Archive for the ‘Ticks’ Category

First Case of Powassan in Connecticut in a Five Month-Old Baby

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/04/20/a-rare-tick-borne-disease-infected-a-baby-the-first-case-in-a-new-state/?utm_term=.ee921d023ecb by Lena H. Sun

Two weeks after pulling a tick off that had only been attached for 2-3 hours, a five month  old baby developed a fever, vomiting, facial twitching, and seizures.  A brain MRI showed inflammation deep in the brain.

Thankfully, the physician in charge studied in Upstate New York and was familiar with Powassan – a virus which can be fatal in up to 10 percent of cases.

For more on Powassan symptoms and treatment:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/02/21/powassan-virus/

Unfortunately, the article by Sun repeats the oft repeated transmission myth that a tick needs to be attached for days to transmit Lyme Disease.  While it’s true that viruses, such as Powassan can be spread in minutes, Lyme Disease has been spread in hours:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/04/14/transmission-time-for-lymemsids-infection/  A minimum time has never been established.  We don’t even know how long it takes other coinfections to be transmitted as well as nematodes, funguses, and other bacteria/protozoa.  Please remember a tick transmits many pathogens when it bites.

She also wrongly states that only the CDC can test for Powassan.  Right here in good old Wisconsin, Coppe Labs can test for it as well.  http://www.coppelabs.com/blog/powassan-virus-testing-available-in-march-2016/

A month after being sent home the baby couldn’t sit up anymore, but three months later his motor function returned to normal.

Sun also states that Powassan virus is rare.  I tend to agree with the physician who treated the baby that clinicians are probably only diagnosing the worst cases.  Folks that do not show symptoms, as in the case of many viruses, fly under the radar.  When bit by a tick; however, a pathogen invasion can trigger these normally benign viruses that are either lurking in the body or are transmitted at the same time as Lyme Disease and other pathogens.  I also agree with his statement that it is important to study Powassan in both ticks and people to determine just how prolific it really is.

 

 

 

Category:

Ticks, Viruses

Bartonella Vectors

  Published on Jul 14, 2016
Dr. Tom Mather and Dr. Ed Breitschwerdt on the growing risks of tick and flea exposure from “Healthy Body, Healthy Minds” with special thanks to ITV productions.

Bartonella is a formidable coinfection for many Lyme/MSIDS patients.  Symptoms are largely associated with where blood flow is compromised:

Skin rashes (stretch-mark-like), cysts, heartburn, abdominal pain, chest pain, gastritis, duodentis, mesenteric adenitis, psychological issues (anxiety, anger, suicidal thoughts, depression, irritability), pain in the soles of the feet, skin tags and red papules, endocarditis, acute encephalopathy, seizures, visual and auditory hallucinations, ocular floaters, fatigue, partial paralysis, laryngitis, severe confusion, difficulty swallowing, muscle weakness, and vasculitis that occurs anywhere in the body which can destroy blood vessels.  For a longer list of symptoms see: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2011/09/25/the-bartonella-checklist-copyrighted-2011-james-schaller-md-version-11/

Since it exists in very low amounts in human blood, blood tests are unreliable. It also has a long division time between 22-24 hours and requires a special growth environment. There is a Triple Draw through Galaxy which collects blood over 8 days to maximize the test, stating a 90% reduction in false negatives.

http://townsendletter.com/July2015/bartonellosis0715_3.html   Vectors include fleas and flea feces, biting flies such as sand flies and horn flies, the human body louse, mosquitoes, mites, and ticks; through bites and scratches of reservoir hosts; and potentially from needles and syringes in the drug addicted. Needle stick transmission to veterinarians has been reported. There is documentation that cats have received it through blood transfusion.

Bartonella has recently been found in winged adult deer keds in Finland:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24901607/?i=4&from=/23104416/related

Moose as reservoirs, deer keds as vectors in Norway:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23104416/?i=2&from=/26967131/related

Bartonella infection in southern Finnish moose was 90.6% (inside the deer ked zone), while northern Finnish moose was 55.9% (outside the deer ked zone). At least two species of bartonellae were identified.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26967131/

Just what are deer keds?  In the fly family (6 legs), they will chuck their wings as soon as they land on a host to suck blood more easily.  http://www.tickencounter.org/tick_notes/tick_notes_deer_keds

For more on Bartonella:

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/08/09/a-bartonella-story/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/01/03/bartonella-treatment/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/02/11/bartonellosis-needs-a-one-health-approach/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/03/06/doctor-with-bartonella/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/02/16/gardasil-vasculitis-msids/

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/04/24/gardasil-and-bartonella/

Category:

Bartonella, research, Ticks, Transmission

Transmission Time For Lyme/MSIDS Infection

An oft quoted dogma currently exists that states you can not get infected with Lyme or the various coinfections that typically come with it if you get the tick off within a window of  24-48 hours.

FALSE!

Transmission Time:
  • A study done on mice showed that at 24 hours every tick had transmitted borrelia to the mice; however, animal studies have proven that transmission can occur in under 16 hours and it occurs frequently in under 24 hours
  • No human studies have been done
  • No studies have determined the minimum time it takes for transmission  Source

A 2018 study by Eisen et al. found the risk of infection increases:

  • 10% after a tick has been attached for 48 hours
  • 50% after 63 – 67 hours
  • 70% by 72 hours
  • 90% for a complete feed
Partially fed ticks and spirochetes in the salivary glands

There’s also the issue of partially fed ticks transmitting more quickly:

Coinfections

It’s important to note that ticks typically carry more than just borrelia and transmission times have not been studied for many of these pathogens, let alone the combined effect:   https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/05/01/co-infection-of-ticks-the-rule-rather-than-the-exception/ and https://www.lymedisease.org/lyme-basics/co-infections/about-co-infections/

  • Several studies have shown that the Powassan virus can be transmitted within 15 minutes of tick attachment
  • Anaplasmosis and Borrelia miyamotoi can be transmitted within the first 24 hours of attachment, explains
  • Partially fed Amblyomma aureolatum (Gulf Coast ticks) have been shown to transmit Rickettsia rickettsii in as little as 10 minutes 

Transmission with more than one pathogen is associated with more severe illness and renders antibiotics less effective. Tick Borne Viruses can be transmitted in minutes.

In the following video microbiologist Holly Ahern explains how the 24-48 window myth has been inappropriately used and is keeping people from getting diagnosed and treated.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.wordpress.com/2016/12/07/igenex-presentation/? Bob Giguere of IGeneX states a case of a little girl who went outside to play about 8:30a.m. and came inside at 10:30 with an attached tick above her right eye. By 2 o’clock, she had developed the facial palsy. At the hospital she was told it couldn’t be Lyme as the tick hadn’t been attached long enough. They offered a neuro-consult…..

By 4pm she couldn’t walk or talk.

A Lyme literate doctor trained by ILADS met the family in his office on a Saturday, gave her an intramuscular injection of antibiotics and within 2 hours the palsy was gone. He continued her treatment for approximately 4 weeks.

One thing we can all agree upon is the probability of infection increases the longer the tick is attached, but to keep people from life-saving drugs that could keep them from a life-time of misery due transmission dogma is unjustifiable.

Category:

Lyme, research, Ticks, Transmission

Controlling the Lyme Disease Epidemic

https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/controlling-the-lyme-disease-epidemic/

Controlling the Lyme Disease Epidemic  4/7/2017

Approx. 17 Min (If you would rather read the transcript, go to link above, scroll down past “segment guest info” and click on “segment transcript.”

Audio interview with Dr. Felicia Keesing, Associate Professor of Biology at Bard College and Dr. John Aucott, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Director of the Lyme Disease Research Center at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Highlights:

*Many don’t get the rash.

*Dr. Keesing wrongly states that as long as you get the tick off within a couple days, you are OK.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2016/12/07/igenex-presentation/
Transmission Time:  Only one study done on Mice.  At 24 hours every tick had transmitted to the mice; however, in the video found in link above, microbiologist Holly Ahern explains how this information has been inappropriately used for the widely held belief that if you pull a tick off before 24 hours you won’t get infected.  No human studies have been done and animal studies have proven that transmission can occur in under 16 hours and it occurs frequently in under 24 hours.  

Bob Giguere of IGeneX states a case by Dr. Jones of a little girl who went outside to play about 8:30a.m. and came inside at 10:30 with an attached tick above her right eye.  By 2 o’clock, she had developed the facial palsy.  At the hospital she was told it couldn’t be Lyme as the tick hadn’t been attached long enough.  They offered a neuro-consult…..
By 4pm she couldn’t walk or talk.  Dr. Jones met the family in his office on a Saturday, gave her an intramuscular injection of antibiotics and within 2 hours the palsy was gone.  He continued her treatment for approximately 4 weeks.

*Lyme has been around for a long time.

While this is true and borrelia was found in Ice Man’s brain, http://www.ibtimes.com/otzi-iceman-dna-analyzed-5000-year-old-mummy-had-lyme-disease-heart-problems-418398, and even in a fossil,
http://www.nature.com/news/lyme-bacterium-s-possible-ancestor-found-in-ancient-tick-1.15378, we need to remember that Willy Burgdorfer was a member of the Armed Forces Epidemiology Board investigating insect vectored diseases in the time period leading up to the Lyme epidemic in the 70’s in Connecticut that is now invading every state and country in the world.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20394659  “Despite the intimate association of B. burgdorferi and I. scapularis, the population structure, evolutionary history, and historical biogeography of the pathogen are all contrary to its arthropod vector.”

*We’ve led to increases in Lyme Disease due to landscaping.

While this is somewhat true, I don’t think we can solely blame landscaping for an epidemic in the 70’s that has spread worldwide.  The million dollar question of course is why was there an epidemic in Connecticut in the first place? If you really want to go there, read Lab 257, Operation Paperclip, and The Belarus Secret for some ideas.

 

*Aucott feels Lyme is moving to places it’s never been before and doctors aren’t educated and prepared for it.

*Standard treatment is antibiotics but a small subset have persisting symptoms.

I want to know who came up with the numbers for those with persisting symptoms.  Every single person I work with is in that category and there’s a ton of us!  I don’t believe for one minute that only 10-20% of us have persisting symptoms.  Those of us in this group never made the stringent and faulty CDC reporting criteria to begin with!

*Blood tests don’t measure the organism but antibodies so we cannot remeasure the infection to see if it’s gone.

*Borrelia is a very tough organism that can’t be grown and cultured in a lab. 

 

Category:

Lyme, Ticks

A Canadian’s Lyme Story

https://www.cheknews.ca/new-strain-lyme-disease-vancouver-island-298425/

The link above tells the story of Nicole Bottles, a 24 year old in a wheelchair since age 15.  The Canadian finally traveled to the United States to get an accurate diagnosis of Lyme Disease but suffers with chronic pain.  This hasn’t stopped Bottles from playing the piano, beautifully.  Listen by clicking on link.

The news story also tells of the new strain of borrelia called Borrelia Genomospecies 2 found in Ixodes spinipalpis ticks collected from a Rabbit in Canada: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/03/15/novel-borrelia-found-in-canadian-rabbit/

Bottles is using her story to raise awareness – particularly since Lyme Disease, if treated early, is preventable.  She started this petition https://petitions.parl.gc.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-903 to the Canadian Parliament to rewrite the Lyme Disease Framework to include patients, advocates, and other stake holders.  She has also written this petition as well https://www.change.org/p/minister-philpott-ticking-lyme-bomb-in-canada-fix-canada-s-lyme-action-plan-now asking for the rejection of the current Lyme Framework.

 

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Ticks