New tick-borne diseases

[elfdoctors]

While this is the wrong time to talk about this, I thought this community would be interested in knowing about several new tick-borne diseases identified in Wisconsin this past year.

The state identified 21 cases of Ehrlichia chaffenensis. This disease was thought to be endemic far south of here but with the onslaught of cases, the state is doing some tests to identify if this disease is now continually present in Wisconsin.

The more interesting disease involves 3 cases of Ehrlichia muris. This disease has apparently not been identified in the US before (with cases originally identified in Japan). Two of the cases were in Burnett County and one was from Eau Claire County. The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta has asked for a pint of blood from each of these cases as they are quite interested in this. Investigators were also up here in Burnett County during deerhunting, – collecting ticks at deer registration stations. They will also be coming up in the spring to collect ticks and I hope to be part of some of these efforts.

Both diseases have symptoms similar to our more common Ehrlichiosis (which was renamed several years ago to Anaplasma phagocytophilia) and do not appear to have any chronic forms.

[jerrys dad]

@elfdoctors wrote:

While this is the wrong time to talk about this, I thought this community would be interested in knowing about several new tick-borne diseases identified in Wisconsin this past year.

The state identified 21 cases of Ehrlichia chaffenensis. This disease was thought to be endemic far south of here but with the onslaught of cases, the state is doing some tests to identify if this disease is now continually present in Wisconsin.

The more interesting disease involves 3 cases of Ehrlichia muris. This disease has apparently not been identified in the US before (with cases originally identified in Japan). Two of the cases were in Burnett County and one was from Eau Claire County. The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta has asked for a pint of blood from each of these cases as they are quite interested in this. Investigators were also up here in Burnett County during deerhunting, – collecting ticks at deer registration stations. They will also be coming up in the spring to collect ticks and I hope to be part of some of these efforts.

Both diseases have symptoms similar to our more common Ehrlichiosis (which was renamed several years ago to Anaplasma phagocytophilia) and do not appear to have any chronic forms.

Thanks for the heads up! I just got over my first case of Lyme Disease and will have to watch out for these!

[Spike007]

This is great info – thanks! I had two deer ticks just last week, so they’re still out. (Although, with the snowstorm, I suspect they’ll be in hiding for awhile now.) 😉

I was recently screened for Lyme’s (again), but came back negative this time. I’ll have to research this a bit more.

Mosquito’s and deer ticks – what was Noah thinking when he let those guy’s on that big wooden boat?! 😯

[cheezehead]

@Spike007 wrote:

This is great info – thanks! I had two deer ticks just last week, so they’re still out. (Although, with the snowstorm, I suspect they’ll be in hiding for awhile now.) 😉

I was recently screened for Lyme’s (again), but came back negative this time. I’ll have to research this a bit more.

Mosquito’s and deer ticks – what was Noah thinking when he let those guy’s on that big wooden boat?! 😯

I was told by our vet that ticks are present year round. I aksied him if he was trying to push more Frontline and he laughed and said no. He said the early stage ticks are out there in the winter time too.

[elfdoctors]

Ticks are present all year round. However, this time of year, they tend to live in the leaf litter and only get active when the temperatures rise above 50-60 degrees. Now that the snow has arrived, it will be hard to find one until spring.

[cekcacher]

Interesting discussion! Thanks for the “heads-up”!

[glorkar]

So, for us “simple minded” folk, is there a common name for any of the 3 diseases listed in the OP? Something along the lines of H1N1=swine flu.

[Trekkin and Birdin]

Oh great….so Trekkin’ manages to skip a year getting Lyme (he’s been hit three times with that) and now he has something new to expect?

Thanks for the heads up. Do the researchers hypothesize that these non-endemic diseases may be the result of travel by humans, bringing the buggers back here?

[bugsmasher69]

Well since nobody mentioned what the symptoms of these new diseases are I guess I will have to go google it and find out for myself.

On a side note is the spell checker ever going to work again?

[elfdoctors]

The symptoms of the disease are not what is interesting. Most healthy people can fight off Ehrlichia without even knowing they are sick. For people who are immunocompromised, the disease usually has fevers (>101 degrees), headaches and muscle aches. Abnormalities in blood counts and liver enzymes are common. It is easily treated with certain antibiotics. I mentioned that there are no chronic forms – so either you have a complete recovery within 2 weeks or, very rarely, people can die if they are not started on the preferred antibiotics (usually doxycycline) quickly. The illness should have completely run its course within 2 weeks. You can only get these disease once in your lifetime.

Generally, if someone is healthy enough to be out in the woods geocaching, they are likely to be able to fight off this disease. As an aside, I heard that 2 of the 3 cases of the newest disease had had organ transplants.

There certainly seem to be some hypochondriacs on this site! lol

It is my personal hypothesis that the diseases have been here all along but we simply didn’t recognize they existed. As our medical technologies improve, we are able to differentiate diseases better. Frankly no one has really looked closely at what has been out there. While I find this to be exciting information for a scientist, this information will certainly not keep me out of the woods. Personally I had 6 deer tick bites this year and did not put myself on antibiotics for any of these bites.

Sorry if I caused any of you to get worried.

[bugsmasher69]

No real worries, just nice to know what to be on the look out for.

I agree in that I think most “new” deseases are actually old ones that have all ways been around but are just getting noticed and not blamed on something else.

[zuma]

@elfdoctors wrote:

The symptoms of the disease are not what is interesting. Most healthy people can fight off Ehrlichia without even knowing they are sick. For people who are immunocompromised, the disease usually has fevers (>101 degrees), headaches and muscle aches. Abnormalities in blood counts and liver enzymes are common. It is easily treated with certain antibiotics. I mentioned that there are no chronic forms – so either you have a complete recovery within 2 weeks or, very rarely, people can die if they are not started on the preferred antibiotics (usually doxycycline) quickly. The illness should have completely run its course within 2 weeks. You can only get these disease once in your lifetime.

Generally, if someone is healthy enough to be out in the woods geocaching, they are likely to be able to fight off this disease. As an aside, I heard that 2 of the 3 cases of the newest disease had had organ transplants.

There certainly seem to be some hypochondriacs on this site! lol

It is my personal hypothesis that the diseases have been here all along but we simply didn’t recognize they existed. As our medical technologies improve, we are able to differentiate diseases better. Frankly no one has really looked closely at what has been out there. While I find this to be exciting information for a scientist, this information will certainly not keep me out of the woods. Personally I had 6 deer tick bites this year and did not put myself on antibiotics for any of these bites.

Sorry if I caused any of you to get worried.

thanks for the info. very much appreciated. I will have to read more, since you piqued my interest.

I had several encounters with ticks this past year too, but never had a rash or any symptoms at all, so no worries. Last year I did get a rash and fever so did antiobiotics for that, without ever really knowing if it was Lymes or not.

z

[Trekkin and Birdin]

If you have Lyme, you know it. Just ask Trekkin’.

[jerrys dad]

These new ones will not keep me out of the woods. I also go hunting. I am used to ticks and finding them. Unfortunatly one got by me and I ended up with Lymes Disease. Even that will not keep me in the concrete jungle!

[Sagasu]

Thanks for the additonal run-down on symptoms and severity. The names sounded scary at first. At least it wasn’t an acronym with numbers. I had lyme a couple summers ago. Got it doing one of brother-in-law’s Wild Side caches. Figures. My doctor misdiagnosed it when I went in strongly suspecting that’s what I had. After an initial round of antibiotics that didn’t stop the inflammation and numbness that had progressed to most of an upper leg, I went to see one of his associates, an older doctor who said that it sure looked like lyme to him and gave me the proper antibiotic to deal with it. Needless to say, I have a new doctor now.

I have a hard time spotting the deer ticks so settle for picking the wood ticks off and throw them out the window as I drive to another cache. My wife doesn’t like them in the car, or especially in the bed. I figure if I get lyme again I will be able to spot it and get it treated quicker now. The new diseases don’t sound too worrisome, and you can only get them once, maybe already for me. Yeah, I think I need new glasses too.

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