Tick Bite on Groin is No Laughing Matter

January 25, 2021

https://www.lymedisease.org/tick-bite-on-groin-australia/

TOUCHED BY LYME: Tick bite on groin is no laughing matter

Jan. 18, 2021

By Dorothy Kupcha Leland

ash williams

I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here is an Australian reality TV show, similar to Survivor.

A group of celebrities is deposited at a wilderness campsite with few creature comforts–and must compete with each other in various challenges, until there is a final winner.

In this week’s episode, comedian Ash Williams found himself in a seriously unfunny situation—with an attached tick near his groin.

Here’s how the Lyme Disease Association of Australia described it on Facebook:

Last night’s episode of the reality TV show “I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!” showed comedian Ash Williams finding a tick “on his tackle.” Amid general hilarity, a medic was called to remove the tick. The potential seriousness of the whole incident was played down in favour of witty quips. In short, the tick bite was treated as a joke.

In its article on the incident, the Daily Mail reassures its readers by referring to part of the Australian government’s advice on tick bite on the Health Direct website, noting only that “in Australia a tick bite is usually harmless, but sometimes it can cause an allergic reaction or serious illness.”

But there’s far more on that site: “…Tick bites can sometimes cause other illnesses such as rickettsia infections, Queensland tick typhus, Flinders Island spotted fever and possibly Lyme disease or Lyme disease-like conditions. However, whether these are linked to a tick-borne illness in Australia is still being investigated.” 

The site then goes on to advise us all to “See your doctor if you have had a tick bite and you experience any of these symptoms for more than a week:

  • a new rash
  • pain in your joints
  • tiredness
  • flu-like symptoms
  • runny nose or sneezing
  • cough or sore throat
  • fever and chills
  • headache
  • body aches
  • vomiting and diarrhea (more common in children).

Reportedly, this season of the popular TV show was filmed in November and December of 2020, and started airing this month. No word on whether Mr. Williams has exhibited any symptoms during that time. For his sake, I hope that the medic did a good job of getting that tick out promptly, before it had time to make a life-changing deposit in this guy’s body.

That’s a punch line nobody wants to hear.

Click here to see a video of the program. The drama/hilarity regarding the tick is in the first minute.

TOUCHED BY LYME is written by Dorothy Kupcha Leland, LymeDisease.org’s Vice-president and Director of Communications. She is co-author of When Your Child Has Lyme Disease: A Parent’s Survival Guide. Contact her at dleland@lymedisease.org.

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**Comment**

This article brings up an intriguing idea: is the location of tick bite relevant?

While it’s widely known borrelia can go systemic fairly quickly after tick bite, I’ve always wondered if the location of the bite itself means anything?  To my knowledge no work has been done in this area.  In my experience, those getting bitten on the head tend to show neurological (cognitive, psychiatric, etc) issues quickly.  

So many unknowns that would help the practical understanding of tick-borne illness regarding treatment(s) worth studying – yet the hot topic is always ‘climate change’.
 

Category:

Activism, Ticks

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CDC Stops Reporting COVID Injection Side Effects & 12,400 People in Israel Test Positive After Shot

January 22, 2021

https://healthimpactnews.com/2021/cdc-stops-reporting-on-experimental-covid-mrna-injection-side-effects/

CDC Stops Reporting on Experimental COVID mRNA Injection Side Effects

by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has just released its weekly Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), and for the second week in a row, there is no new data on adverse reactions to the two FDA emergency use authorization (EUA) COVID mRNA injections.

The last report on the experimental injections and the adverse side effects was from January 6, 2021, and only covered the first week of injections with the experimental Pfizer COVID mRNA shots, with an emphasis on allergic reactions and anaphylaxis shock.

The report on January 6th did not cover the Moderna injections which have also received emergency use authorization by the FDA.

Injuries and deaths due to the experimental COVID injections are being reported in the U.S. and around the world, so why is the CDC not examining these adverse side effects and reporting on them?

The lack of reporting certainly cannot be blamed on the change in administrations, because an MMWR report was published this week …..

As of last week, fifty-five people in the United States have died after receiving a COVID-19 injection, 96 life-threatening events have been reported, as well as 24 permanent disabilities, 225 hospitalizations, and 1,388 emergency room visits.

(See link for article)

**Please also see** 

___________________________

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/thousands-of-israelis-tested-positive-for-coronavirus-after-first-vaccine-shot

12,400 People in Israel Tested Positive for Coronavirus AFTER Being Injected with the Experimental Pfizer COVID Shot

Jan. 20, 2021

A military nurse prepares to administers the coronavirus vaccine in Tel Aviv. Image source.

by Ido Efrati and Ronny Linder
Haaretz.com

Excerpts:

Over 12,400 Israeli residents have tested positive for COVID-19 after being vaccinated, among them 69 people who had already gotten the second dose, which began to be administered early last week, the Health Ministry reported.

This amounts to 6.6 percent of the 189,000 vaccinated people who took coronavirus tests after being vaccinated.

Some 2.15 million people have been vaccinated in Israel over the past month, of whom 300,000 have already gotten a second dose.

Read the full article at Haaretz.com.

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**Comment*

For more:  

Many falsely believe decisions are being made with raw data.  Clinical trials are ongoing, so if you decide to submit to the experimental device (it’s not a vaccine) you are taking part in an experimental trial that has been fast-tracked, bypassing animal safety studies. There is little recourse if you are injured.

Please note the serious limitations of the ongoing vaccine trials:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/11/19/covidgate-the-corruption-of-clinical-trials-part-1/

  1. No one knows length of protection of the vaccine
  2. No one knows how this affects children as schools prepare to mandate the vaccine to obtain an education
  3. No one knows the synergistic effects of this vaccine with others
  4. No one knows the long-term effects of this vaccine
  5. The Pfizer clinical data is explained here: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/11/14/pfizer-covid-vaccine-frenzy-high-volume-of-adverse-reactions-expected/
  6. The Moderna trial is also being tested on those with a low risk of COVID
  7. ZERO trials were designed to detect a reduction in any serious outcomes (hospital admission, intensive care, or death)
  8. ZERO trials are designed to determine if they interrupt viral transmission
  9. Moderna’s trial lacks adequate statistical power to assess severe COVID-19 outcomes.  The reason?  Hospital admissions and deaths are too uncommon in the study population of 30,000 people
On top of all of this, experts are warning it can cause sterilization.

Category:

Activism, vaccines, Viruses

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Is It Lyme, Fibromyalgia, Or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

https://www.treatlyme.net/guide/lyme-fibromyalgia-chronic-fatigue-syndrome

Disease_Names_feature

The Name Matters:
Lyme, Fibromyalgia, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Many people with Lyme disease are incorrectly diagnosed as having fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome. In my Seattle practice, before I became a Lyme disease physician, my main focus was treating fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. In 2004 one of my patients asked for Lyme disease testing. Her pcr test for Lyme came back positive. This got me thinking that others in my practice could have Lyme disease too. So I tested everyone in my practice for Lyme that had a diagnosis of fibromyalgia and/or chronic fatigue syndrome. I discovered that 30 percent of my patients actually had Lyme disease causing their problems.  (See link for video and article)

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For more:  

According to a survey of over 4,000 patients with Lyme disease,

“roughly 20% of those with chronic Lyme disease were initially misdiagnosed with a neurologic disease including MS, ALS, Parkinson’s and multiple systems atrophy.”

Category:

Lyme

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Lyme Found in Asian Long-horned Ticks Again

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/2/20-1552_article

Disclaimer: Early release articles are not considered as final versions. Any changes will be reflected in the online version in the month the article is officially released.

Volume 27, Number 2—February 2021

Borrelia burgdorferi Sensu Stricto DNA in Field-Collected Haemaphysalis longicornis Ticks, Pennsylvania, United States

Keith J. PriceComments to Author , Christine B. Graham, Bryn J. Witmier, Holly A. Chapman, Brooke L. Coder, Christian N. Boyer, Erik Foster, Sarah E. Maes, Ying Bai, Rebecca J. Eisen, and Andrew D. Kyle
Author affiliations: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA (K.J. Price, B.J. Witmier, H.A. Chapman, B.L. Coder, C.N. Boyer, A.D. Kyle); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA (C.B. Graham, E. Foster, S.E. Maes, Y. Bai, R.J. Eisen)

Abstract

We collected questing Haemaphysalis longicornis ticks from southeastern counties of Pennsylvania, USA. Of 263 ticks tested by PCR for pathogens, 1 adult female was positive for Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, yielding a 0.4% infection rate. Continued monitoring of this invasive tick is essential to determine its public health role.

Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto is the causative agent of Lyme disease, the most commonly reported vectorborne disease in North America (1). In Pennsylvania, which is first in the United States in the number of reported Lyme disease cases, the spirochete has been identified in nearly 50% of adult Ixodes scapularis ticks, the primary vector (2). In 2018, Pennsylvania initiated a statewide active surveillance program to monitor tick distribution and density, by county, and tickborne pathogen prevalence. Although focused primarily on collecting and testing Ixodes scapularis ticks, initial surveillance efforts recovered, among other species, Haemaphysalis longicornis (Asian longhorned tick), an exotic species recently detected in North America (3), providing quantitative records of their presence in Pennsylvania public lands (4).

Since its US discovery in New Jersey during 2017, the number of states that have detected H. longicornis ticks has increased rapidly. In its native range, H. longicornis ticks have been found to carry a variety of pathogens endemic to Pennsylvania, including B. burgdorferi (5). However, because the ecologic characteristics and the pathogen diversity and prevalence of H. longicornis ticks in the United States are understudied, potential epidemiologic risks there remain unknown. We report surveillance program data on the presence of pathogen-infected H. longicornis in public areas in Pennsylvania.

The Study

We performed surveillance activities weekly in 38 Pennsylvania counties during May 1–September 6, 2019, capturing peak nymphal I. scapularis ticks, in addition to adult and nymphal H. longicornis tick densities (6). Sampling sites, primarily high-use public areas in deciduous forests, were selected for high risk of recreational and occupational tick encounters and suitable I. scapularis and reported H. longicornis tick habitat (6).

Collection processes were standardized to minimize spatial and temporal bias. We collected questing ticks by dragging a 1 m2 white felt cloth over vegetation and leaf litter for 100–600 m. We examined cloths every 10 m and transferred recovered ticks into vials containing 80% ethanol, which we shipped to a central laboratory where they were stored at −80°C until being identified using morphological keys.

We tested the majority (84%) of collected H. longicornis nymphs and adults for pathogens, then retained the rest as voucher specimens. We prepared DNA extracts from individual H. longicornis tick homogenates on the KingFisher Flex Purification System with the MagMAX CORE Nucleic Acid Purification Kit (ThermoFisher Scientific, External Link). We tested each extract for B. burgdorferi sensu stricto, B. mayonii, B. miyamotoi, and Babesia microti using probe-based real-time PCR assays comprising multiple targets for each pathogen (Table). We amplified a segment of the Borrelia dipeptidyl aminopeptidase (PepX) gene using seminested PCR and sequenced it to confirm B. burgdorferi sensu stricto–positive specimens. We followed real-time PCR and PepX amplification protocols published elsewhere (9). We amplified and sequenced a 667-nt fragment of the cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene using primers LCO1490 and HCO2198 (11) to confirm the tick species of positive specimens. The PCR mixture (25 µL) contained forward and reverse primers at a final concentration of 0.4 µmol and 5 µL of DNA template. Thermocycling conditions followed protocols published elsewhere (11). COI and PepX amplicons were sequenced as described elsewhere (9).

Results
County map of Pennsylvania, USA, and the southeastern region (inset) showing locations of active tick surveillance, where Haemaphysalis longicornis ticks were recovered, and where Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto–positive H. longicornis ticks were found, May 1–September 6, 2019. Pennsylvania county map shows 38 counties sampled weekly and an additional 14 counties sampled opportunistically that yielded low tick recovery (Ixodes scapularis ticks only).

 

Figure. County map of Pennsylvania, USA, and the southeastern region (inset) showing locations of active tick surveillance, where Haemaphysalis longicornis ticks were recovered, and where Borrelia burgdorferisensu…

A total of 668 H. longicornis ticks (356 larvae, 166 nymphs, 146 adults) were collected from 4 counties in southeastern Pennsylvania (Figure). During the same period, 265 I. scapularis ticks (174 larvae, 78 nymphs, 13 adults) were collected from the same 4 counties. Of the subset of H. longicornis ticks tested by using real-time PCR (n = 263), 1 (0.4%) adult female collected from a county park in Bucks County on June 14, 2019 was positive for B. burgdorferi sensu stricto. A 570-nt segment of the PepX gene from this specimen was identical to B. burgdorferi sensu stricto reference sequences (GenBank accession nos. CP002312.1:657467–658036). The COI gene fragment from this tick showed 99.8% identity to an H. longicornis tick sequence in the GenBank database (accession no. JQ737090). No H. longicornis ticks were positive for B. miyamotoi, B. mayonii, or B. microti.

Conclusions

We document detection of the Lyme disease spirochete, B. burgdorferi sensu stricto, in invasive H. longicornis ticks. The overall infection rate of 0.4% was low. In comparison, B. burgdorferi sensu lato infection rates in I. scapularis ticks collected during the same surveillance period and in the same counties ranged from 16.7% to 57.1% (M.P. Price et al., unpub. data). This finding is consistent with recent findings that H. longicornis ticks are relatively averse to feeding on white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus), the primary reservoir of B. burgdorferi sensu stricto (12). Our findings support laboratory studies demonstrating that H. longicornis ticks can acquire B. burgdorferi sensu stricto while feeding on experimentally infected mice; however, those studies suggested that H. longicornis ticks are unlikely to contribute to transmission of B. burgdorferi sensu stricto because infection is lost during molting (13). However, refeeding and transmission of Lyme spirochetes by partially-fed ixodid ticks has been documented (14).

Based on microscopy, we estimated that ≈10% of the host-seeking H. longicornis ticks that we recovered were partially fed, suggesting the possibility that transmission could occur before the ticks molt. Of note, however, although we detected B. burgdorferi sensu stricto DNA in the tick, we have no evidence to suggest the spirochetes were viable. Unique ecologic traits of H. longicornis ticks (e.g., cold hardiness, parthenogenetic reproduction, host generality), which may enable the species’ rapid establishment and high density (4), could confound efforts to determine the extent to which the tick may be involved in maintenance of B. burgdorferi sensu stricto in nature.

Continued monitoring to identify infested areas is essential, especially in densely populated regions (e.g., southeastern Pennsylvania). Despite limited documentation of H. longicornis ticks biting humans in the United States (15), findings presented here support continued use of personal protective measures. H. longicornis ticks are a vector of human pathogens in its native range; further investigation is needed to determine its potential public health significance in the United States.

Dr. Price is a microbiologist at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Vector Management, Harrisburg, PA. His research interests include vector ecology and vector-borne disease epidemiology.

Acknowledgments

We thank field personnel for collection efforts, Rebecca Eckert for helpful comments, and Pennsylvania Department of Health, especially Leah Lind, for cooperation and support.

Funding for this study was provided, in part, by an epidemiology subgrant (#4100082142) from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

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**Comment**

While the article is quick to point out the low borrelia infection rate, this is the tick that clones itself multiplying like wild-fire and spreading geographically.  I think we should be concerned.  A study last year found the following:

At least 30 human pathogens were associated with H longicornis, including seven species of spotted fever group rickettsiae, seven species in the family of Anaplasmataceae, four genospecies in the complex Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, two Babesia species, six species of virus, and Francisella, Bartonella, Coxiella, and Toxoplasma, which were mainly reported in eastern Asia. The predictive modelling revealed that H longicornis might affect more extensive regions, including Europe, South America, and Africa, where the tick has never been recorded before.  https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(20)30145-5/fulltext

For more:  

The very important issue of interrupted/partial feeding in ticks is not very well understood but would explain quicker transmission times:

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/07/05/interrupted-blood-feeding-in-ticks-causes-and-consequences/

Category:

Lyme, research, Ticks

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PEMF Podcast

https://www.betterhealthguy.com/episode134

Episode #134: PEMF with Dr. William Pawluk, MD, MSc

Created: December 18 2020
Last Updated: December 28 2020

Why You Should Listen

In this episode, you will learn about the application of Pulsed Electromagnetic Field (PEMF) therapy in supporting health and wellness.

Watch The Show

Listen To The Show

Find The Show

About My Guest

My guest for this episode is Dr. William Pawluk.  William Pawluk, MD, MSc is a holistic doctor near Baltimore, MD.  He has held academic positions at Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland.  His is trained in acupuncture, nutrition, herbals, energy medicine, homeopathy, hypnosis, bodywork, and multiple other therapies.  He is considered the foremost authority on the use of Pulsed Electromagnetic Field (PEMF) therapy in North America.  His areas of interest include holistic pain management, regenerative health, stem cell stimulation, anti-aging, sleep, and anxiety.  His main emphasis is using PEMFs as a new solution for stubborn, chronic, and frustrating health problems.  He strives to try to resolve the cause of the problem and not to simply put a Band-Aid on it.   Most conventional treatments for pain rely on “numbing and dumbing,” that simply make the perception of pain better but don’t heal the cause.  After 25 years of seeing the risks and side effects of traditional health solutions and approaches, and after studying various healing modalities, he discovered that PEMFs provide the most benefit and allow safe, non-toxic, self-directed, self-controlled, at-home pain management.  He has authored a comprehensive book on healing with magnetic fields called “Power Tools for Health.”

Key Takeaways

  • If EMF is bad, how can PEMF be good?
  • Has the earth’s magnetic field changed over time?
  • What are the cellular and biological benefits of PEMF?
  • How is PEMF different from Rife?
  • What is the role of gauss and waveform in working with PEMF?
  • How might electrolytes synergize the effects of PEMF?
  • What is the role of PEMF in supporting the production of ATP in the mitochondria?
  • How might PEMF help support those with hypercoagulation?
  • How might PEMF therapy support the immune system and act as an indirect microbial support intervention?
  • Can PEMF support structural integrity in those with hypermobility or Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome?
  • Does PEMF have the potential to help improve the terrain and support detoxification?
  • Can the nervous system be calmed with the incorporation of PEMF therapy?
  • How might PEMF be helpful in dysautonomias such as POTS?
  • What is the role of PEMF therapy in supporting restorative sleep?
  • What are the contraindications for PEMF?
  • What devices does Dr. Pawluk recommend?

Resources

FlexPulse
BioBalance
TeslaFit

Power Tools for Health Book

Transcript:

https://www.betterhealthguy.com/episode134

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For more:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/04/08/three-alternative-strategies-that-can-address-severe-chronic-pain/

Category:

Treatment

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