first day on antibiotics! the worst of it should be over soon, and i should be out of the woods completely in 45 days. 👍

[goatpaste]

🐣 Sableye!

lil phreakin thangy

[rat-hand]

The modern day equivalent of vampirism is tick born ilness.

For example: some little bastard tried to drain you dry so now you’ve got light sensitivity and doctors don’t believe your condition is real.

[quicktimeeventfull]

anyway if u see a target rash u should like. do something about that. even if you are such a shut-in the concept seems ludicrous

[moonygryffin]

I CAN FINALLY WRITE AGAIN FUCK YOU LYME ITS BEEN MONTHS

[transexualizeyourself]

I’m not a hypochondriac until I get a bug bite and then I’m like oh fuck what if I get Lyme disease

[psalm40speakstome]

I’VE BEEN AWAKE SINCE 8AM. I know for most people that’s not early but for me that’s basically like waking up at 4 in the morning.

In other news has anyone else tried going off clomipramine and had it try to destroy you for the effort?

[catboynutsack]

me: haha yeah I have a weird paranoia thing where whenever I'm in the dark I can feel the Boiled One staring at me, watching me. i can't even take out the trash after dark sometimes cuz the paranoia is so severe

also me: I can't wait to start my new job where I stand in the middle of a forest after dark

[enigma-the-anomaly]

being a hypochondriac is fun. When I was like 12 I thought I was gonna die of Lyme disease. As you can imagine i thrived in the beginnings of the pandemic. I have scared myself into believing my dog has rabies multiple times. etc etc

[in-mutual-weirdness]

A tidbit I learned from my disease ecology class back in college - ticks have seasons.

Major caveat that what I learned is specific to the Northeastern US and Lyme disease. Please go look up information on your local ticks and their diseases!

The way that the tick life cycle works, they have 3 main life stages where they're crawling around the place, and therefore 3 points in the year at which they're actively feeding. First is larvae, when they've just hatched from their egg, then nymph, then adult, which is when they're breeding. Because ticks acquire Lyme disease by feeding on animals that carry bacteria for it, larvae can't transfer it because they've never fed before. However, nymphs and adults *can*.

The ticks grab a single host animal, feed until they're fully engorged, and then rebury themselves to hibernate until the next life stage.

Here's the rough life cycle - nymphs show up in Spring and Summer (peak May-Aug), before molting and becoming adults, returning to feed again in the Fall (Oct-Nov). These summer and fall activity peaks are when you most need to be on the lookout, especially for the nymphs. They are most likely to cause disease because they're in the sweet spot of "small and hard to see" and "is likely to have the disease". So be extra vigilant about checking and keeping your skin covered during then.

For people outside the northeast US, highly recommend looking up public health information on ticks and outdoor safety generally. State/Province organizations will have the most up-to-date and personally relevant information, as will environmental research centers. I learned this stuff from a professor who studied Lyme disease for a living, and who worked with state health agencies to help track the spread of ticks and disease from year to year. Go find your maps and seasonal guides, like the one for Germany.

I'm trying to write a post about tick safety and avoiding tick bites, but a lot of the info on websites is like "Avoid going in the woods, in plants, and where there are wild animals" and "Activities like hiking and gardening can put you at risk" and I'm like thanks! This is worthless!

As ticks and tick borne illnesses are expanding their range, I think it's important for people to be educated about these things, and I think it's especially important to give people actual advice on how to protect themselves instead of telling them to just...avoid the natural world

Rough draft version of Tick Advice:

Ticks don't jump down on you from trees, they get on you when you brush against grass, brush, bushes etc.

Ticks get brought to an area when they get done feeding from an animal and fall off them. In the USA, the main tick-bringing animal is deer, but I've seen plenty ticks on feral cats and songbirds.

Ticks get killed when they dry out so drier areas with more sunlight are less favorable to ticks.

The above is useful for figuring out whether an area is likely to have lots of ticks, and how vigilant you have to be in that area.

Wear light-colored, long pants outside. Tuck your pants into your socks, and tuck your shirt into the waist of your pants. Invest in light, breathable fabrics idc

IMMEDIATELY change out of your outside clothes when you come back from a tick-prone area, wash them, and dry them on high heat to kill any ticks that might be stuck on.

Shower and check yourself for ticks after coming inside. Hair, armpits, and nether regions in particular. You can use a handheld mirror or rely on touch; an attached tick will feel like a bump kinda like a scab

While you're outside, you can just periodically check for ticks by running your hands down your legs and checking visually to see if anything is crawling on your clothes. Light colors make them easy to spot, and they don't move fast.

Combing through each others' hair to check for creepy crawly critters is a time-honored primate ritual and is not weird. When hiking, bring a friend who will have your back when you feel something on your neck and need to know if it's sweat or a tick

If you're careful, you can usually catch ticks before they bite you, but if one does bite you, it's not the end of the world. Since tickborne diseases are different regionally i suspect this advice will differ based on where you are, but the important thing is remove the tick with tweezers (DON'T use butter, a lit match, or anything that kills the tick while it's still attached, please) and contact a doctor to see what to watch for. Most illnesses you can catch from ticks are easily treatable if you recognize them when symptoms first appear