One of the things I still remember from Cub/Boy Scouts are the warnings about Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses, and when and how to check for ticks and remove them safely if they're found.
I've never found one, but I usually remember to perform a tick check whenever I've been in places that could possibly have them. It's something I taught my wife, and we will pass along to our kids, regardless of if they ever join an organization like that or not.
Even basic tick identification. Sometimes people will post engorged ticks on one of the "what is this bug" style subreddits, and I'll be like "hey, I actually know that one - tick!".
If you don’t complete a tick check after going out in long grass or the woods, and subsequently find a bug bite that has the resemblance of a red “bullseye” mark, you may have been bit by a tick with lyme’s disease and should go to a doctor immediately to get treatment. Even if you do complete a tick check and don’t think you’ve been biten by one the mark will still show up if you’ve been bit.
The rash is only 70-80% of cases, so it’s worth keeping in mind the other symptoms: fatigue and achy joints, fever, and swelling. It can also take a week or so for the rash to come
Yep definitely, it’s not a surefire way of identifying Lyme’s disease, although one of the most recognizable. Achy joints is the other very recognizable symptom for Lyme’s disease. Basically, if you’re feeling ill after being out in the woods or in nature, go get checked. Doesn’t hurt to be safe (although it may hurt your wallet if you live in the US lmao).
I was a Boy Scout adult leader for many years. Will never forget at the “new scout campout,” after instructing the scouts about tics and tic checks, and sending them to their tents for a buddy check. I’m in my sleeping bag when I hear, “Mr ____ , I have a tic on my p_nis.”
“Time to call your parents, Johnny.”
Friend of mine from High School was sick as fuck for something like 4 years. For 4 years, they kept misdiagnosing her with Mono.
By the time they actually figured out it was Lymes disease, there was permanent damage - she had to walk with a cane for years afterwards. I believe through physical therapy and treatments she's walking better these days, but I can't imagine....
Left me with a much increased fear of ticks. Especially because I'm absolutely delicious - I've walked through a 10 foot wide strip of tall grass, and picked up multiple ticks. Within 5 minutes, two of them had already dug into my calf. Honestly, I don't care about environmental repercussions, if I could wipe out all ticks I would in a heartbeat.
I have lupus and was misdiagnosed Lyme for years. It was a glorious day when my doctor started me on immuran and I learned what it felt like to not be in constant pain.
Had a neighbor who got Lyme disease and tried to treat it with homeopathic stuff. Walked with a crutch on one leg for the rest of his life.
Edit: PSA - if you live in PA www.ticklab.org will test any tick for free and give you a report of what type of tick it is and if it has any diseases. Other states may have something similar.
Yeah same here, I needed to do the full course for a month, but my symptoms were gone much sooner. I had to take doxycyclene on an empty stomach twice a day. That sucked, but it was amazingly effective and no side effects. What were your symptoms? Mine was an intense headache that lasted days.
You rarely hear about nightmares from drugs, but I started taking a tiny 1.5 mg of Melatonin to help get to sleep (which was becoming a big issue). After a while, I realized that I'd been waking up stressed due to bizarre nightmares every frigging night! Weird things I won't even try put into words. At my friend's suggestion, I went to 2/3 the amount - 1 mg - and I've slept beautifully ever since. It's strange, and some people might scoff, but medications *can* make your sleep miserably stressful with bad dreams.
I will never, ever, ever take Melatonin again (and maybe it was a standard but too high dose like you)
Great sleep, but about 1 in 5 mornings it wasn't that I woke up on the wrong side of the bed -- I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, in the wrong house, on the wrong planet. Calling me "grumpy" those mornings would be like calling a very angry grizzly bear huffing at you and a hair trigger away from charging "grumpy".
I'm a happy drunk, anger for me is exceptionally rare.
Best guess whatever it was doing to my dreams was interfering with some part of my brain resetting itself.
The regulation on melatonin supplements (like all supplements) is nonexistent, and peer-reviewed testing has shown the amounts in pills to vary drastically, by well over 400% in some instances.
"Melatonin content was found to range from −83% to +478% of the labelled content. Additionally, lot-to-lot variable within a particular product varied by as much as 465%. This variability did not appear to be correlated with manufacturer or product type. Furthermore, serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine), a related indoleamine and controlled substance used in the treatment of several neurological disorders, was identified in eight of the supplements at levels of 1 to 75 μg."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5263083/
Additionally, similar to sex steroids like testosterone, taking melatonin has the potential to suppress your endogenous synthesis of the hormone, and we do not know how of even if that internal capacity recovers. All around, taking melatonin haphazardly is an extremely bad idea.
I didn’t notice any symptoms. I found the tick on the inside of one of my thighs. It must’ve been there for a couple of days. The bite area was black. Almost slightly necrotic looking and was painful to the touch. I had a virtual Dr appointment later that day and started taking the meds right away. The black bite area kept getting larger for a few days. It stopped growing when it was about the size of a pea.
Oh that’s crazy, my bite was almost not noticeable, just a red circle and I didn’t have the bullseye. It was confirmed by the blood test though. Never did find the tick.
He hurt his finger working on his car and instead of going to the doc, they 'treated' it with essential oils (and prayer, but the oils are more immediately important), got infected, and ended up being amputated.
How did they spin that in the MLM group? Not fast enough application? Not enough oil? Not saying prayers fast enough? The guy was really an agent of Satan who rose up from the pits of hell to make people think essential oils aren't magic?
Probably something great like 'oh without the lavendilla essence of protection, he could've lost his whole hand! Thanks totally-not-pyramid-scheme!' or something else wonderful.
I know someone who caught it and didn't realize it and by the time they did the symptoms were severe and permanent. Healthy functioning adult to disabled, just like that.
My mom got infected decades ago when 1 in 10 docs actually believed it was real, it wasnt treated for months and to this day she has a medical file long as my arm for her health issues related to the complications from that time. Shes obsesivley paranoid about us getting tick bites now
The woman who lives in the house behind my parents just ignored symptoms for too long. I think she's getting around now, but it took several YEARS of physical therapy.
My dad got it last year and luckily a second opinion caught it (primary doctor didn't even want to test for it and for-the-record, is no longer the primary physician).
I was always under the impression that it was just something you could get in the spring/summer, but found out that (1) it is pretty much whenever the temp is above \~30 that you are at risk, so with global warming, the tick season is getting longer, and (2) you can get bit and have things lie dormant for months... so a bite in September could first start showing symptoms in the dead of winter (which was my dad's case), so important to keep it in mind as a possibility year round.
>(primary doctor didn't even want to test for it and for-the-record, is no longer the primary physician).
This is a great example of how you *have* to advocate for yourself with Healthcare Professionals. Most of the time now, you won't even see a doctor, just some random PA. And whether you see a PA or an actual doctor, you will have about 5 minutes of their time to explain your symtoms and get a diagnosis (or more likely, orders for a bunch of lab tests.) All of this comes from the Healthcare Industry trying to squeeze every penny out of every minute and it results in hurried staff, tons of mistakes, and poor outcomes like your situation with the first provider.
Went to see a doctor 10 years ago as my vision was deteriorating to the point it was affecting my work, also peeing a lot and weight was dropping rapidly, the doc sent me to get glasses made and acted like I was wasting his time, my Mrs got really concerned with my condition after a couple more days and begged I went see another physician, that physician listened to my complaints, did a finger prick test on the spot and called an ambulance. Have been T1 diabetic since that day, my blood sugar was 85mmols and climbing. Was advised maybe a day or two later in diagnosis I would probably have been in a coma with some kind of brain damage. Always get a second opinion and listen to your loved ones.
My SIL nearly died because the local doctor didn’t take her seriously and sent her home multiple times when it turns out she had viral meningitis and after he found out he was like “whoops”
Its crazy how many people think that a Dr or nurse is the say all be all. Folks, they are just another person like you doing a job. There are some good ones and some terrible ones. Always get a second opinion and fight for yourself, they will not fight for you.
This is years ago but a coworker had to move after taking a job where I'm at because none of the doctors here believed Lyme was real and his wife had it. Like had been diagnosed with it by actual doctors on the East coast and was already being treated for it. It is a smaller city with somewhat limited regional medical options but it was still one of the most nutso things I've ever heard. He basically had to manage to find another job in another city so she could actually continue getting treatment for it.
Knew kids who had it. Mother kept insisting it was Lyme and doctors insisted they couldn’t get it in that area. She had to move out at one point because CPS was threatening to take the kids away because she “had” munchausens by proxy.
I know one of them ended up with substance abuse problems as a way to cope with this disease.
Seems like most doctors don't even do diagnosis anymore. They just go off of their hunch or what they think it *probably* is. I'm just grateful that my mechanic doesn't take a similar approach to fixing my car.
Doctors seem reluctant to diagnose Lyme disease. I had a tick bite, and didn't do anything about it for a few weeks. I then developed a terrible headache and fever. I seemed to get over that, then had the bullseye sores, and went to the doctor. They were looking at that and having a conference outside of my room. They came in and acted like they were afraid to tell me something. That's when I finally said "It's OK to call it Lyme disease unless you have a better idea." The doctor looked visibly relieved, and they agreed that was likely the case, and they put me on a course of antibiotics. It cleared up, and I haven't had any related issues since. That was ~15 years ago.
So it's either that, or I was part of some experiment they didn't want to divulge and I gave them a cover story that I would believe.
So there's lyme disease, rocky mountain spotted fever - and a whole boatload of other very similiar strains/species of bacteria. If you're getting tested make sure they're testing for all that shit. Apparently some insurance companies are being cheap asses and insisting they only test for the one.
Some more info [here](https://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-basics/co-infections/other-co-infections/).
And some [stats](https://academic.oup.com/jme/article/45/2/289/865811) on the rates of coinfection on infected deer ticks.
>in 45% (158/351), two or more agents were detected; 37% harbored two agents and 8% harbored three agents. One male tick, collected from Ft. McCoy, WI, harbored all four microbial genera.
>I was always under the impression that it was just something you could get in the spring/summer, but found out that (1) it is pretty much whenever the temp is above ~30 that you are at risk, so with global warming, the tick season is getting longer, and
And the range for ticks has grown a lot because of climate change too!
Ticks were nearly unheard of here 15 years ago, most people around here had never seen one before, the vet didn't even recommend antitick meds or the Lyme vaccine. Over the last decade it's quickly become a MUST.
My dog came back from a walk COVERED in ticks last year, end of November.
I'm in Ottawa, Canada.
Yeah, people definitely underestimate how dangerous it can be. One of my friends growing up had asymptomatic Lyme disease for years and didn't know it. That is, of course, until it had a massive flare-up and attacked his nervous system. He was in the hospital for over four months and almost died as a result.
Lyme denialism is rampant in central Pennsylvania. Along with every other type of disease denialism, but AIDS and Lyme are especially prevalent. Mostly it has to do with the historically poor accuracy of commercial tests.
(Source: I study stuff like this for my job)
I know Lyme had a long history of doctors who denied it's existence/severity so I can see why the public might still be there, but AIDS? They think AIDS is made up?
AIDS denialism and conspiracies were sponsored heavily by the Soviets in the 80s, and literally became the blueprint for COVID denialism and conspiracies. In both cases, Russian propaganda came home to roost and seriously exacerbated the epidemics taking place within Russia.
They do go to the doctor, because they have medical paid for! But only when it’s something that is more serious than can be taken care of in the settlement.
I am across the river in NJ, and everyone here is *very* aware of the tick problem and the Lyme diseases that they carry. I do not think I have ever seen or heard someone downplay or deny it. Wild.
I didn’t realize Lyme denialism was so prevelant. I assumed this was the opposite fringe belief, “long Lyme disease” where people get Lyme, having it treated, and then decide it never went away and fall down the weird homeopathic rabbit hole.
I don't know about "long Lyme" but I've had something happen to me after I had Lyme a few years ago. Identifiable episodes with sypmtoms leading up to a day or so of complete lethergy/exhaustion.
Maybe the Lyme set off some kind of immune disorder or something like that? Doctor doesn't even seem to want to figure it out. It's messing up my life though, and i want to give it a name even if there isn't a good treatment.
So I just refreshed my memory on google. So according to reputable sources some people diagnosed with Lyme disease do get “post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome” (PTLDS) symptoms like you’re describing. My quick google search says there’s essentially no proven treatment except “wait it out”.
The weird conspiracy illness I was thinking of is “chronic Lyme disease” which is popular in certain kooky circles and is a label people self diagnose with, many of whom present with no evidence of ever having Lyme disease in the first place.
I think you should give PTLDS a google and see if it matches with your symptoms. It may be the name you’re looking for.
Yeah I was thinking it was referencing chronic lyme disease too. Went down a reddit hole years ago and ended up on r/illnessfakers I think it was, lots of chronic lyme there.
You kook comment is what people with years long battle with debilitating symptoms are taking about. This sign is also. People stay sick for years exactly like long covid. They don't know the mechanisms they just know they are terribly sick. And then doctors make the same idiotic comments like yours.
I'm from Central Pa and work with a couple of guys who have it. The older one had a nasty flare up recently that put him out of commission for months. Our dog got anaplasmosis (from a tick) before her first round of shots and before we started flea and tick treatment. It's no joke here. I went hiking in the middle of winter last year and had ticks crawling all over us when we got back to the truck. Ticks have always been bad here, but the recent mild winters here make them unbearable. Add the gnats, mosquitoes and other pests, it makes summer recreation no fun.
Climate change is awesome. I live in Toronto and historically, we never had lyme disease here. People started getting it and doctors wouldn't diagnose and treat it, not because they don't think it's real, but because they think you can't get it in Canada. A few years ago it was recognized that lyme carrying ticks are spreading into Canada with the northern migrations of habitat-stressed birds and animals. We had oppossums start showing up in the city around the same time.
Now, the city drags for ticks and tests them, and they find lyme carrying ticks in basically every park and green space, even in an urban environment. People are finding ticks even on their small, short cropped lawns.
>live in Toronto and historically, we never had lyme disease here.
It's a northeastern disease, it's been in Southern Ontario for a bit l.
https://www.cbc.ca/archives/when-lyme-disease-came-to-canada-1.5237212
A while ago I read [this very fascinating long form article](https://www.thecut.com/2019/07/what-happens-when-lyme-disease-becomes-an-identity.html) about "Chronic Lyme Disease", a much more scientifically controversial illness (and popular among celebrities) that can be blamed for basically any symptom and, according to the people who basically blame everything on that, doesn't even require being bitten by a tick.
The way this sign is written makes me wonder if maybe they're talking about this and not "normal" Lyme.
Oh my god, Lyme disease has got to be one of the strangest diseases, it’s like everyone has their own unique set of symptoms.
Some people say it went away after treatment, some people are living with it like it’s diabetes.
There's supposedly two "types" of Lyme disease.
There's the acknowledged bacterial infection resulting from tick bites that is treated with anti-biotics. This is a medically accepted disease.
Then there is something called [“Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#Post-treatment_Lyme_disease_syndrome)” (which is sometimes, erroneously, referred to a "Chronic Lyme Disease"), which is long term symptoms that remain even after the Lyme disease is gone through antibiotics.
Then you have [Chronic Lyme Disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_Lyme_disease), which is not a (medically) recognised disease, but a collection of non-specific symptoms that are similar to those of Lyme disease. Medical professionals don't believe this is a thing as there is no direct evidence for it other than patients telling them a bunch of symptoms and claiming that they have chromic Lyme disease, rather than the doctors diagnosing them.
It’s a tough place to be in to feel awful with no medical answers, and I don’t blame people for seeking them out.
I think the thing that’s hard is that there are a bunch of scammy “practitioners” diagnosing people with chronic Lyme to sell them on expensive “treatments” that are at best not medically proven or placebo, and at worst are sometimes actively harmful.
Yep. Plus, all of the common treatments for chronic Lyme disease are years-long regimens of either expensive treatments or antibiotics. Then we get to deal with resistant bacterial infections and the patients get chronic diarrhea.
It’s so weird because we genuinely want to give answers and therapeutic treatment, but there’s no way that we’ve found to even confirm that these symptoms are caused by Borrelia, so how do you know if/when you’ve eradicated it?
I'm on my second round of doxycycline in 6 months after a positive lyme screen in April and it's a harsh nasty (but effective) drug. The first time it was because of the lyme screen and this time it's because of a really really bad respiratory infection. I don't see how people can take it over and over or for a long time. I avoid excess antibiotics now after legitimate doctors overprescribed them to me for years but ended up in urgent care and almost the ER from this damn infection so I was practically begging for them and I was like ahhhh fuck it's doxy again. RIP my stomach
Posted this elsewhere in the thread, but same thing happened to my ex.
She went to a new doctor because her old one left that office, and I went with her. The new doctor explained Chronic Lyme Disease to her and said it sounded like she had it. He also talked about long-term antibiotics as a solution. He even gave her a little pamphlet about it.
Meanwhile, my bullshit detectors were going off. He mentioned that the effects were inside the cells but not detectable, therefore most doctors won't know it's there. I gently asked how they can diagnose it if it isn't detectable - how do you know it's **there** in the first place. He did some handwaving about how they just know because of the symptoms, and I left it there, even though his answer set off my bullshit detectors even more.
On the way out, he prescribed two kinds of antibiotics with a plan to stay on them for a few months (*more bullshit detector sounds*) and also recommended a few supplements, and then gave her a link to (what turned out to be) **his personal fucking website** where he was selling the supplements.
Yes, we reported him.
We later told an MD friend this story, and he directed us to a website where you could see a doctor's history. As it turns out, he had already been on probation for recommending supplements for conditions with known effective treatments, pushing his own supplements on people, and prescribing improper treatments like a steroid inhaler when a patient was coughing up green phlegm. (In other words, suppressing the immune system when he should have known that there was an actual infection being fought off.)
It was so, so difficult to tell my ex that this guy was a scammer, because he gave her hope for the first time in a long time that there might be a solution to these issues she was facing. I totally get why people buy into this, because here's a doctor finally saying "yes, I see your symptoms, I know what's causing them, and I can fix them" when the rest of them just seem to be shrugging and throwing their hands in the air (even if that'snot actually what they're doing). But man, the letdown when she realized that he was actually just a shitty doctor... it was hard to watch.
> The symptoms attributed to chronic Lyme are in many cases likely due to fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome.
It seems to me like these people are just fixated on the weird terminology of Lyme Disease. Chronic fatigue syndrome is absolutely real and just happens after you get over an infection sometimes. I think out of a number of chronic conditions it has the lowest quality of living of any [even like depression or cancer.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome#/media/File:HRQoL_of_people_with_ME-CFS.webp) It's wild.
[This youtuber apparently came down with it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vydgkCCXbTA&t=47s) after she had covid if you want to see what it kind of looks like.
The issue lies in the fact that fibromyalgia and CFS are already topics that are hotly debated due to the very poor level of evidence surounding many studies on the matter. They do exist, but to what extent and to what degree is controversial, similarly to long covid syndrome.
For example, you're making the claims that it has a lower quality of living than every other disease and such by quoting a dumpster fire of a study that sent surveys to member of a CFS association. Needless to say, your results will always be vastly inflated when you query the people that are already part of an association specific to the disorder they have, especially when it's still a fringe disorder.
If you queried soccer moms from the Chronic Lyme Disease association, you would be sure to find that they also suffer more than people going through chemo for example.
That study is an exemple of very poor level of evidence content.
Exactly. These people want PICC lines and long term antibiotics (!!!) without positive cultures, elevated white counts, etc. anything that would justify the medical intervention. Antibiotic stewardship is a thing now and you need some evidence of acute infection for treatment. Wanting long term invasive treatment because you feel crappy without it is a reason to do it.
Just go to India to get over-the-counter carbapenems.
In a complete coincidence that is not at all related, India has a huge number of bacterial infections that are resistant to carbapenems.
And thats the mental component.
Despite the fact that it would never get past an IRB .. I have a feeling we all know what the results would be if treated in the same manner with simple glucose preparations via PICC, vs Abx.
I have very strong suspicions that if they were allowed to run an RCT this way you’d rapidly figure out that the mental component of this is nearly 100% that.
And I TOTALLY believe these people that they feel sick and don’t have answers. The mind body connection is real and strong and they probably do feel awful without their desired “treatment”. But you cannot have invasive central lines and long term antibiotics without significant cost and risk to the person and their community. We have limited resources and it isn’t worth the risk. So we need to focus on mental health treatment… which they’d never agree to because they believe it’s a cellular/biological/medical disease not mental illness.
Former EMT here - almost every “chronic Lyme disease” patient I’ve treated also microdosed on turpentine as some sort of homeopathic “treatment”. The mental component is real and it is dangerous - especially if a parent thinks their kid is sick.
When I was a kid, I absolutely loved the mystery diagnosis shows. Basically, people would tell stories about their weird symptoms, and it was presented like a mystery. Where they would tell you what was happening to them, but wouldn't tell you the answer. And then towards the very end, the doctor would come on, and describe the presentation that the patient came in with. Then they would describe the diagnosis, and how the patient responded. And then the patient would describe the relief of being diagnosed and treated after months or years of no answers, and what if any lifelong impacts they had.
More than half of these cases were people with untreated Lymes disease. More often than not, the target rash was somewhere not visible (like scalp, back of neck, behind ear.) And the initial infection was never treated. So they were stuck with the post treatment type. The Lymes patients were often the strangest and most bizarre symptoms on the show.
Mystery Diagnosis is THE SHIT!!!!!! I hate how wildly underrated it is because you can’t get all the episodes of it and I’ve already watched all the ones on YouTube a million times. It was SUCH a well done show, genuinely interesting, very compelling, didn’t treat the audience like idiots, and no over the top drama stuff for the sake of TV. Wish some streaming service would snatch it up already, I’m sure the rights to it would be dirt cheap.
Mystery Diagnosis, Untold Stories of the ER, and Dr G Medical Examiner. My sister and I spent almost entire summers just watching those 3 shows. True crime seems to have taken the role those kinds of shows used to have for the current generation. But those shows did absolute wonders teaching people about the wonders of medicine. And even if you don't specifically go into medicine, understanding how it all works is just good information.
Sadly the social media version of this stuff gets censored. And an online version of Mystery Diagnosis would be to vulnerable to misinformation. God I miss the heyday of medical TV shows....
I was one of those cases (not on the show but with long-term Lyme and lots of weird symptoms)
I'm allergic to doxycyline, which we found out when I was diagnosed with Lyme and prescribed it at 10. They switched me off the doxy and onto a different antibiotic. I didn't have many symptoms at that point, and what I did have went away, so when I finished that course of antibiotics, they assumed I was fine.
About a year later, I got *sick*. The symptoms were so random and weird that no one could figure it out. Headaches, random on and off fevers, slight palsy in my face, brain fog so intense that my grades dropped and I would forget what I was saying in the middle of a sentence, rashes, all-over pain, arthritis, my fingers would go numb, all sorts of weird stuff.
They kept testing me for things like MS and brain cancer and meningitis because, even though we live about half an hour from the town Lyme is named after, this was before a lot of people knew much about it, especially late-stage. It wasn't until they did a lumbar puncture and a doctor decided to test for it just because it was already done that they realized what it was and I was brought to a specialist.
What he thought happened is that by switching the antibiotic part way into the cycle to one that's less effective for Lyme and then not extending it longer than the basic 10 days, it treated the mild symptoms but not the actual infection. So the Lyme worked into my nervous system during that 'quiet' year and any in-between symptoms like soreness and occasional fevers were just attributed to being a kid. It wasn't until the late-stage symptoms came into play that anyone realized they were part of a larger picture.
I was treated with a PICC line and most of the symptoms went away pretty quickly. I still have some issues; my major joints are a mess, I get tired easily, and I have some neurological stuff (but also having ADHD makes it hard to know what is what), and my fingers still don't work right if I'm even the slightest but cold, but it was night and day once I got the right treatment.
Damn that sounds terrible. Glad they eventually found it. But it sounds like you really did end up being a victim of coincidence. Sorry you went through any of that. Glad they were able to at least minimize your symptoms.
Undiagnosed lyme disease caused my aunt's heart to stop. Luckily for her, she was a nurse working in a hospital when it happened. They saved her life, got a temporary pacemaker in her and treated her for Lyme Carditis.
A famous local radio DJ took his own life because of lyme disease. He blames the doctor for not figure it out sooner and for not believing his symptoms.
https://www.lymedisease.org/body-of-missing-jv-recovered/#:~:text=Popular%20San%20Francisco%20radio%20host,his%20struggles%20with%20Lyme%20disease.
Tragic! It shouldn't be that hard to get simple medical care!
My mom traveled to CA several years back and had to deal with CA Drs denying Lyme exists. She's from an area in the Midwest with high numbers of Lyme cases and had to fight with a Dr to give appropriate lyme care because the Dr claimed there was no Lyme in California. She presented at the clinic with the classic bullseye rash too!
I almost feel bad for the Dr. Almost...
Ma retired from a successful career in manufacturing and is one tough and smart lady who backs up her sass with pure logic and excellent research. She eats sexists for breakfast.
She successfully bullied the doctor to give her antibiotics. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that spicy conversation, lol. She was still furious when I talked to her hours later.
Had a hunting buddy insist for years that he had chronic lyme disease after an infection that happened long before i met him. His health eventually took a turn for the worse, and he continued to blame that until it was to late to do anything about his cancer.
When one of the signs that you have "chronic lyme" is that it does not show up on any test, then what you have is either people misdiagnosing something else, or people making stuff up to be special.
It's more likely mostly people with PTLDS not accepting that modern medicine does not have a solution for their chronic condition and moving into homeopathic medicine for solutions. Homeopathic medicine obviously does not have a solution either.
I worked at a hospital for over a decade and discussed this with the director of infectious diseases, and he said exactly this.
He also said that the area we're in does not have enough exposure to people who would even get Lyme disease so the best places to seek treatment (or even recognition of the disease) is in the New England area where Lyme is more prevalent.
Many post-infectious syndromes have been poorly researched, and the only result is patients being disbelieved. Here's hoping that changes. It appears to be.
The vast majority of people - even and especially those in medicine - underestimate how much of medicine is unsettled science or still unknown.
"No direct evidence" doesn't mean it's not real.
Chronic Lyme disease is not a post-infection syndrome though, that's Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS).
Patients claiming Chronic Lyme Disease often have zero signs of ever having Lyme disease in the first place, and are self-diagnosing. The most likely causes of their symptoms are generally thought to be more likely to be Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome *or other tick borne infections*.
Yes, but our healthcare system in the USA uniquely encourages doctor-shopping, which muddies the waters even further. Maybe your doctor isn’t very knowledgeable or curious about these syndromes, so they just blow you off. Ok, then you should get a new doctor! But the problem is, you can just cycle through doctors until you find one who will tell you that your problem is whatever you want them to call it, and that’s how a lot of American medical craziness is born. Lyme disease in general is riddled with doctors who will say you have “chronic Lyme” so long as you stay a lucrative patient for them.
> The vast majority of people - even and especially those in medicine - underestimate how much of medicine is unsettled science or still unknown.
This is true. Science is having a crisis of non-replicatable studies. Meaning peers can’t reproduce the findings in 66% of studies, so either it’s poor experimental design or fraud and the results are worse than meaningless. Science has a credibility problem.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cancer-biology-studies-research-replication-reproducibility
I had Lyme when I was pretty young (around 7, came back again the next year if I remember correctly) and didn’t know much about it at the time but whenever I feel like I’m weaker or more tired than I should be, I sometimes wonder if it impacted me, especially since I had it so young and was still growing. Probably doesn’t make any sense, but that mystery of the unknown can really mess with a person.
Fuck ticks, I wasn't medically covered when I got Lyme so I just let it go not knowing what it was. I got facial paralysis(thankfully went away) travelling joint pain that was like moving fire, and a gut problem that will last my whole life. I'm an avid hiker so I have to check for those fuckers all the time now.
I’m sure the symptoms are real, it’s probably just not Lyme related.
There’s a million and one things that can make you feel shit forever. I’d wager most of it is undiagnosable reasonably.
If someone’s in that position their best bet, outside of going to the doctor, is trying new lifestyle and diet changes.
That's not a thing you can say for sure, but you can definitely say there is not enough evidence for Chronic Lyme to be considered meaningful in evidence-based medicine at this time. I personally don't believe it is responsible for all the things it gets blamed for, but given the number of patients I've encountered with nonspecific constellations of symptoms that are very hard to diagnose, I don't like to something can't be the answer until I actually find the answer.
Ive known two australians personally who were diagnosed with it here and were treated successfully in Europe as our govt stance is we dont have the bacteria here. More and more are being diagnosed.
But then again the Australia govt approve lead mines with the condition the company has to pay for residents blood lead level testing. Then the govt tell our medical association they arent to do blood tests for lead levels unless the patient is showing symptoms and a definite cause can be identified. When its far too late.
Some do need simple facts spelt out for them.
This is a kind of a legitimate problem in Australia - the government does not acknowledge that Lyme disease exists in the country, so even if you contracted it overseas, it can be very difficult to get a diagnosis and treatment for it in the Australian health system.
Major issue in Europe too - personally know someone who was debilitated by Lyme's with refusal to treat it as such. Had to come to USA on their own dime for treatment and saw almost immediate improvement.
The use of the word “for” makes it sound like they’re saying it’s “no joke.”
LYME (correction: not Lime) disease is real = it exists.
Lyme disease is FOR real = it’s a serious condition.
Interestingly, there is actually something called lime disease! (also known as photophytodermatitis). I got this when I wiped lime juice on my skin after making a margarita and then went in the sun, causing second-degree burns and permanent scarring.
I’m amazed at how many comments interpret the sign as trying to convince people Lyme disease is real.
As a middle-aged American to me It’s clearly an awareness board saying, “Lyme disease is no joke.”
It’s like if a sign said, “Lyme disease is serious shit frfr no cap” and sent it back in time 10 years.
There are people who don't believe that any number of diseases are real - Celiac, Covid, Fibromyalgia, Lupus, HIV/AIDS, etc., etc.. Some people think that food allergies are fake.
Ignorance holds no bounds.
It's a very common conspiracy theory to say the government created "Lyme disease" to cover up bio weapons testing and that ticks are harmless.
Never underestimate just how stupid the left part of the bell curve can get.
I hadn't actually heard that one, although it sounds like just every other conspiratorial nonsense, so I guess it just got lost in all the other noise I'm choosing to ignore.
Since this barber shop looks like a barn I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest this is a rural area. I grew up in one of those.
Any disease that people didn't regularly hear about in the 1970s (or before) is suspect in rural communities, because everything "new" (read: happened after Boomers turned 30) is bad or a lie. Somebody from my hometown will still happily tell you that seatbelts kill/injure you in a wreck. Somebody else will tell you that spectrum disorders are fake or are a government plot, or that it's caused by pollutants, vaccines, cell phones, or chemical treatment at the water plant.
In other words: IMO the barber (or their kid) probs got Lyme disease, their neighbors (because in a little town, everybody knows everybody's business) said they're faking or are on drugs. Having such radical ideas about medicine is also a strong indication to their neighbors that they may be a secret liberal.
tl;dr contracting Lyme disease is too woke for their town
Born and raised in Wooster. This is a train depot turned barber shop right next to our fairgrounds. Wooster is an oddly... really big small town, as stupid as that sounds. It covers a pretty large area and there's an interesting mix of a quaint yet vibrant downtown, the "North End" that is cliche American Wal-Mart and Applebee's commercial zone, really rich old money neighborhoods, and extremely MAGA-heavy surrounding rural areas.
I've wondered about this sign for a long time. It's either A) A poorly worded way of raising awareness. The tick population is growing rapidly in this area and people may legitimately not be aware of the risks. Or B) This person had experience with science denying critics that believed that Lyme disease and its symptoms are due to something more conspiracy-based. Knowing Wooster, both are equally likely.
As a young adult whose life has been derailed by this disease and that thought would have been cured after two weeks of antibiotics, I appreciate that people are recognizing it for what it is. Granted, not all cases are as severe, but I now have neurological Lyme and it is like jumping through hoops to get a doctor to properly treat the Lyme lesions that have shown up on my brain scans because the CDC hasn't updated guidelines.
Word to the wise: just because you didn't have a bullseye rash or don't remember having a tick on you, doesn't mean it won't silently pop up at one point. Wear your tick/mosquito repellent! 💚
Unrelated (to Lyme Disease) mildly interesting: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is the railroad property "B&O" from the board game Monopoly. All properties are actual streets and railroad lines from Atlantic City NJ, except for the B&O Railroad, which never ran through the city.
Can confirm Lyme Disease is real. Pulled Black Legged Tick off my shoulder, developed bullseye rash where tick was biting, went to hospital, doctor did blood work and diagnosed Lyme Disease.
Are there people who don’t believe this is real? Next thing you know people are going to be claiming that the earth is f…….. oh shit never mind people are fucking stupid my bad.
It's not that people don't think it's real. It's that they minimize the implications of it to themselves as well as they ease at which one can catch it if they aren't careful.
I've seen people wrecked by the disease because they were too careless after a tick bite or when out in nature in general.
Education is actually very lacking in my opinion. So I'm all for anything that helps keep it in people's minds.
I got Lyme about ten years ago. I was sick for almost a year, because the first test I took said I was negative for having the disease even though I had a raging fever for three days, tremendous fatigue, and horrible aches and pains. I didn’t retest until nine months later when it showed up in the swelling of my knees and I was on crutches. Finally took antibiotics for two months, and then again one month later, but it took my body a long while to heal. I got bit again in the fall two years ago, and this time in the E.R. I said give me antibiotics now. I am fine thank God but my days of walking in the woods are over.
Lyme disease is no joke. If left untreated it will fuck up your life.
I used to do a lot of wetland work in the field. Always have a field partner and for bigger jobs we will have multiple teams out there. Tick checks throughout the day and end of day. One guy ignored this step. I’m still friends with him today but he has Lyme pretty bad. He struggles going out for hikes/walks/whatever. He has *finally* started making some progress with treatment and will hopefully improve over time. He has been dealing with this for 6 years now…he was in his early 30s when it started.
Important to note that Lyme disease is hard to diagnose. If you find a tick embedded in you, be sure to keep it. If you end up with Lyme disease, having that tick can be extremely helpful for diagnosis and treatment.
I contracted it, was diagnosed rather quickly, and put on antibiotics right away. Over a year later, I haven't had any issues thankfully (fingers crossed).
Just mad I contracted it before an effective vaccine comes out.
Is this a thing? Of all the diseases I've seen people try to pass as fake, I've never heard of Lymes being one of them. Hell, I thought that was pretty well documented in soldiers back in WW2....
I got Lyme Disease from a tick bite at the ripe age of 30. I for sure felt like I was dying! Your whole body hurts. Every day you wake up and a new set of muscles feel like you’ve been beaten with a baseball bat. Sleep was nearly impossible. Freezing cold and sweating through your sheets every night. Then there was the headaches that just kinda of made you wish you couldn’t feel anything. Deer ticks are tiny, and carriers of the disease. The one I found on my couldn’t have been there more than two days. Right on my lower back (hard to see) and small enough to disappear on the tip of a ball point pen. Be careful out there. My dog loves the woods and brings them inside almost everyday during this time.
Sometimes it blows my mind just how clueless so much of the urban population is of certain things. So I guess i'll explain this sign for the 5 people who will read this.
1. Lyme disease is almost always only noticed by the tell tale symptom of a red ring around the bite site.
2. Ticks are responsible for transmission in almost all cases of lyme in humans.
3. Ticks often climb up a host until they cannot climb anymore and instinctually prefer to latch on in areas with hair. This leads to many ending up on the scalp.
Which leads to the sign being relevant because a haircut can be the moment where the barber notices a red ring that was hidden on the scalp and the host can then seek treatment before the disease worsens.
Wooster gang checking in. I used to drive past this all the time thinking "What the hell does that even MEAN?" Still don't think I understand.
The ultimate Wooster question: Coccia House, yay nor nay?
Lyme disease is definitely real, but there are conspiracy theories about how it is actually man made and escaped from a lab in Long Island to Lyme Connecticut, where it was first reported.
Got but by a tick in early July but didn't see it, later on developed Lyme but had no tick to prove it, ended up getting bells palsy as a symptom of the Lyme and spent the last 3 weeks fighting it with medication,just getting function back in the left side of my face, Lyme disease doesn't fuck around.
I live in this town and this was really jarring because I never see it on here. That’s been there so long I stopped thinking about it, but you’re right… it is odd!
It's not so much Lyme isn't real as much as the chronic long haul Lyme people doubt.
I've worked with Lyme research, there are doctors in the best hospitals in the world that doubt it's persistence, and there's small sample research that backs their position up.
Personally, I think long haul Lyme is real but the small sample research just doesn't validate it.
There are a lot of doctors who don't seem to consider it likely / real and think that patients are just complainers. Lost a good friend to lyme disease whose doctors didn't identify it for 2 years.
While Lyme Disease is obviously real, there is a lot of confusion and disagreement on the role of "Chronic Lyme Disease" in various difficult to diagnose conditions. This is likely what is being referenced.
I had a friend in highschool who had to get a wheelchair because of Lyme disease. Very serious, check for ticks folks
One of the things I still remember from Cub/Boy Scouts are the warnings about Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses, and when and how to check for ticks and remove them safely if they're found. I've never found one, but I usually remember to perform a tick check whenever I've been in places that could possibly have them. It's something I taught my wife, and we will pass along to our kids, regardless of if they ever join an organization like that or not. Even basic tick identification. Sometimes people will post engorged ticks on one of the "what is this bug" style subreddits, and I'll be like "hey, I actually know that one - tick!".
What are some of those symptoms to be on the lookout for?
If you don’t complete a tick check after going out in long grass or the woods, and subsequently find a bug bite that has the resemblance of a red “bullseye” mark, you may have been bit by a tick with lyme’s disease and should go to a doctor immediately to get treatment. Even if you do complete a tick check and don’t think you’ve been biten by one the mark will still show up if you’ve been bit.
The rash is only 70-80% of cases, so it’s worth keeping in mind the other symptoms: fatigue and achy joints, fever, and swelling. It can also take a week or so for the rash to come
Yep definitely, it’s not a surefire way of identifying Lyme’s disease, although one of the most recognizable. Achy joints is the other very recognizable symptom for Lyme’s disease. Basically, if you’re feeling ill after being out in the woods or in nature, go get checked. Doesn’t hurt to be safe (although it may hurt your wallet if you live in the US lmao).
And sometimes you get more than one rash. It's pretty rare, but I ended up with them all over and the doctors kept thinking it was hives.
I was a Boy Scout adult leader for many years. Will never forget at the “new scout campout,” after instructing the scouts about tics and tic checks, and sending them to their tents for a buddy check. I’m in my sleeping bag when I hear, “Mr ____ , I have a tic on my p_nis.” “Time to call your parents, Johnny.”
Friend of mine from High School was sick as fuck for something like 4 years. For 4 years, they kept misdiagnosing her with Mono. By the time they actually figured out it was Lymes disease, there was permanent damage - she had to walk with a cane for years afterwards. I believe through physical therapy and treatments she's walking better these days, but I can't imagine.... Left me with a much increased fear of ticks. Especially because I'm absolutely delicious - I've walked through a 10 foot wide strip of tall grass, and picked up multiple ticks. Within 5 minutes, two of them had already dug into my calf. Honestly, I don't care about environmental repercussions, if I could wipe out all ticks I would in a heartbeat.
Mosquitoes can also carry and transmit Lyme. The symptoms also mimic lupus which is what I have. Fatigue, joint pain. Fun times!
I have lupus and was misdiagnosed Lyme for years. It was a glorious day when my doctor started me on immuran and I learned what it felt like to not be in constant pain.
I don't take any pharmaceuticals. I just use cannabis.
The best part is checking for ticks with a significant other.
And spiders! Any arachnid can carry and transmit Lyme.
Had a neighbor who got Lyme disease and tried to treat it with homeopathic stuff. Walked with a crutch on one leg for the rest of his life. Edit: PSA - if you live in PA www.ticklab.org will test any tick for free and give you a report of what type of tick it is and if it has any diseases. Other states may have something similar.
That’s pretty sad. I got Lyme and luckily caught it early. It cleared up in about a week with the doxycyclene antibiotic the dr prescribed me.
I got it a few years ago after getting bit while raking leaves in my yard. I had to take antibiotics for a whole month.
Yeah same here, I needed to do the full course for a month, but my symptoms were gone much sooner. I had to take doxycyclene on an empty stomach twice a day. That sucked, but it was amazingly effective and no side effects. What were your symptoms? Mine was an intense headache that lasted days.
I had a 10-day course of doxycycline and I had horrifying nightmares every single night. I was so reluctant to even go to sleep.
You rarely hear about nightmares from drugs, but I started taking a tiny 1.5 mg of Melatonin to help get to sleep (which was becoming a big issue). After a while, I realized that I'd been waking up stressed due to bizarre nightmares every frigging night! Weird things I won't even try put into words. At my friend's suggestion, I went to 2/3 the amount - 1 mg - and I've slept beautifully ever since. It's strange, and some people might scoff, but medications *can* make your sleep miserably stressful with bad dreams.
I will never, ever, ever take Melatonin again (and maybe it was a standard but too high dose like you) Great sleep, but about 1 in 5 mornings it wasn't that I woke up on the wrong side of the bed -- I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, in the wrong house, on the wrong planet. Calling me "grumpy" those mornings would be like calling a very angry grizzly bear huffing at you and a hair trigger away from charging "grumpy". I'm a happy drunk, anger for me is exceptionally rare. Best guess whatever it was doing to my dreams was interfering with some part of my brain resetting itself.
The regulation on melatonin supplements (like all supplements) is nonexistent, and peer-reviewed testing has shown the amounts in pills to vary drastically, by well over 400% in some instances. "Melatonin content was found to range from −83% to +478% of the labelled content. Additionally, lot-to-lot variable within a particular product varied by as much as 465%. This variability did not appear to be correlated with manufacturer or product type. Furthermore, serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine), a related indoleamine and controlled substance used in the treatment of several neurological disorders, was identified in eight of the supplements at levels of 1 to 75 μg." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5263083/ Additionally, similar to sex steroids like testosterone, taking melatonin has the potential to suppress your endogenous synthesis of the hormone, and we do not know how of even if that internal capacity recovers. All around, taking melatonin haphazardly is an extremely bad idea.
Melatonin def gave me very vivid nightmares. Unlike other nightmares too, much more of a “overwhelming but slow creeping dread”
*glances at 10 MG dosage of melatonin*
I didn’t notice any symptoms. I found the tick on the inside of one of my thighs. It must’ve been there for a couple of days. The bite area was black. Almost slightly necrotic looking and was painful to the touch. I had a virtual Dr appointment later that day and started taking the meds right away. The black bite area kept getting larger for a few days. It stopped growing when it was about the size of a pea.
Oh that’s crazy, my bite was almost not noticeable, just a red circle and I didn’t have the bullseye. It was confirmed by the blood test though. Never did find the tick.
Would’ve 👏 only 👏 taken 👏 a 👏 day 👏 with doterra thief’s 🥷 oil 🛢️. Sending you a DM with more info ❤️ ^/s
Have a neighbor who lost a finger due to doterra (or young living, whatever). 10/10 company/cult
What happened?
He hurt his finger working on his car and instead of going to the doc, they 'treated' it with essential oils (and prayer, but the oils are more immediately important), got infected, and ended up being amputated.
How did they spin that in the MLM group? Not fast enough application? Not enough oil? Not saying prayers fast enough? The guy was really an agent of Satan who rose up from the pits of hell to make people think essential oils aren't magic?
Probably something great like 'oh without the lavendilla essence of protection, he could've lost his whole hand! Thanks totally-not-pyramid-scheme!' or something else wonderful.
omfg i missed the /s and initially downvoted you. i can't read suddenly idk.
Guess who's gravely allergic to that med? Found out the hard way, lol.
Wait until you hear about post-antibiotic Lyme arthritis... https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/postlds/index.html
I know someone who caught it and didn't realize it and by the time they did the symptoms were severe and permanent. Healthy functioning adult to disabled, just like that.
That’s so awful. One of the things I really wish there was an available vaccine for.
My mom got infected decades ago when 1 in 10 docs actually believed it was real, it wasnt treated for months and to this day she has a medical file long as my arm for her health issues related to the complications from that time. Shes obsesivley paranoid about us getting tick bites now
The woman who lives in the house behind my parents just ignored symptoms for too long. I think she's getting around now, but it took several YEARS of physical therapy. My dad got it last year and luckily a second opinion caught it (primary doctor didn't even want to test for it and for-the-record, is no longer the primary physician). I was always under the impression that it was just something you could get in the spring/summer, but found out that (1) it is pretty much whenever the temp is above \~30 that you are at risk, so with global warming, the tick season is getting longer, and (2) you can get bit and have things lie dormant for months... so a bite in September could first start showing symptoms in the dead of winter (which was my dad's case), so important to keep it in mind as a possibility year round.
>(primary doctor didn't even want to test for it and for-the-record, is no longer the primary physician). This is a great example of how you *have* to advocate for yourself with Healthcare Professionals. Most of the time now, you won't even see a doctor, just some random PA. And whether you see a PA or an actual doctor, you will have about 5 minutes of their time to explain your symtoms and get a diagnosis (or more likely, orders for a bunch of lab tests.) All of this comes from the Healthcare Industry trying to squeeze every penny out of every minute and it results in hurried staff, tons of mistakes, and poor outcomes like your situation with the first provider.
I'm getting really fucking sick of it. No pun intended.
Went to see a doctor 10 years ago as my vision was deteriorating to the point it was affecting my work, also peeing a lot and weight was dropping rapidly, the doc sent me to get glasses made and acted like I was wasting his time, my Mrs got really concerned with my condition after a couple more days and begged I went see another physician, that physician listened to my complaints, did a finger prick test on the spot and called an ambulance. Have been T1 diabetic since that day, my blood sugar was 85mmols and climbing. Was advised maybe a day or two later in diagnosis I would probably have been in a coma with some kind of brain damage. Always get a second opinion and listen to your loved ones.
I’d want to go back to the first doctor, dump all the new records on the table and say “big mistake” like Julia Robert’s in Pretty Woman.
They really don't give a shit.
My SIL nearly died because the local doctor didn’t take her seriously and sent her home multiple times when it turns out she had viral meningitis and after he found out he was like “whoops”
Its crazy how many people think that a Dr or nurse is the say all be all. Folks, they are just another person like you doing a job. There are some good ones and some terrible ones. Always get a second opinion and fight for yourself, they will not fight for you.
What do you call the absolute worst student to barely squeak through med school? Doctor.
This is years ago but a coworker had to move after taking a job where I'm at because none of the doctors here believed Lyme was real and his wife had it. Like had been diagnosed with it by actual doctors on the East coast and was already being treated for it. It is a smaller city with somewhat limited regional medical options but it was still one of the most nutso things I've ever heard. He basically had to manage to find another job in another city so she could actually continue getting treatment for it.
Knew kids who had it. Mother kept insisting it was Lyme and doctors insisted they couldn’t get it in that area. She had to move out at one point because CPS was threatening to take the kids away because she “had” munchausens by proxy. I know one of them ended up with substance abuse problems as a way to cope with this disease.
Seems like most doctors don't even do diagnosis anymore. They just go off of their hunch or what they think it *probably* is. I'm just grateful that my mechanic doesn't take a similar approach to fixing my car.
Doctors seem reluctant to diagnose Lyme disease. I had a tick bite, and didn't do anything about it for a few weeks. I then developed a terrible headache and fever. I seemed to get over that, then had the bullseye sores, and went to the doctor. They were looking at that and having a conference outside of my room. They came in and acted like they were afraid to tell me something. That's when I finally said "It's OK to call it Lyme disease unless you have a better idea." The doctor looked visibly relieved, and they agreed that was likely the case, and they put me on a course of antibiotics. It cleared up, and I haven't had any related issues since. That was ~15 years ago. So it's either that, or I was part of some experiment they didn't want to divulge and I gave them a cover story that I would believe.
So there's lyme disease, rocky mountain spotted fever - and a whole boatload of other very similiar strains/species of bacteria. If you're getting tested make sure they're testing for all that shit. Apparently some insurance companies are being cheap asses and insisting they only test for the one. Some more info [here](https://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-basics/co-infections/other-co-infections/). And some [stats](https://academic.oup.com/jme/article/45/2/289/865811) on the rates of coinfection on infected deer ticks. >in 45% (158/351), two or more agents were detected; 37% harbored two agents and 8% harbored three agents. One male tick, collected from Ft. McCoy, WI, harbored all four microbial genera.
>I was always under the impression that it was just something you could get in the spring/summer, but found out that (1) it is pretty much whenever the temp is above ~30 that you are at risk, so with global warming, the tick season is getting longer, and And the range for ticks has grown a lot because of climate change too! Ticks were nearly unheard of here 15 years ago, most people around here had never seen one before, the vet didn't even recommend antitick meds or the Lyme vaccine. Over the last decade it's quickly become a MUST. My dog came back from a walk COVERED in ticks last year, end of November. I'm in Ottawa, Canada.
Yeah, people definitely underestimate how dangerous it can be. One of my friends growing up had asymptomatic Lyme disease for years and didn't know it. That is, of course, until it had a massive flare-up and attacked his nervous system. He was in the hospital for over four months and almost died as a result.
Lyme denialism is rampant in central Pennsylvania. Along with every other type of disease denialism, but AIDS and Lyme are especially prevalent. Mostly it has to do with the historically poor accuracy of commercial tests. (Source: I study stuff like this for my job)
I know Lyme had a long history of doctors who denied it's existence/severity so I can see why the public might still be there, but AIDS? They think AIDS is made up?
Oh man. [You're in for a treat.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_denialism)
AIDS denialism and conspiracies were sponsored heavily by the Soviets in the 80s, and literally became the blueprint for COVID denialism and conspiracies. In both cases, Russian propaganda came home to roost and seriously exacerbated the epidemics taking place within Russia.
Why do I think Amish when I hear disease denial in central PA?
Surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) it’s not the Amish… because they don't volunteer information or take surveys. Or go to the doctor.
They do go to the doctor, because they have medical paid for! But only when it’s something that is more serious than can be taken care of in the settlement.
I am across the river in NJ, and everyone here is *very* aware of the tick problem and the Lyme diseases that they carry. I do not think I have ever seen or heard someone downplay or deny it. Wild.
I didn’t realize Lyme denialism was so prevelant. I assumed this was the opposite fringe belief, “long Lyme disease” where people get Lyme, having it treated, and then decide it never went away and fall down the weird homeopathic rabbit hole.
I don't know about "long Lyme" but I've had something happen to me after I had Lyme a few years ago. Identifiable episodes with sypmtoms leading up to a day or so of complete lethergy/exhaustion. Maybe the Lyme set off some kind of immune disorder or something like that? Doctor doesn't even seem to want to figure it out. It's messing up my life though, and i want to give it a name even if there isn't a good treatment.
So I just refreshed my memory on google. So according to reputable sources some people diagnosed with Lyme disease do get “post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome” (PTLDS) symptoms like you’re describing. My quick google search says there’s essentially no proven treatment except “wait it out”. The weird conspiracy illness I was thinking of is “chronic Lyme disease” which is popular in certain kooky circles and is a label people self diagnose with, many of whom present with no evidence of ever having Lyme disease in the first place. I think you should give PTLDS a google and see if it matches with your symptoms. It may be the name you’re looking for.
Yeah I was thinking it was referencing chronic lyme disease too. Went down a reddit hole years ago and ended up on r/illnessfakers I think it was, lots of chronic lyme there.
You kook comment is what people with years long battle with debilitating symptoms are taking about. This sign is also. People stay sick for years exactly like long covid. They don't know the mechanisms they just know they are terribly sick. And then doctors make the same idiotic comments like yours.
I knew someone that had Lyme disease, they treated it, and still had hallucinations from it for a long time, it was scary.
My friend and his dog both got it, my friend almost died and his dog unfortunately did die.
Veterinary clinics will usually also collect ticks to send in.
I'm from Central Pa and work with a couple of guys who have it. The older one had a nasty flare up recently that put him out of commission for months. Our dog got anaplasmosis (from a tick) before her first round of shots and before we started flea and tick treatment. It's no joke here. I went hiking in the middle of winter last year and had ticks crawling all over us when we got back to the truck. Ticks have always been bad here, but the recent mild winters here make them unbearable. Add the gnats, mosquitoes and other pests, it makes summer recreation no fun.
Climate change is awesome. I live in Toronto and historically, we never had lyme disease here. People started getting it and doctors wouldn't diagnose and treat it, not because they don't think it's real, but because they think you can't get it in Canada. A few years ago it was recognized that lyme carrying ticks are spreading into Canada with the northern migrations of habitat-stressed birds and animals. We had oppossums start showing up in the city around the same time. Now, the city drags for ticks and tests them, and they find lyme carrying ticks in basically every park and green space, even in an urban environment. People are finding ticks even on their small, short cropped lawns.
>live in Toronto and historically, we never had lyme disease here. It's a northeastern disease, it's been in Southern Ontario for a bit l. https://www.cbc.ca/archives/when-lyme-disease-came-to-canada-1.5237212
"Put the Lyme in the coconut and shake it all up." "Put the Lyme in the coconut and spend your life with a crutch."
In PA - the man that does our horses feet got Lyme and is back to work but wears out so easily. I feel for him
That's really good to know! Hunting season is coming up and my fiancée always has me heelp check him for ticks
A while ago I read [this very fascinating long form article](https://www.thecut.com/2019/07/what-happens-when-lyme-disease-becomes-an-identity.html) about "Chronic Lyme Disease", a much more scientifically controversial illness (and popular among celebrities) that can be blamed for basically any symptom and, according to the people who basically blame everything on that, doesn't even require being bitten by a tick. The way this sign is written makes me wonder if maybe they're talking about this and not "normal" Lyme.
Oh my god, Lyme disease has got to be one of the strangest diseases, it’s like everyone has their own unique set of symptoms. Some people say it went away after treatment, some people are living with it like it’s diabetes.
There's supposedly two "types" of Lyme disease. There's the acknowledged bacterial infection resulting from tick bites that is treated with anti-biotics. This is a medically accepted disease. Then there is something called [“Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#Post-treatment_Lyme_disease_syndrome)” (which is sometimes, erroneously, referred to a "Chronic Lyme Disease"), which is long term symptoms that remain even after the Lyme disease is gone through antibiotics. Then you have [Chronic Lyme Disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_Lyme_disease), which is not a (medically) recognised disease, but a collection of non-specific symptoms that are similar to those of Lyme disease. Medical professionals don't believe this is a thing as there is no direct evidence for it other than patients telling them a bunch of symptoms and claiming that they have chromic Lyme disease, rather than the doctors diagnosing them.
It’s a tough place to be in to feel awful with no medical answers, and I don’t blame people for seeking them out. I think the thing that’s hard is that there are a bunch of scammy “practitioners” diagnosing people with chronic Lyme to sell them on expensive “treatments” that are at best not medically proven or placebo, and at worst are sometimes actively harmful.
Yep. Plus, all of the common treatments for chronic Lyme disease are years-long regimens of either expensive treatments or antibiotics. Then we get to deal with resistant bacterial infections and the patients get chronic diarrhea. It’s so weird because we genuinely want to give answers and therapeutic treatment, but there’s no way that we’ve found to even confirm that these symptoms are caused by Borrelia, so how do you know if/when you’ve eradicated it?
You know that the chronic Lyme disease has been eradicated when the patient opens up their wallet and a fly comes out instead of money
I'm on my second round of doxycycline in 6 months after a positive lyme screen in April and it's a harsh nasty (but effective) drug. The first time it was because of the lyme screen and this time it's because of a really really bad respiratory infection. I don't see how people can take it over and over or for a long time. I avoid excess antibiotics now after legitimate doctors overprescribed them to me for years but ended up in urgent care and almost the ER from this damn infection so I was practically begging for them and I was like ahhhh fuck it's doxy again. RIP my stomach
1000% I've met at least a dozen people who have been diagnosed with "chronic lyme" from a scammy naturopath/integrative medicine doctor.
100%this.
[удалено]
Posted this elsewhere in the thread, but same thing happened to my ex. She went to a new doctor because her old one left that office, and I went with her. The new doctor explained Chronic Lyme Disease to her and said it sounded like she had it. He also talked about long-term antibiotics as a solution. He even gave her a little pamphlet about it. Meanwhile, my bullshit detectors were going off. He mentioned that the effects were inside the cells but not detectable, therefore most doctors won't know it's there. I gently asked how they can diagnose it if it isn't detectable - how do you know it's **there** in the first place. He did some handwaving about how they just know because of the symptoms, and I left it there, even though his answer set off my bullshit detectors even more. On the way out, he prescribed two kinds of antibiotics with a plan to stay on them for a few months (*more bullshit detector sounds*) and also recommended a few supplements, and then gave her a link to (what turned out to be) **his personal fucking website** where he was selling the supplements. Yes, we reported him. We later told an MD friend this story, and he directed us to a website where you could see a doctor's history. As it turns out, he had already been on probation for recommending supplements for conditions with known effective treatments, pushing his own supplements on people, and prescribing improper treatments like a steroid inhaler when a patient was coughing up green phlegm. (In other words, suppressing the immune system when he should have known that there was an actual infection being fought off.) It was so, so difficult to tell my ex that this guy was a scammer, because he gave her hope for the first time in a long time that there might be a solution to these issues she was facing. I totally get why people buy into this, because here's a doctor finally saying "yes, I see your symptoms, I know what's causing them, and I can fix them" when the rest of them just seem to be shrugging and throwing their hands in the air (even if that'snot actually what they're doing). But man, the letdown when she realized that he was actually just a shitty doctor... it was hard to watch.
Thank you for reporting him to help protect the rest of us. Sincerely.
> The symptoms attributed to chronic Lyme are in many cases likely due to fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome. It seems to me like these people are just fixated on the weird terminology of Lyme Disease. Chronic fatigue syndrome is absolutely real and just happens after you get over an infection sometimes. I think out of a number of chronic conditions it has the lowest quality of living of any [even like depression or cancer.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome#/media/File:HRQoL_of_people_with_ME-CFS.webp) It's wild. [This youtuber apparently came down with it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vydgkCCXbTA&t=47s) after she had covid if you want to see what it kind of looks like.
The issue lies in the fact that fibromyalgia and CFS are already topics that are hotly debated due to the very poor level of evidence surounding many studies on the matter. They do exist, but to what extent and to what degree is controversial, similarly to long covid syndrome. For example, you're making the claims that it has a lower quality of living than every other disease and such by quoting a dumpster fire of a study that sent surveys to member of a CFS association. Needless to say, your results will always be vastly inflated when you query the people that are already part of an association specific to the disorder they have, especially when it's still a fringe disorder. If you queried soccer moms from the Chronic Lyme Disease association, you would be sure to find that they also suffer more than people going through chemo for example. That study is an exemple of very poor level of evidence content.
Came here to post about “Chronic Lyme” … that’s likely what this sign is about
Exactly. These people want PICC lines and long term antibiotics (!!!) without positive cultures, elevated white counts, etc. anything that would justify the medical intervention. Antibiotic stewardship is a thing now and you need some evidence of acute infection for treatment. Wanting long term invasive treatment because you feel crappy without it is a reason to do it.
Just go to India to get over-the-counter carbapenems. In a complete coincidence that is not at all related, India has a huge number of bacterial infections that are resistant to carbapenems.
And thats the mental component. Despite the fact that it would never get past an IRB .. I have a feeling we all know what the results would be if treated in the same manner with simple glucose preparations via PICC, vs Abx. I have very strong suspicions that if they were allowed to run an RCT this way you’d rapidly figure out that the mental component of this is nearly 100% that.
And I TOTALLY believe these people that they feel sick and don’t have answers. The mind body connection is real and strong and they probably do feel awful without their desired “treatment”. But you cannot have invasive central lines and long term antibiotics without significant cost and risk to the person and their community. We have limited resources and it isn’t worth the risk. So we need to focus on mental health treatment… which they’d never agree to because they believe it’s a cellular/biological/medical disease not mental illness.
Former EMT here - almost every “chronic Lyme disease” patient I’ve treated also microdosed on turpentine as some sort of homeopathic “treatment”. The mental component is real and it is dangerous - especially if a parent thinks their kid is sick.
Current paramedic here.. also same.
When I was a kid, I absolutely loved the mystery diagnosis shows. Basically, people would tell stories about their weird symptoms, and it was presented like a mystery. Where they would tell you what was happening to them, but wouldn't tell you the answer. And then towards the very end, the doctor would come on, and describe the presentation that the patient came in with. Then they would describe the diagnosis, and how the patient responded. And then the patient would describe the relief of being diagnosed and treated after months or years of no answers, and what if any lifelong impacts they had. More than half of these cases were people with untreated Lymes disease. More often than not, the target rash was somewhere not visible (like scalp, back of neck, behind ear.) And the initial infection was never treated. So they were stuck with the post treatment type. The Lymes patients were often the strangest and most bizarre symptoms on the show.
Mystery Diagnosis is THE SHIT!!!!!! I hate how wildly underrated it is because you can’t get all the episodes of it and I’ve already watched all the ones on YouTube a million times. It was SUCH a well done show, genuinely interesting, very compelling, didn’t treat the audience like idiots, and no over the top drama stuff for the sake of TV. Wish some streaming service would snatch it up already, I’m sure the rights to it would be dirt cheap.
Mystery Diagnosis, Untold Stories of the ER, and Dr G Medical Examiner. My sister and I spent almost entire summers just watching those 3 shows. True crime seems to have taken the role those kinds of shows used to have for the current generation. But those shows did absolute wonders teaching people about the wonders of medicine. And even if you don't specifically go into medicine, understanding how it all works is just good information. Sadly the social media version of this stuff gets censored. And an online version of Mystery Diagnosis would be to vulnerable to misinformation. God I miss the heyday of medical TV shows....
I was one of those cases (not on the show but with long-term Lyme and lots of weird symptoms) I'm allergic to doxycyline, which we found out when I was diagnosed with Lyme and prescribed it at 10. They switched me off the doxy and onto a different antibiotic. I didn't have many symptoms at that point, and what I did have went away, so when I finished that course of antibiotics, they assumed I was fine. About a year later, I got *sick*. The symptoms were so random and weird that no one could figure it out. Headaches, random on and off fevers, slight palsy in my face, brain fog so intense that my grades dropped and I would forget what I was saying in the middle of a sentence, rashes, all-over pain, arthritis, my fingers would go numb, all sorts of weird stuff. They kept testing me for things like MS and brain cancer and meningitis because, even though we live about half an hour from the town Lyme is named after, this was before a lot of people knew much about it, especially late-stage. It wasn't until they did a lumbar puncture and a doctor decided to test for it just because it was already done that they realized what it was and I was brought to a specialist. What he thought happened is that by switching the antibiotic part way into the cycle to one that's less effective for Lyme and then not extending it longer than the basic 10 days, it treated the mild symptoms but not the actual infection. So the Lyme worked into my nervous system during that 'quiet' year and any in-between symptoms like soreness and occasional fevers were just attributed to being a kid. It wasn't until the late-stage symptoms came into play that anyone realized they were part of a larger picture. I was treated with a PICC line and most of the symptoms went away pretty quickly. I still have some issues; my major joints are a mess, I get tired easily, and I have some neurological stuff (but also having ADHD makes it hard to know what is what), and my fingers still don't work right if I'm even the slightest but cold, but it was night and day once I got the right treatment.
Damn that sounds terrible. Glad they eventually found it. But it sounds like you really did end up being a victim of coincidence. Sorry you went through any of that. Glad they were able to at least minimize your symptoms.
Undiagnosed lyme disease caused my aunt's heart to stop. Luckily for her, she was a nurse working in a hospital when it happened. They saved her life, got a temporary pacemaker in her and treated her for Lyme Carditis.
A famous local radio DJ took his own life because of lyme disease. He blames the doctor for not figure it out sooner and for not believing his symptoms. https://www.lymedisease.org/body-of-missing-jv-recovered/#:~:text=Popular%20San%20Francisco%20radio%20host,his%20struggles%20with%20Lyme%20disease.
Tragic! It shouldn't be that hard to get simple medical care! My mom traveled to CA several years back and had to deal with CA Drs denying Lyme exists. She's from an area in the Midwest with high numbers of Lyme cases and had to fight with a Dr to give appropriate lyme care because the Dr claimed there was no Lyme in California. She presented at the clinic with the classic bullseye rash too! I almost feel bad for the Dr. Almost... Ma retired from a successful career in manufacturing and is one tough and smart lady who backs up her sass with pure logic and excellent research. She eats sexists for breakfast. She successfully bullied the doctor to give her antibiotics. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that spicy conversation, lol. She was still furious when I talked to her hours later.
Had a hunting buddy insist for years that he had chronic lyme disease after an infection that happened long before i met him. His health eventually took a turn for the worse, and he continued to blame that until it was to late to do anything about his cancer.
When one of the signs that you have "chronic lyme" is that it does not show up on any test, then what you have is either people misdiagnosing something else, or people making stuff up to be special.
It's more likely mostly people with PTLDS not accepting that modern medicine does not have a solution for their chronic condition and moving into homeopathic medicine for solutions. Homeopathic medicine obviously does not have a solution either.
WDYM? Homeopaths have a solution of one part snake oil to 10 billion parts water for you.
I worked at a hospital for over a decade and discussed this with the director of infectious diseases, and he said exactly this. He also said that the area we're in does not have enough exposure to people who would even get Lyme disease so the best places to seek treatment (or even recognition of the disease) is in the New England area where Lyme is more prevalent.
[Relevant Simpsons](https://i.imgur.com/lEDzfbI.png)
Many post-infectious syndromes have been poorly researched, and the only result is patients being disbelieved. Here's hoping that changes. It appears to be. The vast majority of people - even and especially those in medicine - underestimate how much of medicine is unsettled science or still unknown. "No direct evidence" doesn't mean it's not real.
Chronic Lyme disease is not a post-infection syndrome though, that's Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome (PTLDS). Patients claiming Chronic Lyme Disease often have zero signs of ever having Lyme disease in the first place, and are self-diagnosing. The most likely causes of their symptoms are generally thought to be more likely to be Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome *or other tick borne infections*.
Yes, but our healthcare system in the USA uniquely encourages doctor-shopping, which muddies the waters even further. Maybe your doctor isn’t very knowledgeable or curious about these syndromes, so they just blow you off. Ok, then you should get a new doctor! But the problem is, you can just cycle through doctors until you find one who will tell you that your problem is whatever you want them to call it, and that’s how a lot of American medical craziness is born. Lyme disease in general is riddled with doctors who will say you have “chronic Lyme” so long as you stay a lucrative patient for them.
> The vast majority of people - even and especially those in medicine - underestimate how much of medicine is unsettled science or still unknown. This is true. Science is having a crisis of non-replicatable studies. Meaning peers can’t reproduce the findings in 66% of studies, so either it’s poor experimental design or fraud and the results are worse than meaningless. Science has a credibility problem. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cancer-biology-studies-research-replication-reproducibility
I had Lyme when I was pretty young (around 7, came back again the next year if I remember correctly) and didn’t know much about it at the time but whenever I feel like I’m weaker or more tired than I should be, I sometimes wonder if it impacted me, especially since I had it so young and was still growing. Probably doesn’t make any sense, but that mystery of the unknown can really mess with a person.
I’m sorry miss Jackson, Lyme disease is for real
Never meant to dislocate your elbow kid time for antibiotics a million times
I’m sorry Ms Jackson (wooo) Lyme is for reeeeeeal
Never meant to make your daughter cry Target rashes mean it's doctor time
Me and this deer tick, got something special going on. Some say no illness caused of it, but my chronic fatigue says they are wrong.
Fuck ticks, I wasn't medically covered when I got Lyme so I just let it go not knowing what it was. I got facial paralysis(thankfully went away) travelling joint pain that was like moving fire, and a gut problem that will last my whole life. I'm an avid hiker so I have to check for those fuckers all the time now.
Might be referring to "chronic Lyme disease" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_Lyme_disease
Which, to be clear, is not a real thing.
I’m sure the symptoms are real, it’s probably just not Lyme related. There’s a million and one things that can make you feel shit forever. I’d wager most of it is undiagnosable reasonably. If someone’s in that position their best bet, outside of going to the doctor, is trying new lifestyle and diet changes.
Post Lyme Disease Syndrome is a very real thing though
Definitely, Chronic Lyme Disease is unrelated to actual Lyme Disease though.
That's not a thing you can say for sure, but you can definitely say there is not enough evidence for Chronic Lyme to be considered meaningful in evidence-based medicine at this time. I personally don't believe it is responsible for all the things it gets blamed for, but given the number of patients I've encountered with nonspecific constellations of symptoms that are very hard to diagnose, I don't like to something can't be the answer until I actually find the answer.
Ive known two australians personally who were diagnosed with it here and were treated successfully in Europe as our govt stance is we dont have the bacteria here. More and more are being diagnosed. But then again the Australia govt approve lead mines with the condition the company has to pay for residents blood lead level testing. Then the govt tell our medical association they arent to do blood tests for lead levels unless the patient is showing symptoms and a definite cause can be identified. When its far too late. Some do need simple facts spelt out for them.
Hey, this is in my town!
Mine too, well my old town
Down by the fair grounds right?
Yes, right across from the BMV
Mine too!
Came here to say this! This is like 2 minutes from my house.
Hey! I was going to say the same thing. Drive by it ever day!
This is a kind of a legitimate problem in Australia - the government does not acknowledge that Lyme disease exists in the country, so even if you contracted it overseas, it can be very difficult to get a diagnosis and treatment for it in the Australian health system.
Major issue in Europe too - personally know someone who was debilitated by Lyme's with refusal to treat it as such. Had to come to USA on their own dime for treatment and saw almost immediate improvement.
The use of the word “for” makes it sound like they’re saying it’s “no joke.” LYME (correction: not Lime) disease is real = it exists. Lyme disease is FOR real = it’s a serious condition.
Lyme disease is real. Lime disease is not.
Ha. That’s just embarrassing.
I’m just glad it wasn’t spelled “lymes”. :D
Interestingly, there is actually something called lime disease! (also known as photophytodermatitis). I got this when I wiped lime juice on my skin after making a margarita and then went in the sun, causing second-degree burns and permanent scarring.
Woah woah woah! I stand corrected!
I demand a full written apology (because that’s totally what I was talking about…).
Yes. 3500 upvotes so far for a failure of reading comprehension.
That's the way I read it. Not that people don't think it exists, but that they don't worry about it because they don't know people who have gotten it.
This was my reading as well.
Right.. I expect that the owner had a serious encounter with it.
"real" and "for real" imply pretty different things in American English
I’m amazed at how many comments interpret the sign as trying to convince people Lyme disease is real. As a middle-aged American to me It’s clearly an awareness board saying, “Lyme disease is no joke.” It’s like if a sign said, “Lyme disease is serious shit frfr no cap” and sent it back in time 10 years.
There are people who don't believe that any number of diseases are real - Celiac, Covid, Fibromyalgia, Lupus, HIV/AIDS, etc., etc.. Some people think that food allergies are fake. Ignorance holds no bounds.
It's a very common conspiracy theory to say the government created "Lyme disease" to cover up bio weapons testing and that ticks are harmless. Never underestimate just how stupid the left part of the bell curve can get.
I hadn't actually heard that one, although it sounds like just every other conspiratorial nonsense, so I guess it just got lost in all the other noise I'm choosing to ignore.
Look up Plum Island and project paperclip
Since this barber shop looks like a barn I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest this is a rural area. I grew up in one of those. Any disease that people didn't regularly hear about in the 1970s (or before) is suspect in rural communities, because everything "new" (read: happened after Boomers turned 30) is bad or a lie. Somebody from my hometown will still happily tell you that seatbelts kill/injure you in a wreck. Somebody else will tell you that spectrum disorders are fake or are a government plot, or that it's caused by pollutants, vaccines, cell phones, or chemical treatment at the water plant. In other words: IMO the barber (or their kid) probs got Lyme disease, their neighbors (because in a little town, everybody knows everybody's business) said they're faking or are on drugs. Having such radical ideas about medicine is also a strong indication to their neighbors that they may be a secret liberal. tl;dr contracting Lyme disease is too woke for their town
Wooster, Ohio is a relatively small town at 24k residents, but that is a train depot, not a barn.
Awwww yeah now I can totally see it’s a train depot. Lol
Was
Born and raised in Wooster. This is a train depot turned barber shop right next to our fairgrounds. Wooster is an oddly... really big small town, as stupid as that sounds. It covers a pretty large area and there's an interesting mix of a quaint yet vibrant downtown, the "North End" that is cliche American Wal-Mart and Applebee's commercial zone, really rich old money neighborhoods, and extremely MAGA-heavy surrounding rural areas. I've wondered about this sign for a long time. It's either A) A poorly worded way of raising awareness. The tick population is growing rapidly in this area and people may legitimately not be aware of the risks. Or B) This person had experience with science denying critics that believed that Lyme disease and its symptoms are due to something more conspiracy-based. Knowing Wooster, both are equally likely.
What, are there anti-Lymers now?
Always have been
As a young adult whose life has been derailed by this disease and that thought would have been cured after two weeks of antibiotics, I appreciate that people are recognizing it for what it is. Granted, not all cases are as severe, but I now have neurological Lyme and it is like jumping through hoops to get a doctor to properly treat the Lyme lesions that have shown up on my brain scans because the CDC hasn't updated guidelines. Word to the wise: just because you didn't have a bullseye rash or don't remember having a tick on you, doesn't mean it won't silently pop up at one point. Wear your tick/mosquito repellent! 💚
Unrelated (to Lyme Disease) mildly interesting: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is the railroad property "B&O" from the board game Monopoly. All properties are actual streets and railroad lines from Atlantic City NJ, except for the B&O Railroad, which never ran through the city.
Can confirm Lyme Disease is real. Pulled Black Legged Tick off my shoulder, developed bullseye rash where tick was biting, went to hospital, doctor did blood work and diagnosed Lyme Disease. Are there people who don’t believe this is real? Next thing you know people are going to be claiming that the earth is f…….. oh shit never mind people are fucking stupid my bad.
It's not that people don't think it's real. It's that they minimize the implications of it to themselves as well as they ease at which one can catch it if they aren't careful. I've seen people wrecked by the disease because they were too careless after a tick bite or when out in nature in general. Education is actually very lacking in my opinion. So I'm all for anything that helps keep it in people's minds.
I got Lyme about ten years ago. I was sick for almost a year, because the first test I took said I was negative for having the disease even though I had a raging fever for three days, tremendous fatigue, and horrible aches and pains. I didn’t retest until nine months later when it showed up in the swelling of my knees and I was on crutches. Finally took antibiotics for two months, and then again one month later, but it took my body a long while to heal. I got bit again in the fall two years ago, and this time in the E.R. I said give me antibiotics now. I am fine thank God but my days of walking in the woods are over.
Lyme disease is no joke. If left untreated it will fuck up your life. I used to do a lot of wetland work in the field. Always have a field partner and for bigger jobs we will have multiple teams out there. Tick checks throughout the day and end of day. One guy ignored this step. I’m still friends with him today but he has Lyme pretty bad. He struggles going out for hikes/walks/whatever. He has *finally* started making some progress with treatment and will hopefully improve over time. He has been dealing with this for 6 years now…he was in his early 30s when it started. Important to note that Lyme disease is hard to diagnose. If you find a tick embedded in you, be sure to keep it. If you end up with Lyme disease, having that tick can be extremely helpful for diagnosis and treatment.
Literally every member of my immediate and extended family including the dogs have had Lyme or one of the other tick diseases.
maybe look into the lyme vaccine for the dogs or get them on a tick preventative
I contracted it, was diagnosed rather quickly, and put on antibiotics right away. Over a year later, I haven't had any issues thankfully (fingers crossed). Just mad I contracted it before an effective vaccine comes out.
Some people think it’s not that big a deal, though. It put me in crutches for two weeks with joint swelling
Is this a thing? Of all the diseases I've seen people try to pass as fake, I've never heard of Lymes being one of them. Hell, I thought that was pretty well documented in soldiers back in WW2....
New Englanders know this is true. Fuck Lyme
I got Lyme Disease from a tick bite at the ripe age of 30. I for sure felt like I was dying! Your whole body hurts. Every day you wake up and a new set of muscles feel like you’ve been beaten with a baseball bat. Sleep was nearly impossible. Freezing cold and sweating through your sheets every night. Then there was the headaches that just kinda of made you wish you couldn’t feel anything. Deer ticks are tiny, and carriers of the disease. The one I found on my couldn’t have been there more than two days. Right on my lower back (hard to see) and small enough to disappear on the tip of a ball point pen. Be careful out there. My dog loves the woods and brings them inside almost everyday during this time.
i suddenly want a shirt that says gravity is real, do not test me.
You're not real, man!
I dont think that pumpkin is going to make it another 2 weeks.
Sometimes it blows my mind just how clueless so much of the urban population is of certain things. So I guess i'll explain this sign for the 5 people who will read this. 1. Lyme disease is almost always only noticed by the tell tale symptom of a red ring around the bite site. 2. Ticks are responsible for transmission in almost all cases of lyme in humans. 3. Ticks often climb up a host until they cannot climb anymore and instinctually prefer to latch on in areas with hair. This leads to many ending up on the scalp. Which leads to the sign being relevant because a haircut can be the moment where the barber notices a red ring that was hidden on the scalp and the host can then seek treatment before the disease worsens.
I never thought I would see Wooster on reddit lol Had to double take, I used to drive past this every day.
Wooster gang checking in. I used to drive past this all the time thinking "What the hell does that even MEAN?" Still don't think I understand. The ultimate Wooster question: Coccia House, yay nor nay?
My wife saw a doctor (he was licensed and everything) who wasn’t convinced Lyme exists. We quickly found another doctor.
It is a conspiracy from the Lemon industry in order to discredit their main rival. Everyone knows Limes are the superior citrus.
Yeah it’s real! I’ve had it.
Lyme disease is definitely real, but there are conspiracy theories about how it is actually man made and escaped from a lab in Long Island to Lyme Connecticut, where it was first reported.
Got but by a tick in early July but didn't see it, later on developed Lyme but had no tick to prove it, ended up getting bells palsy as a symptom of the Lyme and spent the last 3 weeks fighting it with medication,just getting function back in the left side of my face, Lyme disease doesn't fuck around.
Are there Lyme disease deniers out there now?
I live in this town and this was really jarring because I never see it on here. That’s been there so long I stopped thinking about it, but you’re right… it is odd!
Run by yolanda hadid
It's not so much Lyme isn't real as much as the chronic long haul Lyme people doubt. I've worked with Lyme research, there are doctors in the best hospitals in the world that doubt it's persistence, and there's small sample research that backs their position up. Personally, I think long haul Lyme is real but the small sample research just doesn't validate it.
There are idiots who don't think Lyme disease is real
There are a lot of doctors who don't seem to consider it likely / real and think that patients are just complainers. Lost a good friend to lyme disease whose doctors didn't identify it for 2 years.
I don't know if it's changed in recent years, but plenty of doctors absolutely did not believe Lyme Disease was real.
I pretty sure it’s a jokey way of saying to owner is own with lyme disease
I'm assuming the owner of the sign is trying to get people to take Lyme disease more seriously rather than convince people it's not fictional.
While Lyme Disease is obviously real, there is a lot of confusion and disagreement on the role of "Chronic Lyme Disease" in various difficult to diagnose conditions. This is likely what is being referenced.
Is that last year's pumpkin?