Re:Time to Get Serious about Tick-Borne Diseases
by tntniceman on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @12:11PM
(#20748595)
The desert certainly doesn't stop the suckers, speaking as a New Mexico resident. Ticks abound, Lyme equally so.
Re:Time to Get Serious about Tick-Borne Diseases
by 0xffff2 on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @01:10PM
(#20749340)
Really? The CDC [0] shows a total of 4 cases of Lyme in NM from 2012-2017. Looking at that map, it appears to me that the desert does seem to stop the suckers.
Re:Time to Get Serious about Tick-Borne Diseases
by evandev on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @03:13PM
(#20750826)
Not to mention:
> Each dot represents one case of Lyme disease and is placed randomly in the patient’s county of residence. The presence of a dot in a state does not necessarily mean that Lyme disease was acquired in that state. People travel between states, and the place of residence is sometimes different from the place where the patient became infected.
Re:Time to Get Serious about Tick-Borne Diseases
by planteen on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @06:37PM
(#20752925)
95% of cases come from 14 states, none of which are western. Mountain and Pacific (WA, OR, CA, ID, NV, AZ, MT, UT, NM, CO, WY) states together are around 0.6% of lyme cases nationwide. Many people in these states contract the disease out east, come home, and then visit a doctor in a western state. New Mexico had 3 confirmed cases in 2017, out of nearly 30,000 in the entire US. So no, Lynne disease does not even close to equality abound in New Mexico or the West.
https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/datasurveillance/tables-recent.html
Re:Time to Get Serious about Tick-Borne Diseases
by magic_beans on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @11:44AM
(#20748238)
An overworked doctor will prescribe them for "acne" or a "UTI" without too much fuss.
So, continental US, excluding maybe Nevada and New Mexico (because desert).
> you should have antibiotics on hand at all times.
So, here is a problem: in US, antibiotics are prescription-only. And no doctor would prescribe antibiotics preventively. They will prescribe antibiotics after a tick bite, but you need an office visit (or online office visit). The only way to get antibiotics preventively is to stash some after a tick bite, or simulate symptoms over a video call.
TL/DR: if you are in US, you're fucked.