November 2022: How to Kill Vampire Ticks Instantly
Yes, ticks are vampires. They need blood to progress from larva to nymph to adult and then for females to lay eggs. They can drink so much blood in one meal that they increase their weight several hundred times. Once engorged, they release their mouth attachments and fall off the host and progress to their next life stage.Ticks, depending on the species, can have up to three different hosts during a lifetime. Their complicated mouthparts—the hypostome, chelicera, and palp—allow the tick to attach and feed on animals and humans.The mouth of a tick. (Photo by the National Institutes of Health)Like most insects, ticks pro...
Source: M2E Too! Mellick's Multimedia EduBlog - October 31, 2022 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Illness-related fatigue: More than just feeling tired
A common refrain during the COVID-19 pandemic is, “I’m so tired.” After months of adjusted living and anxiety, people are understandably weary. Parents who haven’t had a break from their kids are worn out. Those trying to juggle working from home with homeschooling are stretched thin. Between concerns about health, finances, and isolation, everyone is feeling some level of additional stress during this unusual time, and that’s tiring. We all could use a good, long nap — or better yet, a vacation.
But while a break would be nice, most people — except those who are actually sick with COVID-19 or other illnesses...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - October 21, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jennifer Crystal, MFA Tags: Autoimmune diseases Fatigue Source Type: blogs
Ticked off: America ’s quiet epidemic of tickborne diseases
For most of us, springtime marks the return of life to a dreary landscape, bringing birdsong, trees in bud, and daffodils in bloom. But if you work for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the coming of spring means the return of nasty diseases spread by ticks and mosquitoes.
The killjoys at CDC celebrated the end of winter with a bummer of a paper showing that infections spread by ticks doubled in the United States from 2004 to 2016. (Tick populations have exploded in recent decades, perhaps due to climate change and loss of biodiversity.)
Lyme disease
The most common infection spread by ticks in the US i...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 25, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Ross, MD, FIDSA Tags: Health Infectious diseases Source Type: blogs
Tick- and Mosquito-borne Diseases: Trends in the United States
The following data are abstracted from Gideon and the Gideon e-book series. [1] Charts were created using an interactive tool driven by over 30,000 base graphs in the program. [2]
Chart 1 contrasts trends for reported incidence of Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF). Note that while rates of Lyme disease in 2016 are 15-fold those reported in 1987, those of RMSF increased by a factor of seven. The number of fatal cases for both diseases have remained similar in recent years (i.e., the relative case-fatality rate of Lyme disease has decreased)
Chart 2 summarizes incidence data for a variety of tick-bo...
Source: GIDEON blog - May 4, 2018 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Dr. Stephen Berger Tags: Ebooks Epidemiology Graphs ProMED Source Type: blogs
Lyme Disease: The Great Imitator
Spring is my favorite season. Warmer weather, budding flowers and lots of greenery in yards, gardens and parks encourages outside activities and fills me with energy. The spring season also brings out lots of crawling and flying critters like bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, as well as some of the more unpleasant pests like ticks and mosquitos. If you enjoy spending time outside like I do, hiking, gardening or walking the dog, be aware that ticks and their bites can be not only annoying, but dangerous.
Jana’s Experience
Jana Braden found out how dangerous tick bites can be the hard way. She enjoyed the outdoors a...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - May 13, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Chronic Conditions Source Type: blogs
Lyme Disease
Pathophysiology of Lyme Disease
Lyme disease is an
1) infection with Borrelia burgdorferi via tick bite
2) previous thinking held tick vector was Ixodes but transmission is now thought by some experts to be possible with additional tick species
3) occurs in stage I and stage II days to weeks after infection and in stage III months to years after infection (usually with preceding latency period
Signs and Symptoms
Stage I
1) characteristic expanding annular rash with central clearing (“bull’s eye or “target” rash) that occurs in only 40% of infections
Stage II
2) multiple secondary annular skin lesio...
Source: Inside Surgery - March 19, 2013 Category: Surgeons Authors: Editor Tags: Infectious Disease babesia bulls eye rash coinfections deer tick erythema migrans hyperbaric ixodes target rash Source Type: blogs
Babesia Infection – Signs, Symptoms, and Treatment
Pathophysiology of Babesia Infection
1) Babesiosis is caused by the intracellular protozoan parasite Babesia microti and in Europe B. divergens 2) most severe symptoms occur in immunosuppressed, diabet6ic, splenectomized, and elderly 3) now clinically important in the USA and Candada as a coinfection of Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis, and Bartonella (which are all transmitted via the bite of the Ixodes tick)
Signs and Symptoms
1) acute flu-like symptoms – fever, chills, sweats, muscle pain, fatigue, arthralgias, and headache 2) petechiae 3) jaundice/dark urine 4) if occurs as coinfection with Lyme disease, the clinical ...
Source: Inside Surgery - January 27, 2013 Category: Surgeons Authors: Editor Tags: Infectious Disease atovaquone babesia babesiosis bartonella coinfection ixodes Lyme microti tick Source Type: blogs
