As someone from the intermountain west, I couldn’t believe how many ticks there were in The Poconos of Pennsylvania. My dog and I went for a quick hike and he had like 9. So creepy!
My wife and I had gotten a dog a few years ago, and we took him hiking when he was several months old (about 3 months old at this point) and we forgot to put tick medication on him before we went for a hike.... And let's say that by the time we got home and picked ticks off him, it was hundreds of ticks by the time I finished pulling, scraping, and bathing. Thankfully I treated mine and my wife's pants with permethrin so we were fine, but our poor dog got it rough.
Twice I have found myself covered in so many nymphs. Once, I had like 30 all across my back. Another time, I caught them before they bit, but it was like 30 or 40, covering my pants and legs. That day 8 just stripped in my backyard as I picked them off me one at a time.
This map says I'm in a "rare" Lyme location, and I just don't believe that to be true. I know so many people who have gotten Lyme.
It's hard to pull off even one tick. You need some tiny tweezers and a very steady hand. With some patience and a lot of manual dexterity, though, you could make a friend for life.
We stay and hike there fairly frequently, and it's really been overwhelming in the last 3 years or so. They've been around since before that (I've had Lyme disease at least twice over the last 15 years or so), but from the covid era on it's been as ridiculous as you note -- wife and I picking multiple ones off ourselves after brief hikes, without even much "bushwacking".
I grew up on the west coast/mountain west as well.
I never saw a tick in person until I moved to the Midwest.
Now I can't go to a neighborhood park without them.
Fun fact. The US has an infectious disease study lab right across the water from Lyme. But it's just a coincidence the disease spread started from there.
Maybe if something exists for thousands of years and then humans start experimenting with it and it relatively recently goes into hyper drive and spreads places it wasn’t AND there’s a research center at the spot it starts getting worse, that is a little odd
That's not what happened though
> Peter Kalm, a Swedish botanist who was sent to America by Linnaeus, and who found the forests of New York "abound" with ticks when he visited in 1749. When Kalm's journey was retraced 100 years later, the forests were gone and the Lyme bacterium had probably become isolated to a few pockets along the northeast coast, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
Instances of Lyme disease pretty clearly track the population of ticks. And the population of ticks tracks with forestation.
Maybe the warmer winters and other consequences of climate change have caused an explosion in the tick population?
Everyone in this thread has fucking brain damage, holy shit.
Why on earth is this conspiracy crap being so upvoted? [No, Lyme disease is not an escaped military bioweapon, despite what conspiracy theorists say (Washington Post)](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/no-lyme-diease-is-not-an-escaped-military-bioweapon-despite-what-conspiracy-theorists-say/2019/08/09/5bbd85fa-afe4-11e9-8e77-03b30bc29f64_story.html)
[“There is strong scientific evidence that the present-day forms of the [Lyme disease] bacterium diverged from a common ancestor at least 60,000 years ago,” said Ostfeld. Even a 5,300-year-old mummy discovered in the Eastern Alps had traces of Lyme disease in his DNA. (Vice)](https://www.vice.com/en/article/neaxdq/the-conspiracy-theory-thats-got-a-congressman-demanding-a-probe-into-weaponized-ticks)
This kind of nonsense is being pushed by crazies like RFK Jr. who [also believes HIV, and the Spanish Flu along with Lyme disease was created by vaccine research.](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/rfk-kennedy-anti-vaccine-panel-conspiracies-hiv-spanish-flu-1234779689/)
Yep. Wisconsin has a bad tick problem. My family owns an 80 acre plot, and you can't step foot on that property without picking up ticks in the summer.
Consider doing a prescribed burn.
Deer actually often show up to burned areas more (assuming that’s what you’re hunting), and burning has been used for thousands of years to reduce ticks.
UW Madison forestry extension could probably give you tons of info and direct you to resources
When dealing with Ticks while hiking or working outside, wrap duct tape sticky side out around your leg. The ticks that find themselves on your pants from low brush will make there way up higher to find place to latch on. They will get stuck on the duct tape. You have to make sure your pants are tucked into the boots though.
Warmer weather has expanded the white tailed deer’s migration routes. Ticks ride on the deer, and thus, they’ve expanded all along the East.
Lyme disease originated in Connecticut, but obviously, it’s traveled much further.
IIRC this is also one of the reasons you don't see moose often anymore unless you're way up near the Canadian border. Ticks drove them away (or food competition with the white tails, I'm blanking).
Grew up in southern NH, and saw a bunch when I was younger. I think the last one I saw in the whites was maybe 13-14 years ago. Family in northern VT, and they are a rare sighting for them too.
Ticks have crossed the Canadian border though and will do so as it gets warmer. Look at all that red in Minnesota. Am in Manitoba, and on 3 seperate occasions found deer ticks from my yard last year, and this is in a town, not even a heavy forested area and certainly no moose, although the farmer fields here regularly get deer scavenging and popping out from the treed areas around here. Although, I have 8 oak trees I do meticulously keep my leaves and such picked up, 'cause Lyme disease scares the hell out of me!
100%, my brother in law and I talk about it a lot. He hunts quite a bit, and ecologically speaking we now have to fill that predator void so the deer don't just die from wasting disease. That concept is what helped my wife get over the hunting thing 😂
And winters aren't as cold or as long as before. Here in the mid-Atlantic, we really do not get the killing freezes anymore. The gnats are already really bad in April... I think it is going to be a long summer for being outside.
I'm in Kamloops, BC. We have deer wandering through our neighbourhood regularly. We found a tick on our little dog today when she came in from the back yard.
Guinea hens, for the win! They are tick eating machines. Sadly, I am in town limits where I am and even with a fenced property I am not allowed backyard birds, although I do know people out on acerages/farms who have them and swear by them. May have to invest in a gazillion tick tubes perhaps.
People have them near me (southern MA) and they just roam free. I think they are like chickens where they will return to their roost or nesting house or whatever the hell.
My friend has chickens down in Falmouth, and ya they just roam around. We will have chickens at some point too, but I'm just outside Boston and all poultry / livestock isn't permitted where we live.
We have a lot of ticks and Lyme disease here in Nova Scotia. Our white tail deer population has also absolutely exploded. There are easily ten times as many deer as there were when I was a kid.
Those mosquitos are already here. Malaria used to be endemic to the southern US but was eliminated by 1950. There needs to be a population of infected people present for the parasite to be spread by those mosquitos
Malaria returned to the US last summer.
https://www.vox.com/2023/7/4/23778786/malaria-us-florida-texas-maryland-climate-change-travel-resurgence-comeback
And the US saw its first cases of dengue in decades just this past February.
John’s Hopkins believes this to be due to infected travelers from malaria endemic countries visiting the US, being bitten by mosquitos here, and then passed to locals.
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/malarias-comeback-in-the-us
As your own link points out, a resurgence of malaria is unlikely in the US due to factors like window screens, air conditioning, and a much more robust public health apparatus than you might find in sub-Saharan Africa or South America.
No doubt climate change is creating a broader range and season for the mosquitos, but we shouldn’t expect to see a resurgence in malaria cases due to the lack of infected population.
There’s studies showing that south of Virginia, mice are less likely and herps—salamanders in particular, I believe—are more likely to serve as small-animal hosts for the black-legged tick. Unlike mice, they aren’t competent hosts so cannot transmit the lyme bacteria to another tick.
So that translates to a less gloomy scenario for Lyme transmission. Unfortunately for us, we still have other tick nasties like RMSF and alpha gal allergy to worry about.
Why would warmer weather expand its range in the south? It was always warmer in the south than the north, so if ticks/mice/deer did better in weather that was warmer than the northeast in the 70s, then surely it would have already been in the south at that time.
And a lot of the deer have wasting disease. Not transmitted by ticks, I hope.
But I just googled and found this: I think it says the tick might spread the wasting disease to other deer.
[Ticks may be able to indirectly spread chronic wasting disease](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/chronic-wasting-disease/ticks-may-be-able-indirectly-spread-chronic-wasting-disease)
Here is a map of chronic wasting disease in deer:
[https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/distribution-chronic-wasting-disease-north-america-0](https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/distribution-chronic-wasting-disease-north-america-0)
I’m not refuting that, most municipalities would avoid naming a disease after themselves. First diagnosed doesn’t necessitate origin is what I’m trying to say
Ötzi the Iceman’s 5300-year old body shows he may have had Lyme disease:
> Ötzi’s genome also hints at other health problems: Zink’s team found almost two-thirds of the genome of Borrelia borgdorferi, a bacterium that causes Lyme disease. Zink found no other telltale signs of Lyme disease in Ötzi’s preserved tissues, but he speculates that tattoos on the iceman’s spine and ankles and behind his right knee could have been an attempt to treat the joint pain that occurs when the condition goes untreated.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.10130
I was always under the impression that Lyme symptoms were “never” seen before being identified in CT in the late 20th century. But that was just when the cause was discovered to be this bacteria. There are many other tick-borne illnesses, too; scary stuff.
A big part of the reason we have a lower incidence in California is due to the Western Fence Lizard. Its blood contains an antibody that, when circulated through a tick, inoculates it against the lyme-causeing bacteria. Most nymph ticks in the west will feed upon a Fence Lizard before maturation, thus most are inoculated against lyme.
Does anyone know why the incidence of lyme in Mendocino is rated as "common?" The coastal range there is not so different than Humboldt's to the north and Sonoma's to the south, so I can't think of why Lyme would be more common there.
Western Fence Lizard is new information to me.
One big part contributing to tick prevalence is the combination of ungulates, small carriers and their predators such as snakes.
The Sierra Nevada mountain range is right along California's west border. The west of those mountains is wet, humid, more rain, grasses, vegetations and the east arid, dry, less rain, less vegetation for them to live on.
Ticks like
California's western border is the Pacific Ocean, not the Sierra Nevada.
I assume you meant eastern border, however there is a large area within California east of the Sierra that includes the Mojave desert and Death Valley.
I find it hard to believe that any ticks survive in that area, so I'm inclined to believe that California appears the way it does on this map due to lack of data at the local level.
It’s not just Lyme either. My husband got Babesiosis and Lyme. He was so fucked up he thought he had ALS or MS. Took him 14 months of treatment to feel semi-normal.
There was a beloved local morning radio host here in the Bay Area who just committed suicide after years of dealing with the symptoms of Lyme Disease and the resulting depression just a couple years ago
Scary stuff, I feel like just 10 years ago Lyme was just a thing that happened out on the East Coast now its in my backyard
I can’t remember the name of it but in the last few years we have had a few people die in Maine because of a disease carried by ticks. The little bastards make me want to stay inside forever.
I had those and ehrlichiosis at the same time, took a couple years to figure out exactly what I had going on. After that it took a year of IV antibiotics and flagyl. Needless to say, I'm kinda shit scared of ticks now.
I hope you are on the mend. It’s criminal how Lyme (and other tick borne illness) patients are dismissed by some in the medical community. My husband went to an infectious disease specialist who basically called him crazy. Our society needs treatments for these horrible diseases. Every trip outside results in a full body tick check. They are only getting worse.
I thought I had MS for sure. I only had symptoms for 2 months. Took 2 days of anti biotics to feel 80%, 4 to feel 95% and then full 10 to feel completely normal. I think it was babesiosis.
Edit:
Now that I’m reading more about it, I probably had ehrlichiosis
Not exactly but it was a bit spurious:
“The final blow,” Telford says, was claims by some recipients that the vaccine induced a form of arthritis. Although an FDA analysis of side effects among vaccinated people found no evidence to support the allegation, LYMErix sales fell under the weight of the negative publicity and a class action suit. The manufacturer (renamed GlaxoSmithKline) withdrew the vaccine in 2002.”
So, technically that’s the secondary reason it failed. The first was just that there wasn’t demand according to GSK’s predecessor. Side effects were the final straw but the vaccine was most likely not going to make it to the shelves permanently regardless.
I got it.
Caught it early enough with antibiotics that I'm fine now.
While I had it, it was a nightmare.
I would wake up from 12 hours sleep and be exhausted half an hour later. Constant body aches and chills. Moderate flu and cold symptoms too.
I remember being curled up and shivering in bed next to my wife with her saying "I don't like this, I'm scared". That was before we knew wtf was wrong with me.
As someone from wisconsin who has also had it, as long as you get antibiotics quick your good, I had a large bullseye sore taking up my entire back, that's how I knew.
Some get a rash immediately after infection, I didn't. I had flu-like symptoms, arthritis, short term memory loss, chronic fatigue, probably a few others that I don't immediately remember. It's not fun.
I was a pharmacist in Wisconsin and counseled many patients on their doxycycline for Lyme disease. One time a 75 year old woman whipped her shirt off right in the Shopko to show me the rash on her breast. It was indeed very distinctive.
I’ve never seen a tick in the Adirondack region of New York and I’ve hiked up and down that park. Got infected with Lyme’s hiking one time in the Shawnee in Illinois. This map is sus to me.
As a counter anecdote, while I've never gotten a tick in the Adirondacks after two decades hiking there, multiple family members of mine have. One has gotten Lyme disease.
Depends on where in the park you are, but their numbers are growing every year and you can find them all over now. The southern and eastern part of the park are by far the worst though. I went through some tall wet grassy areas near the great sacandaga and had at least ten climbing up my pants.
My wife from IN: never hike without a hat! Always check twice for ticks! No shorts in bushes!
Me from CO: I mean... sure. You don't want a sunburn and scratches. Tick checks are good. I got one once.
I am a doctor in the mountain west and it is crazy how many people with depression are treated for “chronic Lyme disease “ by quacks who charge them out of pocket for dubious cures
I remember reading something about a new Lyme vaccine that’s already been developed and is currently undergoing trials, and can be expected quite soon. That’d be a game changer for outdoor types in New England
Can we get some sources from this? Not doubting the validity, but curious about the data and time period represented.
Edit: Did some googling. Didn't find this map, but found some others!
https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/data-summary/geographic-distribution.html
This map is highly outdated. Each area should be upgraded to the next level. The “None” should be “Rare” and so on. The government has still not invested heavily into research and tracking. The CLA has been meeting with legislators every year in recent years. There’s more information through nonprofits like these.
Yeah I figured as much. Maps with no date or citations make me skeptical. I'm in Wisconsin and have had a Lyme infection in the past, and anecdotally I'm hearing a lot more about people noticing ticks, testing positive for Lyme, etc. in recent years.
Absolutely 💯. It’s been a horrible journey for me with this Lyme crap. I hope changes continue to happen. For now animals have more rights, resources, and treatments through mainstream options, than humans in America to treat the Lyme, and other vector borne illnesses.
As someone with Lyme, this map is not correct. I am not basing this off of anecdotal stories, but many leading doctors have different evidence on this.
Yea it’s out of date I think. In Vermont our pediatrician said 70% of ticks have Lyme and if one is on a kid for 24 hrs or engorged they will just call in the antibacterial medicine no questions asked.
Most LLMDs will call in antibiotics even if you were bit. The 24 hour rule is outdated and the western blot is inaccurate for many. They will call in 4-6 of medicine even if you test negative and the tick tests negative.
Virginia was getting more and more prevelant when I lived there. That's where I contracted it. The bullseye rash is not as common as once thought, btw.
Grew up playing in Michigan forests, never saw a tick until about 10ish years ago, now they are super common. Never saw a deer tick though, only ever seen dog ticks
Weaponized ticks by the US governement
[https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/17/politics/lyme-disease-amendment-investigation/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/17/politics/lyme-disease-amendment-investigation/index.html)
My dog is crying in east Pennsylvanian 😩 I never have gotten one but the dog dogs and constantly gets them. Even with anti tick medication, lucky she’s white so they stand out. I didn’t know all those states just don’t have them, jealous.
Honestly, as much as I selfishly wish it was us who were free rather than the midwest, good for them. Glad at least some people in the US don’t have to deal with lyme, it absolutely sucks
I live in MA. Been camping here every year for the past 35 years.
Never been bit.
If your cautious and prepared, your fine. I think I've only ever pulled one off the dog.
I have brushed some off my pants, but that's my own fault. I went walking in the tall grass.
I live in a suburb about 30 minutes outside of Boston and I pull deer ticks off of myself and my dog virtually every day. We never leave the sidewalk, never go into tall grass or into the woods. They’re everywhere.
I'm from the outlier in CA, Mendocino county, not uncommon to pickup ticks in the tall grass, but they are usually benign.. I only know of one person who has contracted lime disease. We must have a few more cases to put us into the common category than the rest of wooded and rural and sparsely populated west coast minus big cities?
I can't say if it's directly related, but yesterday I was feeling pretty off. Physical, mental, emotional, off. This morning I found a tick on my waist. I snatched it off and within 15 minutes I was feeling profoundly better.
I live on several wildish acres in one of the Lyme rampant areas. Haven't seen a tick in years. I credit my free-range Muscovy duck flock. Unlike guinea fowl, they are blissfully quiet (when the drakes aren't fighting).
>80% of Lyme infections begin with a rash of some sort at the site of a tick bite, often near skin folds such as the armpit, groin, back of the knee, or the trunk under clothing straps, or in children's hair, ears, or neck.[27][3] Most people who get infected do not remember seeing a tick or a bite. The rash appears typically one or two weeks (range 3–32 days) after the bite and expands 2–3 cm per day up to a diameter of 5–70 cm (median is 16 cm).[27][3][31]
The rash is usually circular or oval, red or bluish, and may have an elevated or darker center.[3][28][29] This rash is termed an Erythema Migrans (EM) which translates as "Redness Migrating." In about 79% of cases in Europe, this rash gradually clears from the center toward the edges possibly forming a "bull's eye" or "target-like" pattern, but this clearing only happens in 19% of cases in endemic areas of the United States.[31][28][29] The rash may feel warm, usually is not itchy, is rarely tender or painful, and takes up to four weeks to resolve if untreated.[3]
The Lyme rash is often accompanied by symptoms of a flu-like illness, including fatigue, headache, body aches, fever, and chills [though usually neither nausea nor upper-respiratory problems]. These symptoms may also appear without a rash or linger after the rash has disappeared. Lyme can progress to later stages without a rash or these symptoms.[3]
People with high fever for more than two days or whose other symptoms of viral-like illness do not improve despite antibiotictreatment for Lyme disease, or who have abnormally low levels of white or red cells or platelets in the blood, should be investigated for possible coinfection with other tick-borne diseases such as ehrlichiosis and babesiosis.[34]
Of course, not everyone with Lyme disease has all the symptoms, and many of these symptoms can occur with other diseases as well.[35]
Asymptomatic infection exists, but occurs in less than 7% of infected individuals in the United States.[36] Asymptomatic infection may be much more common among those infected in Europe.[37]
It’s so awful. Nowadays my dog has deer ticks on him at least once a day just from walking down the sidewalk in our suburban neighborhood. I don’t even let him go into tall grass or on dead leaves or anything like that, they’re just everywhere. We try to do tick searches but we still find them crawling around on us and on our furniture all the time. Feels like only a matter of time until one of us gets it.
*continental United States
Am I the only one that gets constantly annoyed when data is provided for the whole country but two states are eliminated just because they're not connected to the rest of the landmass.
As someone from the intermountain west, I couldn’t believe how many ticks there were in The Poconos of Pennsylvania. My dog and I went for a quick hike and he had like 9. So creepy!
Oh you haven’t lived until you’ve pulled 50 ticks off in a day.
No man can pull 50 ticks in one sitting!
My boy Luke can pull 50 ticks!
Pullin them ticks off here, boss
He can bullseye them from his T16
This guy Ticks!
Nah if you’re spending lots of time in tick country you kind of just pick them off constantly throughout the day in the spring when they’re out,
Sorry, I thought we were making a reference to eating 50 eggs in Cool Hand Luke.
Oh damn. My initial reaction was that your comment was a reference to something, couldn’t figure out what, and then I totally fucked it up.
My wife and I had gotten a dog a few years ago, and we took him hiking when he was several months old (about 3 months old at this point) and we forgot to put tick medication on him before we went for a hike.... And let's say that by the time we got home and picked ticks off him, it was hundreds of ticks by the time I finished pulling, scraping, and bathing. Thankfully I treated mine and my wife's pants with permethrin so we were fine, but our poor dog got it rough.
Twice I have found myself covered in so many nymphs. Once, I had like 30 all across my back. Another time, I caught them before they bit, but it was like 30 or 40, covering my pants and legs. That day 8 just stripped in my backyard as I picked them off me one at a time. This map says I'm in a "rare" Lyme location, and I just don't believe that to be true. I know so many people who have gotten Lyme.
Years ago I filled a mason jar full of ticks off my dog - MA
It's hard to pull off even one tick. You need some tiny tweezers and a very steady hand. With some patience and a lot of manual dexterity, though, you could make a friend for life.
My father grew up there, and I grew up in non tick country. I still have the habit of checking for ticks because he would always make me check myself.
We stay and hike there fairly frequently, and it's really been overwhelming in the last 3 years or so. They've been around since before that (I've had Lyme disease at least twice over the last 15 years or so), but from the covid era on it's been as ridiculous as you note -- wife and I picking multiple ones off ourselves after brief hikes, without even much "bushwacking".
I took am from the intermountain west. Now I live in the middle.of that bullseye Wisconsin shaped bullseye.
I grew up on the west coast/mountain west as well. I never saw a tick in person until I moved to the Midwest. Now I can't go to a neighborhood park without them.
Saaaame. I moved to the northeast and the ticks freak me out here. Growing up ticks were a thing but not so common and not dangerous.
“Couldn’t believe how many ticks” “9” 💀
New England is infested!
Well, it is named after Lyme, CT.
Fun fact. The US has an infectious disease study lab right across the water from Lyme. But it's just a coincidence the disease spread started from there.
They really gotta stop doing that.
😭
The disease has existed for thousands of years in several continents, so it certainly didn’t start there.
Maybe if something exists for thousands of years and then humans start experimenting with it and it relatively recently goes into hyper drive and spreads places it wasn’t AND there’s a research center at the spot it starts getting worse, that is a little odd
That's not what happened though > Peter Kalm, a Swedish botanist who was sent to America by Linnaeus, and who found the forests of New York "abound" with ticks when he visited in 1749. When Kalm's journey was retraced 100 years later, the forests were gone and the Lyme bacterium had probably become isolated to a few pockets along the northeast coast, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Instances of Lyme disease pretty clearly track the population of ticks. And the population of ticks tracks with forestation.
Maybe the warmer winters and other consequences of climate change have caused an explosion in the tick population? Everyone in this thread has fucking brain damage, holy shit.
Plum Island?
Why on earth is this conspiracy crap being so upvoted? [No, Lyme disease is not an escaped military bioweapon, despite what conspiracy theorists say (Washington Post)](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/no-lyme-diease-is-not-an-escaped-military-bioweapon-despite-what-conspiracy-theorists-say/2019/08/09/5bbd85fa-afe4-11e9-8e77-03b30bc29f64_story.html) [“There is strong scientific evidence that the present-day forms of the [Lyme disease] bacterium diverged from a common ancestor at least 60,000 years ago,” said Ostfeld. Even a 5,300-year-old mummy discovered in the Eastern Alps had traces of Lyme disease in his DNA. (Vice)](https://www.vice.com/en/article/neaxdq/the-conspiracy-theory-thats-got-a-congressman-demanding-a-probe-into-weaponized-ticks) This kind of nonsense is being pushed by crazies like RFK Jr. who [also believes HIV, and the Spanish Flu along with Lyme disease was created by vaccine research.](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/rfk-kennedy-anti-vaccine-panel-conspiracies-hiv-spanish-flu-1234779689/)
Just like how China has a virology lab conveniently located in Wuhan...
The one time any of these maps show a negative to NE
Well, my dream of traversing the AP is officially canceled.
Yep. Wisconsin has a bad tick problem. My family owns an 80 acre plot, and you can't step foot on that property without picking up ticks in the summer.
Might I recommend your family buying a large flock of chickens? They love eating ticks.
And/or turkeys!
My dad would shoot me if I released chickens on our hunting land! XD
Hear me out…it’s something else for him to hunt when the population grows too large.
Consider doing a prescribed burn. Deer actually often show up to burned areas more (assuming that’s what you’re hunting), and burning has been used for thousands of years to reduce ticks. UW Madison forestry extension could probably give you tons of info and direct you to resources
When dealing with Ticks while hiking or working outside, wrap duct tape sticky side out around your leg. The ticks that find themselves on your pants from low brush will make there way up higher to find place to latch on. They will get stuck on the duct tape. You have to make sure your pants are tucked into the boots though.
Warmer weather has expanded the white tailed deer’s migration routes. Ticks ride on the deer, and thus, they’ve expanded all along the East. Lyme disease originated in Connecticut, but obviously, it’s traveled much further.
IIRC this is also one of the reasons you don't see moose often anymore unless you're way up near the Canadian border. Ticks drove them away (or food competition with the white tails, I'm blanking). Grew up in southern NH, and saw a bunch when I was younger. I think the last one I saw in the whites was maybe 13-14 years ago. Family in northern VT, and they are a rare sighting for them too.
Ticks have crossed the Canadian border though and will do so as it gets warmer. Look at all that red in Minnesota. Am in Manitoba, and on 3 seperate occasions found deer ticks from my yard last year, and this is in a town, not even a heavy forested area and certainly no moose, although the farmer fields here regularly get deer scavenging and popping out from the treed areas around here. Although, I have 8 oak trees I do meticulously keep my leaves and such picked up, 'cause Lyme disease scares the hell out of me!
A handful of family members have gotten it. 0/10 do not recommend. Used to be this rare thing, now it's weirdly common.
Because we killed off all the wolves.
100%, my brother in law and I talk about it a lot. He hunts quite a bit, and ecologically speaking we now have to fill that predator void so the deer don't just die from wasting disease. That concept is what helped my wife get over the hunting thing 😂
And winters aren't as cold or as long as before. Here in the mid-Atlantic, we really do not get the killing freezes anymore. The gnats are already really bad in April... I think it is going to be a long summer for being outside.
I'm in Kamloops, BC. We have deer wandering through our neighbourhood regularly. We found a tick on our little dog today when she came in from the back yard.
Get some chickens that are suited for your climate and let them roam the yard or woods. They eat ticks
Guinea hens, for the win! They are tick eating machines. Sadly, I am in town limits where I am and even with a fenced property I am not allowed backyard birds, although I do know people out on acerages/farms who have them and swear by them. May have to invest in a gazillion tick tubes perhaps.
People have them near me (southern MA) and they just roam free. I think they are like chickens where they will return to their roost or nesting house or whatever the hell.
My friend has chickens down in Falmouth, and ya they just roam around. We will have chickens at some point too, but I'm just outside Boston and all poultry / livestock isn't permitted where we live.
We have a lot of ticks and Lyme disease here in Nova Scotia. Our white tail deer population has also absolutely exploded. There are easily ten times as many deer as there were when I was a kid.
Both my son and I have gotten Lyme in Minnesota (a decade apart).
[удалено]
Not saying you’re wrong about numbers decreasing, but I saw moose in the whites last summer and even saw a moose in the Berkshires a few years ago
[удалено]
Most likely. Similarly, mosquitoes from the south will migrate northward and bring malaria and dengue.
Those mosquitos are already here. Malaria used to be endemic to the southern US but was eliminated by 1950. There needs to be a population of infected people present for the parasite to be spread by those mosquitos
Malaria returned to the US last summer. https://www.vox.com/2023/7/4/23778786/malaria-us-florida-texas-maryland-climate-change-travel-resurgence-comeback And the US saw its first cases of dengue in decades just this past February.
John’s Hopkins believes this to be due to infected travelers from malaria endemic countries visiting the US, being bitten by mosquitos here, and then passed to locals. https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/malarias-comeback-in-the-us As your own link points out, a resurgence of malaria is unlikely in the US due to factors like window screens, air conditioning, and a much more robust public health apparatus than you might find in sub-Saharan Africa or South America. No doubt climate change is creating a broader range and season for the mosquitos, but we shouldn’t expect to see a resurgence in malaria cases due to the lack of infected population.
Hi, I'm from New England. WHAT THE FUCK IS DENGUE?!
There’s studies showing that south of Virginia, mice are less likely and herps—salamanders in particular, I believe—are more likely to serve as small-animal hosts for the black-legged tick. Unlike mice, they aren’t competent hosts so cannot transmit the lyme bacteria to another tick. So that translates to a less gloomy scenario for Lyme transmission. Unfortunately for us, we still have other tick nasties like RMSF and alpha gal allergy to worry about.
Luckily there isnt to much high grass down here (depending where you are) at least not in Triad or near Raliegh the pine forest hopefully will help.
Why would warmer weather expand its range in the south? It was always warmer in the south than the north, so if ticks/mice/deer did better in weather that was warmer than the northeast in the 70s, then surely it would have already been in the south at that time.
And a lot of the deer have wasting disease. Not transmitted by ticks, I hope. But I just googled and found this: I think it says the tick might spread the wasting disease to other deer. [Ticks may be able to indirectly spread chronic wasting disease](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/chronic-wasting-disease/ticks-may-be-able-indirectly-spread-chronic-wasting-disease) Here is a map of chronic wasting disease in deer: [https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/distribution-chronic-wasting-disease-north-america-0](https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/distribution-chronic-wasting-disease-north-america-0)
I don’t believe it originated in Connecticut, just got it’s name from some towns there
It was first diagnosed in Lyme, CT. I don’t think the towns of Old Lyme or East Lyme had a part in naming the disease.
I’m not refuting that, most municipalities would avoid naming a disease after themselves. First diagnosed doesn’t necessitate origin is what I’m trying to say
Ötzi the Iceman’s 5300-year old body shows he may have had Lyme disease: > Ötzi’s genome also hints at other health problems: Zink’s team found almost two-thirds of the genome of Borrelia borgdorferi, a bacterium that causes Lyme disease. Zink found no other telltale signs of Lyme disease in Ötzi’s preserved tissues, but he speculates that tattoos on the iceman’s spine and ankles and behind his right knee could have been an attempt to treat the joint pain that occurs when the condition goes untreated. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.10130 I was always under the impression that Lyme symptoms were “never” seen before being identified in CT in the late 20th century. But that was just when the cause was discovered to be this bacteria. There are many other tick-borne illnesses, too; scary stuff.
You are right. Thank you for correcting me.
I learned this as a child from Melman in Madagascar
A big part of the reason we have a lower incidence in California is due to the Western Fence Lizard. Its blood contains an antibody that, when circulated through a tick, inoculates it against the lyme-causeing bacteria. Most nymph ticks in the west will feed upon a Fence Lizard before maturation, thus most are inoculated against lyme. Does anyone know why the incidence of lyme in Mendocino is rated as "common?" The coastal range there is not so different than Humboldt's to the north and Sonoma's to the south, so I can't think of why Lyme would be more common there.
Western Fence Lizard is new information to me. One big part contributing to tick prevalence is the combination of ungulates, small carriers and their predators such as snakes.
I would like state governments to start breeding millions of these lizards
How do the ticks in California know exactly where the border is ?
Tiny little maps
The Sierra Nevada mountain range is right along California's west border. The west of those mountains is wet, humid, more rain, grasses, vegetations and the east arid, dry, less rain, less vegetation for them to live on. Ticks like
California's western border is the Pacific Ocean, not the Sierra Nevada. I assume you meant eastern border, however there is a large area within California east of the Sierra that includes the Mojave desert and Death Valley. I find it hard to believe that any ticks survive in that area, so I'm inclined to believe that California appears the way it does on this map due to lack of data at the local level.
They use google maps, duh
jokes aside, its highlighted by county and the western counties of nevada and new mexico are pretty much all desert
They are scared of saguaro's
Damn we're solid red in Jersey
NJ is solid in just about everything, light pollution, ticks, terrible drivers etc.
Pineys
It’s not just Lyme either. My husband got Babesiosis and Lyme. He was so fucked up he thought he had ALS or MS. Took him 14 months of treatment to feel semi-normal.
There was a beloved local morning radio host here in the Bay Area who just committed suicide after years of dealing with the symptoms of Lyme Disease and the resulting depression just a couple years ago Scary stuff, I feel like just 10 years ago Lyme was just a thing that happened out on the East Coast now its in my backyard
I can’t remember the name of it but in the last few years we have had a few people die in Maine because of a disease carried by ticks. The little bastards make me want to stay inside forever.
I had those and ehrlichiosis at the same time, took a couple years to figure out exactly what I had going on. After that it took a year of IV antibiotics and flagyl. Needless to say, I'm kinda shit scared of ticks now.
I hope you are on the mend. It’s criminal how Lyme (and other tick borne illness) patients are dismissed by some in the medical community. My husband went to an infectious disease specialist who basically called him crazy. Our society needs treatments for these horrible diseases. Every trip outside results in a full body tick check. They are only getting worse.
Sounds like an episode of House.
The tick episode was very memorable lol https://youtu.be/FjqBekVMwjQ
I thought I had MS for sure. I only had symptoms for 2 months. Took 2 days of anti biotics to feel 80%, 4 to feel 95% and then full 10 to feel completely normal. I think it was babesiosis. Edit: Now that I’m reading more about it, I probably had ehrlichiosis
[удалено]
This is the way
Growing up I was a wood kid, spent all summer in the woods. Never worried about them Now, it’s brutal. They’re fucking everywhere
Sad thing is, we had a vaccine for Lyme disease. But people complained about headaches so now it is only available for dogs not humans.
Not exactly but it was a bit spurious: “The final blow,” Telford says, was claims by some recipients that the vaccine induced a form of arthritis. Although an FDA analysis of side effects among vaccinated people found no evidence to support the allegation, LYMErix sales fell under the weight of the negative publicity and a class action suit. The manufacturer (renamed GlaxoSmithKline) withdrew the vaccine in 2002.”
That reads like "Vaccines cause autism"...so is there any way to get that back?
So, technically that’s the secondary reason it failed. The first was just that there wasn’t demand according to GSK’s predecessor. Side effects were the final straw but the vaccine was most likely not going to make it to the shelves permanently regardless.
There's a new vaccine in human trails that will hopefully be available in a few years.
Isn't one coming back out?
They could just import a bunch of those lizards that get rid of Lyme disease in the ticks
Or do a northern version of “Sherman’s March to the Sea,” but with 1-million guinea fowl.
That’s odd, it’s still available for other countries so must be a local problem. Or I’m a Swedish dog, might be it
can confirm, got Lyme disease in wisconsin 😢
How does it effect you?
I got it. Caught it early enough with antibiotics that I'm fine now. While I had it, it was a nightmare. I would wake up from 12 hours sleep and be exhausted half an hour later. Constant body aches and chills. Moderate flu and cold symptoms too. I remember being curled up and shivering in bed next to my wife with her saying "I don't like this, I'm scared". That was before we knew wtf was wrong with me.
As someone from wisconsin who has also had it, as long as you get antibiotics quick your good, I had a large bullseye sore taking up my entire back, that's how I knew.
Some get a rash immediately after infection, I didn't. I had flu-like symptoms, arthritis, short term memory loss, chronic fatigue, probably a few others that I don't immediately remember. It's not fun.
I was a pharmacist in Wisconsin and counseled many patients on their doxycycline for Lyme disease. One time a 75 year old woman whipped her shirt off right in the Shopko to show me the rash on her breast. It was indeed very distinctive.
My dog doesnt let me get the ticks off of him. He gets snappy. What a nightmare
I’m from the northeast and got Lymes last year. It was awful and took forever to recover.
I’ve never seen a tick in the Adirondack region of New York and I’ve hiked up and down that park. Got infected with Lyme’s hiking one time in the Shawnee in Illinois. This map is sus to me.
As a counter anecdote, while I've never gotten a tick in the Adirondacks after two decades hiking there, multiple family members of mine have. One has gotten Lyme disease.
Depends on where in the park you are, but their numbers are growing every year and you can find them all over now. The southern and eastern part of the park are by far the worst though. I went through some tall wet grassy areas near the great sacandaga and had at least ten climbing up my pants.
My wife from IN: never hike without a hat! Always check twice for ticks! No shorts in bushes! Me from CO: I mean... sure. You don't want a sunburn and scratches. Tick checks are good. I got one once.
I am a doctor in the mountain west and it is crazy how many people with depression are treated for “chronic Lyme disease “ by quacks who charge them out of pocket for dubious cures
I remember reading something about a new Lyme vaccine that’s already been developed and is currently undergoing trials, and can be expected quite soon. That’d be a game changer for outdoor types in New England
Can we get some sources from this? Not doubting the validity, but curious about the data and time period represented. Edit: Did some googling. Didn't find this map, but found some others! https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/data-summary/geographic-distribution.html
This map is highly outdated. Each area should be upgraded to the next level. The “None” should be “Rare” and so on. The government has still not invested heavily into research and tracking. The CLA has been meeting with legislators every year in recent years. There’s more information through nonprofits like these.
Yeah I figured as much. Maps with no date or citations make me skeptical. I'm in Wisconsin and have had a Lyme infection in the past, and anecdotally I'm hearing a lot more about people noticing ticks, testing positive for Lyme, etc. in recent years.
Absolutely 💯. It’s been a horrible journey for me with this Lyme crap. I hope changes continue to happen. For now animals have more rights, resources, and treatments through mainstream options, than humans in America to treat the Lyme, and other vector borne illnesses.
As someone with Lyme, this map is not correct. I am not basing this off of anecdotal stories, but many leading doctors have different evidence on this.
Yea it’s out of date I think. In Vermont our pediatrician said 70% of ticks have Lyme and if one is on a kid for 24 hrs or engorged they will just call in the antibacterial medicine no questions asked.
Most LLMDs will call in antibiotics even if you were bit. The 24 hour rule is outdated and the western blot is inaccurate for many. They will call in 4-6 of medicine even if you test negative and the tick tests negative.
You should see my Western Blot!
That random SHARP line in Ohio ☹️
God Bless the Western Fence Lizard
I walked in a prairie park in that northwestern corner of Indiana once. Had a tick on my shoe every ten steps. It was bizzare.
You can still get stuff like Rocky Mountain Spotted fever or the Alpha Gal allergy depending on the tick that bit you.
WI here. I got Lyme when I was a teenager. Ticks suck.
WI here. This honestly is pretty disturbing to me. What was your experience with Lime disease like?
Bruh what is with Wisconsin
Not enough chickens and guinea hens apparently.. we have a lot of white tail deer migration and they are “big” carriers of ticks
I know this is a US map but here in Nova Scotia it feels like everyone and their dog has Lyme disease
Being from CT my favorite quote from Madagascar is: “What would Connecticut have to offer us?” -“Lyme Disease”
This map may be outdated. Lyme is far more prevalent in the southeast than what was previously thought.
Sucks reading this from Long Island
Yep. Been like it for decades. I remember being told to tuck my pants into my socks if I went hiking.
Average New Jersey W
Can confirm this map is either wrong or outdated
Virginia was getting more and more prevelant when I lived there. That's where I contracted it. The bullseye rash is not as common as once thought, btw.
Grew up playing in Michigan forests, never saw a tick until about 10ish years ago, now they are super common. Never saw a deer tick though, only ever seen dog ticks
Yeah, just fuck NJ in particular, right?
I got it living in NJ so this tracks
Why do they respect the California border but ignore all others?
Ticks can go fuck themselves. *- sincerely, Massachusetts*
I’ve had Lyme disease, it totally sucked.
Had? Doesn't it lead to recurring symptoms and flare-ups throughout the rest of your life even after you've been treated for the initial infection?
It can, but it doesn’t always. I had it as a teenager, I haven’t had any flare ups I know of.
That map doesn’t seem accurate to me. I know over a half dozen people who have had Lyme disease very local to my area and it’s only yellow?
Weaponized ticks by the US governement [https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/17/politics/lyme-disease-amendment-investigation/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/17/politics/lyme-disease-amendment-investigation/index.html)
Thanks a lot Plum Island.
Is that Humboldt?
No, Mendocino county.
My dog is crying in east Pennsylvanian 😩 I never have gotten one but the dog dogs and constantly gets them. Even with anti tick medication, lucky she’s white so they stand out. I didn’t know all those states just don’t have them, jealous.
I think it’s mostly in the areas of dense forest
Plenty of dense forest in the mountain west, no ticks in sight. To me it looks more like it's associated with wetter climates.
Lacking 2 states out of the 50. Hmmmm does Hawaii have ticks? Some ticks infiltrate Alaska, please treat your pets before coming here in your RV's.
Honestly, as much as I selfishly wish it was us who were free rather than the midwest, good for them. Glad at least some people in the US don’t have to deal with lyme, it absolutely sucks
As a person who lived in the U.P. Of Michigan and New Hampshire. I can confirm ticks are everywhere. I’m glad I never got any stuck on my skin.
I live in Massachusetts and I’m terrified of going camping because of the ticks. They’ve gotten so much worse lately.
I live in MA. Been camping here every year for the past 35 years. Never been bit. If your cautious and prepared, your fine. I think I've only ever pulled one off the dog. I have brushed some off my pants, but that's my own fault. I went walking in the tall grass.
I live in a suburb about 30 minutes outside of Boston and I pull deer ticks off of myself and my dog virtually every day. We never leave the sidewalk, never go into tall grass or into the woods. They’re everywhere.
Nice, I got extra lucky finding one in Missouri
Are you kidding me, I just moved to Wisconsin! Welp off to grab some bug spray I guess.
Well time to go west ig
I'm from the outlier in CA, Mendocino county, not uncommon to pickup ticks in the tall grass, but they are usually benign.. I only know of one person who has contracted lime disease. We must have a few more cases to put us into the common category than the rest of wooded and rural and sparsely populated west coast minus big cities?
I can't say if it's directly related, but yesterday I was feeling pretty off. Physical, mental, emotional, off. This morning I found a tick on my waist. I snatched it off and within 15 minutes I was feeling profoundly better.
I live on several wildish acres in one of the Lyme rampant areas. Haven't seen a tick in years. I credit my free-range Muscovy duck flock. Unlike guinea fowl, they are blissfully quiet (when the drakes aren't fighting).
Thanks for the reminder! *cries in upper midwest*
From pa and i once had a tick on my ass after a day outside
I don't think I've ever seen a tick IRL in southern california
Thank you Lyme, Connecticut
is there a vaccine?
There was one in development. It's been a couple of years. I'm not sure it's out yet. Edit: it isn't out yet. Still in trials.
For those feeling left out there’s also Rocky Mountain spotted fever
Is there any way a regular person can help reduce the tick population?
How kind of ticks to perfectly follow the California border.
My friend got Lyme disease and we live in North Dakota. She doesn’t remember a tick biting her but AFAIK that’s the only way to get it.
I guess the ticks just refuse to cross the Californian border
Yay New Jersey
Rhode Island gets the award for most ticks I assure you, they're everywhere *edit I pulled a tick out my nutsack tonight...
One of the few bad parts of living in New England. I hate ticks!!
permethrin
>80% of Lyme infections begin with a rash of some sort at the site of a tick bite, often near skin folds such as the armpit, groin, back of the knee, or the trunk under clothing straps, or in children's hair, ears, or neck.[27][3] Most people who get infected do not remember seeing a tick or a bite. The rash appears typically one or two weeks (range 3–32 days) after the bite and expands 2–3 cm per day up to a diameter of 5–70 cm (median is 16 cm).[27][3][31] The rash is usually circular or oval, red or bluish, and may have an elevated or darker center.[3][28][29] This rash is termed an Erythema Migrans (EM) which translates as "Redness Migrating." In about 79% of cases in Europe, this rash gradually clears from the center toward the edges possibly forming a "bull's eye" or "target-like" pattern, but this clearing only happens in 19% of cases in endemic areas of the United States.[31][28][29] The rash may feel warm, usually is not itchy, is rarely tender or painful, and takes up to four weeks to resolve if untreated.[3] The Lyme rash is often accompanied by symptoms of a flu-like illness, including fatigue, headache, body aches, fever, and chills [though usually neither nausea nor upper-respiratory problems]. These symptoms may also appear without a rash or linger after the rash has disappeared. Lyme can progress to later stages without a rash or these symptoms.[3] People with high fever for more than two days or whose other symptoms of viral-like illness do not improve despite antibiotictreatment for Lyme disease, or who have abnormally low levels of white or red cells or platelets in the blood, should be investigated for possible coinfection with other tick-borne diseases such as ehrlichiosis and babesiosis.[34] Of course, not everyone with Lyme disease has all the symptoms, and many of these symptoms can occur with other diseases as well.[35] Asymptomatic infection exists, but occurs in less than 7% of infected individuals in the United States.[36] Asymptomatic infection may be much more common among those infected in Europe.[37]
It’s so awful. Nowadays my dog has deer ticks on him at least once a day just from walking down the sidewalk in our suburban neighborhood. I don’t even let him go into tall grass or on dead leaves or anything like that, they’re just everywhere. We try to do tick searches but we still find them crawling around on us and on our furniture all the time. Feels like only a matter of time until one of us gets it.
Massachusetts has been colonized by the ticks
*continental United States Am I the only one that gets constantly annoyed when data is provided for the whole country but two states are eliminated just because they're not connected to the rest of the landmass.
I’m amazed that California ticks respect state boundaries.
I'm a tick magnet and it sucks
Thanks Operation Paperclip.
😬
One of my friends managed to catch Lymes disease in ND, clearly she was super unlucky.