Lyme disease in Leavenworth

[Andy_Bourne]

This may not be anything new, but a good friend of mine recently (9 days ago) contracted Lyme Disease from a tick bite in Leavenworth. We had been climbing in the Careno Crag area, and Trundle Dome.

Make sure and check yourself really good within the 24 hours after being exposed to any of the Leavenworth areas and check your gear when you get home. He suspects that a tick got a ride on his equipment, then got him the night we returned. Anyway, if you catch the infection early you may be able to thwart it with antibiotics. Go straight to the doctor if you get a tick bite, and especially if it starts to have a circular red patch around the bite area, like a bullseye.

Lyme disease is permanent, so be careful.

[Cpt.Caveman]

Bummer for your friend Andy. I hope to avoid those little critters! Thanks for the warning.

I hear it is possible to get Mtnrs. disease if you park near Mtnrs Dome!!

[OCK]

Bummer!

I was at careno that same weekend.

We are pretty active in the icicle and we have been getting somewhere between 2-3 ticks on us every day we climb.

We check ourselves out freqently, and as a result we have not had very many stuck in our skin.

The same week as your friend was bit one of our party reported that when he got home a tick had burned into him right next to his grommet.

We were in the same area as your friend.

I recently read that up to dec, 2000 there were 183 verified cases of Lymes disease in Washington state.

I have heard of four cases now this spring on the eastside.

ock

[nierman]

I have heard that in order to be able to

say for sure if they tick is a carrier of

lyme disease you need to take the tick with you and they can send it to a lab to have it analyzed. Also, I'd add prompt care seems to be key. Symptoms can appear and then be dormant for a very long time making you think you are safe. Hopefully kill it in the beginning with the treatment from the doc's and not have to worry about it later. Anyone having more information please add your two cents as my knowledge to add is general at best.

Cheers,

Doug

 

[highclimb]

that sucks.... i was beaten by a tick last saturday. i was climbing outer space and that night i got home and took off my shirt to take a shower a saw that nasty little bastard in my shoulder. now i havnt seen anything like a rash and have not gotten flu like symtoms. what do you think i shoudl do? should i be safe and get a blood check or what? there is a great article in Climbing Magazine this month about ticks. its a must read for people climbing in the Leavenworth area.

Aidan

[OCK]

Here is one report on the situation in washington state. http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/6772/washington.txt

Seems like there are several real bad things you can get from a tick bite.

In the past two weekends I saw ticks, a huge spider, posion ivy, a bear in the icicle and a cougar in town last week. I just need a rattler when I am topping out and then I have a grand slam.

ock

 

[highclimb]

i have another question....the tick i pulled out of my shoulder was a dog tick....they are bigger than deerticks. and arnt deerticks the only kinds that transmit lyme?

Aidan

[drjay4x4]

hey highclimb,

yes, deer ticks are the ones that transmit lyme disease, and they are small. however if the tick is attached long enough it can get quite large. the incubation period of lyme disease is pretty variable from a few days to a few weeks, so unless you develop symptoms there isn't much to do about it other than make sure you don't get a local skin infection at the bite site. probably the major determinant in whether you transmit the disease is the length of time the tick is attached, so checking early and often is very important. the majority of people will get the classic rash, a reddish ring that grows outward from the bite with clearing in the center, but its not 100% so if you have any concerns than you can go to your doctor and get a lyme titer test which will give you a definitive answer. lyme disease is easily treatable with a simple course of antibiotics and the sequelae are generally not permanent. you should be fine as long as you are not too much of a hypochondriac.

dr. jay

[highclimb]

BUT I AM A hypochondriac!!!!!!!!!!!!.....I worry alot. but thank very much for your advise. it i found the tick that night and pulled it right out! i have not experianced any rash or feverish syptoms and everybody i talk to tells me not to worry, but i cant help it .

thank you

Aidan

[OCK]

Does it seem strange that many climbers in general can reguarly handle super scary shit, suffer massive hardship, hate fest,drink enough alcohol to kill a moose and fight like a dog.

But a simple violation from cooties, hay fever, hang over's, a mean wife, etc. it topples a former hard man to his knee's in a newyork second?

What's up with that?

ock

[Cpt.Caveman]

Very strange indeed OCK. I think it deserves another string or thread.

[OCK]

Hey, i just yarded another blood sucker out of my dog.

I wanted to tell you about this really awsome way to get them out that i learned about.

Maybe you already know this method.

You use a straw and slide it over the tick. Then take some dental floss and make a granny knot. Slide the loop down the straw to the head of the tick. pull the string tight. Pull the straw away. Pull the two ends of the thread easy..., and Bingo! that is absolutely the best way i have ever done it. The critter came out 100% and i did not squeeze any of the critters spooge into my dog.

Sounds like you guy's might need to know about getting the cooties out if you plan to climb much in the icicle this spring!

see ya!

ock

 

[Scott_J]

There is a vaccine for Lyme disease.

We got it for our dogs for as far back as 10 years ago. It had not been OKed for humans back then now it is. I hate the things and I am going out ASAP to get my shot.

[verticalturtle]

more info on this vaccine if you have any please!!!

I have never heard of this and was always under the impression that if not treated early the disease was for life.

[Peter_Puget]

I think the vaccine is not as effective as the more commonly taken vaccines (eg tetnus) and recent evidence points to the vaccine causes rheumatoid arthritis symptoms in at least some humans. I was thinking the vaccine sounded good but now think I need to do more reading on it. Does any one known any one who has used it? I wonder what Drs tell people considering it

[Andy_Bourne]

This will tell you as much as the medical community knows about it:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lymevaccine.htm

I spoke with a nurse about it, and it apparently isn't available in the NW unless your doctor special orders it. It is new and they don't yet know the long term effectiveness (i.e. how long it lasts) I am seriously considering it, and if my doc orders it, I'll throw a party and pass around the syringe.

 

[chucK]

There is a reason why docs here don't have the Lyme-disease vaccine readily available.

Here is some information on Lyme-disease cases in washington over 10 years (1987-1996).

http://healthlinks.washington.edu/nwcphp/lyme/page13.html

July is the highest incidence month with 3 cases per month in ALL of Washington state.

There are probably more unreported cases out there, but this still seems like a small risk.

You won't get lyme disease unless a tick has burrowed into you, AND the tick has lyme disease, AND it transmits the disease to you. Rates of transmission are low if ticks are embedded for less that TWELVE hours.

IF you do get lyme disease, there are supposedly effective after-the- case treatments with antibiotics. [The effectiveness hinges on early treatment, so make sure you watch for symptoms after a tick bite, and if you're real worried, go to a doctor, and SAVE the tick. You probably want to call the doc to get instructions on how to save the tick.]

There are currently cases of people claiming some terrible complications from the vaccine. Though it is difficult to determine whether their problems are actually being caused by the vaccine, they ARE scary stories.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/561936.asp?0nm=V14O&cp1=1#BODY

also

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54527-2001Apr7.html

Next, you should note that the vaccine is NOT very effacacious (estimates range from 80% effective to being harmful depending what symptoms you look at).

 

So...here's my summary

Lyme disease is scary but...

 

Lyme disease is pretty difficult to get here in Washington.

If you do get it, it is usually treatable

after the fact.

Vaccine may not work and might even hurt you.

Add these up and MY decision is not to pay a bunch of money to my doctor and Smith-Kline Beecham to stick something in my arm

(3 times over a period of two-years) that might hurt me in order to get weak insurance against an improbable event.

I am not a medical doctor. Do the research yourself and/or ask a doctor that you trust before making your own decision. For a start I suggest Google with the search words: lyme disease vaccine complications.

chucK

[chucK]

OK here's some quick and dirty figures:

The Washington Post article in my above post

has the rate of complications from the vaccine to be 0.07% or 7 per 10,000 vaccine recipients. According to that chart I linked to, there were 137 reported cases of Lyme disease over 10 years in Washington State. Let's double that to 274. There were 5 million people in WA in 1990, more now. Say only 1/20 of those people (250,000) are as exposed to ticks as much as climbers. That makes an estimate for risk of catching lyme disease over 10 years to be 274/250,000 = .0011 = 11 per 10,000. Now factor in that the most rosy estimates of vaccine efficacy are 80%, you get the number of people that the vaccine may actually help to about 8.8 per 10,000.

Summary: Helps 9, hurts 7, no effect 9984. Step right up pay yer $200/dose.

Chuck

[verticalturtle]

thanks for the useful info chuck

[Fritz]

What about slopping on some bugjuice? And what works best? Deet,DDT,Agent Orange? This tuck yer pants into yer sox and cross yer fingers is a little to passive for me!

[To_The_Top]

Knowing ticks exist in the east side and after shaking gear and find three once, I take bike shorts underneath my other shorts every time I go to Icicle, and a hat. No its not deet, but in past research ticks normally go for the head, underarms or the shorts. Chuck is right about Washington having low insidents of Lyme disease (I checked 5 years ago when this happened), but in the east coast it is a big problem in states like Maine.

[speed]

I'm from back East not far from 'Lyme' Connecticut where the disease got its name. Ticks and Lyme disease are pretty much part of things out there. You just have to deal with them. When I went out I would just lather up with some bug goop (usually DEET based) and hit the trail. When I got back I would do the shower-and-check-for-ticks thing. It only takes another two minutes. Its pretty amazing how well the repelant works. Very seldom would I find an attached tick. And if I did I would just take care of it properly (you can read any of the many articles or books on this).

You need to remember that its very, Very, unlikely to contract Lyme disease within the first 24 hours of contact. Its also treatable if discovered early enough. The best way to find out is to keep the tick and bring it to the hospital for tests. From what I understand the really bad and permanent damage from the disease comes from it being untreated for an extended period of time.

It was something that conserned me back East, but I didn't let it keep me from being outside. Just like anything else, a few good precautions go a long way. Here I don't even worry about it (but I still check for ticks in the shower).

Just my two cents,

speed

[Alpine_Tom]

quote:

---

Originally posted by OCK:

You use a straw and slide it over the tick. Then take some dental floss and make a granny knot. Slide the loop down the straw to the head of the tick. pull the string tight. Pull the straw away. Pull the two ends of the thread easy..., and Bingo! that is absolutely the best way i have ever done it. The critter came out 100% and i did not squeeze any of the critters spooge into my dog.

ock

---

That sounds like a lot of work. I can't imagine my dog holding still long enough for that to work. When I was a kid in North Carolina, my mom got ticks off us with nail polish remover. It makes them pull their heads out, as I understand, then you can squish them. The worst part was that you regularly found them in your privates (much easier to see 'em down there at age eight!)

 

[Cpt.Caveman]

Dru Found some in his privates and that is why shim is a female now.

[Dru]

The only tick found in these parts on privates were on Pvt. Caveman (demoted from Capt. for slanderous remarks) and Pvt. Idaho??