Author Topic: Lymes Disease  (Read 2251 times)

gunwharfman

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Lymes Disease
« on: 10:45:34, 26/09/17 »
I know that we live in a world of scare stories, real or imagined, but until I met a young man in our area who had contracted this disease I never took it seriously. Our local paper has highlighted that I live in a possible high risk area, Hamshire. I decided to take it seriously especially after noticing a tick bloated with blood on my body last year when I was in France. Until then I wore tended to wear shorts on hot days. This little blighter must have crawled up my leg and decided to have a feed from my groin. I lay in my tent for some time looking at the thing, thinking what should I do? In the end I used my little tweezers to get rid of it and then for weeks worried if any symptoms would appear. I have no idea whether this chappie was a tick that carried Lymes Disease but it was such a relief to know that I would not be affected.

No issues arose so I just got on with my life. I no longer wear shorts and luckily my hiking trousers are tightish around my ankles anyway. I also do not walk with a gap between the bottom of my baselayer and top of my underwear and trousers. Before I decided on these slight clothing changes I already practiced a daily evening or morning scrape with a nit comb, just in case!

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiTkcyYxMLWAhUDKVAKHcBfCS8QqUMIOTAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2017%2Fsep%2F25%2Fparts-of-uk-identified-as-high-risk-areas-for-lyme-disease&usg=AFQjCNFKidk6ADc3_JjqrMD6SllbB_-Sgw

I was reading a newspaper article this morning about the country singer Shania Twain, who also contracted this disease and years later is still not free from it.

I now work from the principle its best to be safe than sorry.

ninthace

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Re: Lymes Disease
« Reply #1 on: 11:07:39, 26/09/17 »
Mrs Ninthace and I often walk on Exmoor which is a high risk area. We always wear long trousers and if we have been brushing against vegetation we give each other a quick "tick check" as we clear the area, brushing off anything we have picked up. Earlier this year I picked up half a dozen of the blighters on my trousers in a 20 yard stretch of heather on Dunkery Beacon.
I would urge everyone to "think tick" and check themselves as they go along. It only takes an instant and saves having to pick them off after they have attached and the subsequent worry.
Solvitur Ambulando

chip

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Re: Lymes Disease
« Reply #2 on: 11:12:16, 26/09/17 »
I have recently developed an unhealthy fear of ticks and lymes disease.


I read recently that matt dawson had to have heart surgery due to lymes disease after picking up a tick in a London park.

Percy

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Re: Lymes Disease
« Reply #3 on: 11:16:50, 26/09/17 »
Yes, it can be very serious indeed. Get some tick tweezers so you can remove them as safely as possible. If you do get one keep an eye on the area for rashes (a bullseye pattern is typical) and any flu-like symptoms. If you get any of these straight to your GP and don't leave without a prescription for antibiotics. I'm a biologist and had a peripheral role in the project to sequence the genome of the bacteria responsible - it's a nasty [censored].

kinkyboots

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Re: Lymes Disease
« Reply #4 on: 11:29:22, 26/09/17 »
It's definitely worth carrying the right tool for the job in your first aid kit.

http://www.otom.com/en/tick-twister/20-why-use-tick-twister

£3.50 per pack of 2 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OTom-Tick-Twister-Remover-Pack-Of-2-/401156628667

« Last Edit: 11:59:21, 26/09/17 by kinkyboots »

jimbob

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Re: Lymes Disease
« Reply #5 on: 13:18:40, 26/09/17 »
I think I have mentioned before that I am paranoid about ticks, to the extent that I try to wear gaiters at all times even if in shorts. A friend got Lymes and it has really totally damaged him, yep serious heart condition also.  I always make sure I carry tick tweezers. In fact I have some permanently both inside my bag and also a spare set in my bum bag.

Strange thing is I think that the carrying of such things actually acts as a deter rant because I have never seen a tick s and certainly not in the lat 5years since I took up longer distance walking.

Scientifically there is no chemical spray , oil or cream that prevents/deters ticks (believe me I have scoured the learned papers published on the net to find that out) though there is some circumstantial evidence that DEET, Permethrin and a few essential oils may do the trick. To me the risk is too great so I maintain a high level of paranoia in the hope that I exude a "ticks beware aura", without any longer resorting to every wild www idea that I read. I tend to be ultra careful when walking through long grass, bracken, heather. and gradually, sometimes, get to the end of a day without consciously having thought of the little blighters.
Too little, too late, too bad......

Annejacko

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Re: Lymes Disease
« Reply #6 on: 16:01:21, 26/09/17 »
Lots of good info here

http://www.lymediseaseaction.org.uk/

I now don't wear a wrist watch when I'm hiking or camping (I have a clip on carabiner style one instead) as the couple of times I've been ticked it's been under my watch strap.

Although it doesn't look cool tucking your trousers into your socks also helps stop them crawling up your legs.

I always have a check round now after time outdoors and nag my kids to do the same.
Enjoy every sandwich

Jac

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Re: Lymes Disease
« Reply #7 on: 16:24:35, 26/09/17 »
An interesting item/phone in on women's hour today about ME where several sufferers had been found, belatedly, to be infected with Lymes Disease
So many paths yet to walk, so little time left

BuzyG

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Re: Lymes Disease
« Reply #8 on: 18:09:19, 26/09/17 »
Had a few tick bites in the past few years.  Now try to stay clear of ferns and such, but that's not always practical.  So it's long trousers and gaiters pretty much every walk these days.  My son's ex had limes, diagnosed quite early.  Still a real battle to clear it up.  Nasty disease.

Owen

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Re: Lymes Disease
« Reply #9 on: 21:11:35, 26/09/17 »
There was a piece on Lymes disease on the Jereme Vine show a couple of weeks ago, including a call form a chap who had lived in Switzerland with his girlfriend. They went away walking one weekend, on the Monday he went on a business trip for the week, so wasn't at home. On Tuesday or Wednesday morning his girlfriend didn't turn up for work. Someone from her office rang her, she answered but was incoherent so someone went around to her place. They found her unconscious and called an ambulance, she was taken to the local hospital but quickly airlifted to Burn where she was put on life support. She was declared brain dead the next day.


She died of Tick borne encephalitis. She hadn't said anything about being bitten or anything like that so her boyfriend assumed she didn't even realize she'd picked up a tick.

Rather be walking

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Re: Lymes Disease
« Reply #10 on: 12:15:54, 27/09/17 »
Quote
So it's long trousers and gaiters pretty much every walk these days

I always do or trousers in socks :).
I found two ticks on my wife's rucksack at Black Sail last Sept while walking the C2C.
Anywhere there's sheep and deer.

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Lyme-disease/Pages/Introduction.aspx
““The hardest part was coming to terms with the constant dispiriting discovery that there is always more hill.”
― Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods

fernman

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Re: Lymes Disease
« Reply #11 on: 18:47:30, 30/09/17 »
The following is really worrying!

I did a multiple-day walk with 3 nights wild camping in Snowdonia between Thursday 14 and Sunday 18 September, after which I spent 3 nights in a big tent on a Shropshire campsite before I returned home on Wednesday 20th.

As I've written before in this forum, I often pick up ticks, but this time I only had one which rather incongruously attached itself to the knuckle of my little finger. I am sure there were no others, because I am so used to looking for them (even to the extent of using a mirror... :o )

This afternoon, Saturday 30th, I was working on my laptop when I became aware of an itching on the front of my ankle, and I rolled down my sock to find a tick on me. Its position made it difficult to see properly, but I succeeded in removing it with my O'Tom Tick Twister and then rubbed in some Germolene. I checked the culprit under a x10 hand lens before dropping it in some very hot water.

Now where the hell did it come from? I live in the outer suburbs of NW London where they are absent as far as I'm aware, I don't have any pets and I haven't been in any grassy or wooded areas since my my return. I've had six or seven showers since coming home, and all the clothing I wore has been laundered. All I can think is that the socks I wore today could have been an unworn pair I returned home with, and somehow the creature found its way into them sometime during my trip.

eddycreative

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Re: Lymes Disease
« Reply #12 on: 12:24:54, 06/10/17 »
Lyme is no joke! Be sure to look out for the traditional bulls eye rash.

 

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