Keeping ticks.

[Tengu]

Crannog dweller had a tick.

Which he removed and threw into the loch. (Nothing personal; everything ends up in the loch some time here...)

I chided him and said he ought to keep it in case he was diagnosed with Lymes. (As I do)

Talking this over with my Landlady, (retired GP) and she said no. Nothing in the standard Lymes treatment and diagnosis involves testing the tick itself.

What do you do?

 

[Toddy]

We crack the blighters, make sure they're dead, and we don't keep them.

We used to be told to keep them, dated, to prove that we had actually been bitten by a tick, but they're so commonplace now that GP's listen when folks say they've had a tick bite.....well round here they do.

 

[Great egret]

Lyme really has no priority (yet) with pharmaceuticals, and standard treatment is different in every country. Over here in the Netherlands the standard is a maximum of 4 weeks of doxycycline if you have been diagnosed with lyme and i have never heard of GP's keeping ticks. More recent studies in Germany and the USA urge to use different treatment in there guidelines. Right now i am trying to convince my GP to look at those guidelines instead of the standard 4 weeks of doxycycline. But he can't do anything because of legal and insurance liability issues.

 

[Suffolkrafter]

My experience with ticks in east anglia (which is a tick and Lyme disease hot spot) is that the doctors here are on the ball. You mention a tick bite and dodgy rash and they whip out the antibiotics without hesitating. I speak from experience. I don't believe there is reason to keep the ticks though.

 

[Jared]

Don't think so, they just test for the presence of the antibodies in your blood.

Over the past 6 months, a Welsh musician, Ren, has been gaining a massive following, because he spent several years struggling bed ridden and had multiple misdiagnosis for various things and put on treatments that did more harm than good. Until someone tested for lyme. He's now in Canada on some specialist treatment programme.

He's made songs about his experience. The first was Hi Ren, that really got him noticed. It is a powerful performance, and everyone should watch.

Hi Ren

Sick Boi

 

[slowworm]

I'm a little disappointed with the post as I half expected a question on keeping one as a pet and expecting a question on how to extract ones blood and make a fake skin tick feeding station.

To answer the question asked, I did buy one of those kits you can test a tick yourself but only used it if a tick had taken hold for more than a day. I don't bother now as we get so many so get used to checking ourselves over and removing quickly.

 

[Tony]

We just get them off and squash them, I remember the first one, completely engorged, that was a revelation.

 

[Ystranc]

Crannog dweller had a tick.

Which he removed and threw into the loch. (Nothing personal; everything ends up in the loch some time here...)

I chided him and said he ought to keep it in case he was diagnosed with Lymes. (As I do)

Talking this over with my Landlady, (retired GP) and she said no. Nothing in the standard Lymes treatment and diagnosis involves testing the tick itself.

What do you do?

Not every retired GP is up on all the facts. Surprisingly my GP was unaware if the dangers posed by tick bites and it caused quite a commotion when he had to use his Google-fu to find out more. I ended up on some of the most massive doses of psychosis inducing antibiotics that can be given by the NHS in tablet form.
Ticks can be sent for testing and you can also request the results however the testing process takes far too long to be of any practical use in diagnosis of Lyme disease.

Tick Surveillance Scheme (report a tick)

UKHSA’s Tick Surveillance Scheme helps to map and monitor tick distribution and associated risk of exposure to ticks in the UK.

www.gov.uk

 

[Paul_B]

I thought Lymes disease is a little like Weils disease in that by the time the test results come in positive you could be very ill. If so then any tick testing is purely research after the event. In that case it possibly depends on whether there's a research project going on at your doctor's over Lymes disease at the time.

 

[Ystranc]

I thought Lymes disease is a little like Weils disease in that by the time the test results come in positive you could be very ill. If so then any tick testing is purely research after the event. In that case it possibly depends on whether there's a research project going on at your doctor's over Lymes disease at the time.

The research and reporting is nothing to do with your GP, it is done through the HSA and you’re absolutely right in saying that you can already be extremely ill before the results are back from screening the tick that bit you… however since it takes some people years to get a definitive diagnosis of Lyme disease the results can still be useful in supporting the case for that diagnosis. The ELISA antibody tests for Lyme disease and TBE tests are notoriously unreliable.

 

[Jared]

Phase II trials of an oral pill that kills ticks if they bite.

A Pill That Kills Ticks Is a Promising New Weapon Against Lyme Disease

Your pets can already eat a chewable tablet for tick prevention. Now, a pill that paralyzes and kills ticks has shown positive results in a small human trial.

www.wired.com

 

[Toddy]

Now that would be such a good thing

 

[Chris]

It says it "has shown positive results in a small human trial" but I am 6'3", hopefully they make one for us big humans as well.

 

[oldtimer]

I had a similar thought. Madame is 4'11" so she'd be all right. However, I reckon that any tick that bites her would die of poisoning .