Archive for the ‘Ticks’ Category

Dr. Neil Spector and Dr. Rawls on People’s Pharmacy Radio Program

Tune in to Dr. Rawls on The People’s Pharmacy

What You Need to Know About Lyme Disease
Dr. Rawls appears with Dr. Neil Spector on the nationally acclaimed radio program, The People’s Pharmacy, in an enlightening discussion on Lyme disease. Listen to the on-air radio broadcast at 7 a.m. (EDT) June 3, or the replay airing on June 4 at 3 p.m. (EDT). Listen to it live on your local radio station https://www.peoplespharmacy.com/find-a-radio-station/?utm_campaign=june+3+2017+rawlsmd+newsletter%3A+peoples+pharmacy+%28KN8fs6%29&utm_medium=email&_ke=YWNhc2htYW5AY2hhcnRlci5uZXQ%3D&utm_source=master+rawlsmd+segment+-+%5Blive+-+2-26-17%5D or access the recorded podcast available Monday.

 

Show 1081: What Do You Need to Know About Lyme Disease?

Lyme disease isn’t always easy to diagnose, and it can cause serious long-lasting damage. How can you be alert for this tick-borne infection?

Lyme diseaseThere’s been a big increase in mouse populations in many places over the past year. As a result, the number of ticks is booming, and you have a greater chance of being bitten when you go outside. Could a bite put you in danger from Lyme disease?

The Basics of Lyme Disease:

Lyme disease is the name given to a constellation of symptoms in reaction to infection with a tick-borne pathogen called Borrelia burgdorferi. The black-legged tick, Ixodes scapularis, is the usual culprit in transmitting this germ. Black-legged ticks feed on white-tailed deer and white-footed mice as well as humans, hence the name “deer tick.”

The infection can produce a rash (though it doesn’t always), along with fever, chills, joint pain, fatigue, headache and flu-like symptoms. If left untreated, Borrelia infection can cause more serious symptoms, including arthritis, pain in muscles and tendons, heart symptoms due to inflammation of the heart muscle and neurological symptoms from inflammation of nerve tissue. Some people also experience brain fog or problems with memory and concentration.

Lyme Disease Stories:

Both of our guests on today’s show are physicians, and both have suffered with Lyme disease that went undiagnosed and untreated for many years. In Dr. Spector’s case, the primary symptoms were heart rhythm abnormalities as the infection destroyed his heart. He eventually needed a heart transplant. (He wrote Gone in a Heartbeat.)

Dr. Rawls also had cardiac symptoms, in addition to fatigue and many other problems. When he finally figured out what was happening to him, he developed a multi-modal treatment plan incorporating herbs to modulate his immune reaction. He also wrote a book, Unlocking Lyme.

Diagnosing Lyme:

While a bulls-eye rash is usually thought of as the signal of Lyme disease, not all target-shaped rashes are the result of Lyme, and quite a few people with Lyme disease never notice a rash. Indeed, some are unaware of having been bitten by a tick.

Lyme disease diagnosis is not as straightforward as the diagnosis for certain other diseases. The laboratory tests need to be interpreted by a clinician who is experienced in the use of two-tiered testing.

(IGeneX uses a far more sensitive test.  Learn about it here: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/12/07/igenex-presentation/)

Taking Control:

When patients feel they need to take control for themselves, one resource is ILADS: The International Lyme and Associate Diseases Society. http://www.ilads.org

There is also more information on this website about other tick-borne infections. We discussed Lyme disease, Bartonellosis and alpha-gal allergy in Show 1003. Show 907 covered Bartonella infections in detail.

This Week’s Guests:

Neil Spector, MD, is an associate professor of medicine as well as pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke University Medical Center. He holds the Sandra Coates chair in breast cancer research. Dr. Spector co-directs the experimental therapeutics program for the Duke Cancer Institute and is a Komen Scholar. His book is Gone in a Heartbeat: A Physician’s Search for True Healing.

Bill Rawls, MD, is board certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology. He has written about Lyme disease, fibromyalgia and chronic immune system dysfunction. His books include Unlocking Lyme: Myths, Truths and Practical Solutions and Suffered Long Enough. His website is rawlsmd.com

Listen to the Podcast:

The podcast of this program will be available the Monday after the broadcast date. The show can be streamed online from this site and podcasts can be downloaded for free. (We’d be grateful for a review on iTunes or Google Play.) CDs may be purchased at any time after broadcast for $9.99.

Buy the CD

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Testing, Ticks

Dr. Martz on Fox31 Denver

http://kdvr.com/2017/06/02/lyme-and-tick-borne-diseases/ Go here for interview.

You may remember Dr. Martz from the documentary, Under Our Skin.  He was initially diagnosed with a death sentence of Lou Gehrig’s Disease but was found to have Lyme Disease.  Once he started treatment for Lyme, he improved and is alive to talk about it.

Come hear from several tick-borne disease experts from across the country speak at this free, half-day forum on June 3rd, 8:00 am – 12:30 pm at the American Mountaineering Center at 710 10th Street in Golden, CO. The 2nd Rocky Mountain Forum provides an opportunity to learn about the rapidly changing status of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, risk of exposure here and throughout the US, challenges of diagnosis, and prevention practices. Join us to increase your awareness of the multiple diseases that ticks may transmit that can affect the health and well-being of your family, patients, students and pets.

Experts in the field of ticks and tick-borne diseases from Colorado and beyond will be presenting. For details on speakers and agenda, please visit us at www.coloradoticks.org

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Ticks

IPM Institute Submits Tick-borne Disease Testimony Letter to Congress

FY2018 LHHS IPM Institute Testimony Tick-borne Disease IPM FINAL 060217

Integrated Pet Management (IPM) Institute https://ipminstitute.org submitted Tick-borne disease testimony to Congress today.  Wording is in link above.

ITM (Integrated Tick Management) seeks to manage tick habitats, incorporate pesticide sprays, and provide host-targeted strategies for deer and mice.

Excerpt below:

In 2015 alone, the estimated annual US direct and indirect medical costs, lost income and tax revenue from 380,690 new cases of Lyme disease at $10,817 per case, totaled more than $4.1 billion. Lyme disease can cause lifelong, debilitating effects in humans and animals, and in some cases, death from direct and indirect health impacts.
If additional tick-borne diseases including babesia, anaplasmosis, tularemia and Rocky Mountain spotted fever are considered, the number of cases and costs increases by 30 percent to an estimated $5.4 billion annually. Tick-borne diseases in humans are increasing in number of diseases, cases and geographic distribution in the US. Without a serious investment in cost-effective, long-term solutions to reduce tick populations, tick-borne diseases will continue to spread and costs on the population’s health and wallets will only increase.
Given these tremendous costs and impacts on human lives, resources for tick-borne disease prevention and research must be elevated to a level commensurate with other diseases. For example, in 2012 the NIH invested $112 million in hepatitis C with 1300 new cases annually, or $86,154 per new case. Similarly, there was an investment of $29 million compared to 5700 new cases of West Nile virus, or $5087 per new case. In comparison, only $25 million was invested vs. 312,000 new cases of Lyme disease, which is only $80 per new case. As Lyme disease cases rose in 2013, the NIH reduced funding to $20 million. The investments to reduce Hepatitis C and West Nile virus have been effective and provide evidence that commensurate funding would mitigate tick-borne disease.
Although tick-borne diseases have been identified as a top priority in the CDC strategic plan, investment in reducing tick populations has remained minimal. The total 2016 CDC funding line for Lyme disease was approximately $10.6 million dollars.
In particular, more resources for prevention are critically needed. All federal agency funding allocation from 2006-2010 for tick-borne disease studies totaled $368,103,780. Only 2% ($7,362,075) of that funding supported tick surveillance and environmental factors, and only 3% ($11,043,113) of that funding for tick-borne disease studies supported research on ticks.

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Ticks

Child Paralyzed after Tick Bite

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/05/19/child-temporarily-paralyzed-after-undetected-tick-bite.html  Published May 19,2017

Fox News

Please see link above for the frightening video of a young girl from the state of Oregon struggling to stand and use her arms after an undetected tick bite.  Thankfully, an astute doctor had seen this in a few other children her age and upon a closer look, found a tick in the girl’s hair and diagnosed her with tick paralysis.

The tick they discovered was a dog tick and while it normally is not a tick known to carry Lyme Disease, they are keeping a close eye on her.  She has recovered from the paralysis.

http://www.columbia-lyme.org/patients/tbd_paralysis.html  Tick paralysis is caused by a neurotoxin in the salivary glands predominantly of female, egg-laden ticks, not by an infectious agent like Lyme Disease (borrelia).  Over 40 tick species are known to transmit it; however, in North America the most common culprits are Dermacentor variabilis (American dog tick) and Dermacentor andersoni (Rocky Mountain wood tick), but bites from Amblyomma (Lone Star) and Ixodes (deer tick) ticks can also cause tick paralysis. In the United States, tick paralysis is most common in the Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountain states and southeastern part of the country. It occurs most frequently in the spring months, from April through June.

Lack of muscle control appears within 2-6 days of tick attachment followed by an ascending paralysis starting in the feet and legs. Numbness and tingling in the face and limbs, are frequently reported.

The apparent cure is simply removing the tick.  If the tick is not found and removed, paralysis can ascend to the trunk and affect respiratory muscles, which can be life-threatening.

Correct diagnosis is contingent upon awareness. Any case with loss of muscle control and ascending paralysis, especially in a patient who lives in a tick-endemic area should be considered suspicious for tick paralysis. Such patients should be searched immediately for ticks, particularly in body areas where the tick might not be immediately apparent, such as the scalp, hairline, ear canals or pubic region.

Tick paralysis is often confused with Guillain-Barré syndrome, and there are no tests for it, so be educated and educate others.

**Please note, often maps and predictions of infections based on tick type can be faulty.  All ticks have similar anatomy and can exchange body fluids with humans and other animals.  Even the CDC is stating that geographic ranges of ticks are expanding and the infections they carry are as well:  https://www.cdc.gov/cdcgrandrounds/archives/2017/March2017.htm

Please see this link for a wonderful tick identification chart.  It also shows them engorged and as you go over the tick it zooms in so you can really get a good look: http://www.tickencounter.org/tick_identification

Category:

Lyme, Ticks

Powassan and Bb Infection in Wisconsin and U.S. Tick Populations

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/vbz.2016.2082

Powassan/Deer Tick Virus and Borrelia Burgdorferi Infection in Wisconsin Tick Populations

Knox Konstance K., Thomm Angela M., Harrington Yvette A., Ketter Ellen, Patitucci Jacob M., and Carrigan Donald R. Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases. May 2017 Online Ahead of Print

ABSTRACT
Powassan/Deer Tick Virus (POWV/DTV) is an emerging cause of arboviral neuroinvasive disease in the upper Midwest. These studies describe the prevalence and geographic distribution of Wisconsin ticks carrying POWV/DTV as well as the high frequency of Ixodes scapularis ticks coinfected with both POWV/DTV and Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease. These findings suggest that concurrent transmission of POWV/DTV and B. Burgdorferi from coinfected ticks is likely to occur in humans.

Results (see link for maps and graphs of locations and results)

The distribution of I. scapularis and D. variabilis tick collection sites are categorized by geographic quadrant (QNW, QNE, QSW, & QSE) of the state (Fig. 1, Table 1). Nearly 80% of adult female I. scapularis ticks analyzed were collected from the northern half of the state (QNW and QNE) and accounted for 85% of POWV-positive ticks. While only 90 I. scapularis ticks were collected from the southern two quadrants, POWV-positive ticks were identified in both QSE and QSW. QNW I. scapularis ticks revealed the highest MLE of infection for both POWV and B. burgdorferi (4.67% and 23.42%, respectively). A separate analysis of I. scapularis collections from Harvest One endemic zone (Spooner/Hayward) QNW demonstrated a frequency of infection for both POWV (4.65%) and B. burgdorferi (27.91%) that is comparable to the total QNW (Fisher’s exact, p = 1.00 and p = 0.35, respectively). QSE contained the lowest MLE for POWV (1.53%), but B. burgdorferi-infected ticks were high with a MLE of 15.69%. Of the 295 D. variabilis ticks analyzed from both harvests, none (0%) had evidence of POWV infection; however, B. burgdorferi infection in D. variabilis ticks was seen in both QNW (3.1%) and QSW (2.86%), consistent with the high B. burgdorferi infection rate observed in I. scapularis ticks in these same quadrants.

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/vbz.2017.2110

Powassan Virus: An Emerging Arbovirus of Public Health Concern in North America

Hermance Meghan E. and Thangamani Saravanan. Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases. May 2017 Online Ahead of Print

ABSTRACT
Powassan virus (POWV, Flaviviridae) is the only North American member of the tick-borne encephalitis serogroup of flaviviruses. It is transmitted to small- and medium-sized mammals by Ixodes scapularis, Ixodes cookei, and several other Ixodes tick species. Humans become infected with POWV during spillover transmission from the natural transmission cycles. In humans, POWV is the causative agent of a severe neuroinvasive illness with 50% of survivors displaying long-term neurological sequelae. POWV was recognized as a human pathogen in 1958 when a young boy died of severe encephalitis in Powassan, Ontario, and POWV was isolated from the brain autopsy of this case. Two distinct genetic lineages of POWV are now recognized: POWV (lineage I) and deer tick virus (lineage II). Since the index case in 1958, over 100 human cases of POWV have been reported, with an apparent rise in disease incidence in the past 16 years. This recent increase in cases may represent a true emergence of POWV in regions where the tick vector species are prevalent, or it could represent an increase in POWV surveillance and diagnosis. In the past 5 years, both basic and applied research for POWV disease has intensified, including phylogenetic studies, field surveillance, case studies, and animal model development. This review provides an overview of POWV, including the epidemiology, transmission, clinical disease, and diagnosis of POWV infection. Recent research developments and future priorities with regard to the disease are emphasized.

Early timeline of POWV transmission
The duration of I. scapularis attachment required for successful transmission of DTV to a host was found to be as little as 15 min (Ebel and Kramer 2004). This finding was particularly striking because unlike other tick-borne pathogens (Borrelia burgdorferi, Babesia microti, and Anaplasma phagocytophilum), very little time between tick attachment and virus transmission is needed for POWV. The reactivation period required for some nonviral tick-borne pathogens provides a grace period of approximately 24 h, where a minimal risk of transmission occurs if humans remove the attached tick within this timeline; however, there is no such grace period for POWV due to its very short timeline of transmission. These differences underscore why the timeline of POWV transmission must be carefully considered when analyzing the early immunomodulatory events that occur at the feeding site of the tick.

**My comment**
The idea of a “grace period” is ludicrous. Ticks do not understand grace, trust me. For accurate information about transmission times of Lyme see:
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/04/14/transmission-time-for-lymemsids-infection/.  In short, it can happen in hours for sure – not requiring the oft repeated dogma of 24-48 or more hours.  Ticks often feed partially and then drop off.  These partially fed ticks have spirochetes in their saliva and can transmit much more quickly.

Every single tick bite should be taken seriously!

Category:

Lyme, research, Ticks, Transmission, Viruses