So scare of ticks in upstate NY

amother

Oldlace

Thu, Apr 27 2023, 9:39 pm

It really bothers me when people say - just do daily checks! Ticks instinctively go to hairy parts of the body which are extremely hard to check. They are much harder to check than lice.

amother

Vermilion

Thu, Apr 27 2023, 9:48 pm

kermit wrote:

I hope it's ok to ask -- after you found the tick that was on your son for 3 days and went for treatment, the treatment still didn't prevent the chronic lyme infection?

It took a year and half of rages and constant strep and big headaches before I read somewhere that undiagnosed lyme can make your immune system.weak and not be able to clear strep. I asked the pediatrician to test and lo and behold it was positive.
He isnt fine now yet. It's been a few years.
But to say I'm wary of ticks is understatement.
The problem is that in Brooklyn, the pediatricians don't even know to test for it. It isn't on their radar that most of their patients spend time in the country and it takes a long time (a year or more) for a pediatrician or rheumatologist to test and find the lyme.
My other son who also has lyme, he got sick within a week of his tick bites (and this was when I was wise and sprayed their clothes and shoes daily. But even the doctors upstate wouldn't treat it yet. Just said it was a virus (which is what early lyme looks like).
We are having issues with him too.

pecan

Thu, Apr 27 2023, 10:14 pm

It's important to know that the standard bloodtest for lyme is only 40 percent accurate. And that each tick has had a different journey, so while they may not have lyme, there are many confections that ticks carry that are difficult to diagnose and treat.

amother

Snapdragon

Thu, Apr 27 2023, 10:55 pm

Son had a tick on his neck 18 months ago. It was there for at least a week before we found it.
Classic lyme disease symptoms started showing about a week after the tick was removed. Bullseye rash, fatigue, moodiness. Was misdiagnosed for another two weeks until we started antibiotics. By that time, he had facial palsy on one side of his face. I contacted an expert on lyme who said that chance are high of him having long term lyme disease because he was only starting antibiotics a full month after the bite.
Bh, his symptoms went away after the first few days on antibiotics. We kept him on them for 6 weeks and we've never seen any symptoms since.

amother

Hyacinth

Thu, Apr 27 2023, 11:08 pm

Highstrung wrote:

Our family gets ticks often and one of my children was sick with Lyme Disease and it was easily treated with anti biotics. We train ourselves to do full body checks every day and hope for the best. But we don’t think about it or have anxiety over it. DH will be spraying something since the deer have been literally sleeping in my yard lately and we are noticing lots of ticks.
It’s important to remove the ticks and know how to.

Same exact experience

amother

Cyan

Thu, Apr 27 2023, 11:16 pm

Son never left NYC. (Possible got it in Bronx zoo)Got a bullseye rash. Never saw a tick bite.
Started antibiotics for three weeks right away and bh is fine 15 year later.
My other son got babesiosis. Never found the tick bite. Only found out because he donated blood at a blood drive and his blood was rejected and was told not to donate until it clears his system.

amother

Kiwi

Thu, Apr 27 2023, 11:36 pm

Java wrote:

My daughter ran around outside all last summer and I never found a tick once
And we have deer literally everywhere
Lyme disease is scary but uncommon. Just look out for the ticks and know how to deal with them and you'll be fine.

Just because you dont know of many people, doesnt make it uncommon. There are so so many people who have, you're just not informed of every case
Crying

amother

Kiwi

Thu, Apr 27 2023, 11:37 pm

amother Topaz wrote:

I have a child who tested positive for Lyme, BH caught relatively early. It was treated with antibiotics and subsequently tested negative.

As far as I know, Lyme never goes away. It just can be inactive.