Posted by bookofjoe 2 days ago
I’ve been battling unexplained anxiety, fatigue, poor sleep and cognitive decline throughout my 30s. I’ve had every blood test under the sun, numerous sleep studies and tried every vitamin. I’ve had no answers and no change.
Sometimes, I've believed that it impacts my performance at work. Sometimes I feel like I should be retiring, but I’m not even 40 yet. Sometimes, it's not so bad.
I saw a video on controlled hypothermia the other day, which seems like snake oil. I guess that’s next on my list to try. I feel desperate, but I’m just having to get used to the feeling of desperation, because there appears to be no answer or solution.
Chronic stress, now that's an interesting one. I've never regarded myself as stressed. Or, if I am stressed, I'm always stressed and it's just normal. But I see no reason to be stressed, but maybe I am. And I wonder, how much of stress is a cause, or a result. I've taken a year off work. Am I better for it? It's hard to say. I'm yet to find anything that I can say helps. I've only really found things that make it worse. Like alcohol, and sugar. Diabetes? Yeah, I've considered it. I've got 6 months of blood sugar monitoring data, with no discernible correlation between my levels and how I feel. Funny world <3
In particular, Garmin smartwatches have a very good measurement and intepretation with their "stress" and "body battery" features.
That's how I learned I was stressed while working. I have a Garmin watch and everyday I get an alert telling me I had a stressful day.
During the day if I do a little check-in where I observe how I feel, I often notice a lot of muscle tension, especially in the plexus area, and that I stop breathing for extended periods of time. I try to consciously relax, which would work for a few minutes before the tension comes again. I end up being exhausted almost everyday. My watch has been telling me I'm either in "recovery" or "strained" for months.
Stress can be difficult to notice, especially when you're stressed.
Other: Dark, cold, quiet bedroom. Sleep study. Vicious dietary improvement. If all else fails: move and change jobs. If that doesn't fix it, try one of those drug induced purges with ibogaine.
I’m not optimistic this will be all that helpful. Just because the tick you found is negative, that tells you nothing about those you did not find. Just because a tick is positive, that does not mean that it has infected whoever it was attached to.
My understanding is that the ticks only transmit disease after they have been attached long enough to become engorged. None of the ticks shown were engorged.
I’ve hear stats as long as 24 hours and as short as 30 seconds. One nurse told me that removing ticks by grasping and pulling means they transmit immediately, because you squeeze their contents through their mouths. I no longer believe any of the stats; seems like it could be at any time.
Having an easy to use method which doesn't need special tools also helps by being able to immediately remove them.
Whenever someone recommends removal using tweezers, I wonder if the person offering this advice has ever removed a well attached tick. I’ve found tools like a Tick Tornado work better, but are still problematic with smaller ticks.
And tiny ones are easy to remove with finger nails and some spit. But it requires some skill, do not stress out the ticks while they are attached and be careful to not partially remove it.
(Just had to remove 3 ticks on me I failed to spot after a late night walk yesterday, bigger and medium sized ones with tool, the small one with fingernail)
edit: and found a 4th one, but a tiny one(nymphe), they don't carry lyme disease as only ticks who have previously bitten a infected animal before will have it
Just breaking out the tweezers and yanking away was most emphatically not recommended. It can leave the mouth parts behind, if nothing else.
30+ years ago we would use ether to remove them, and I enjoyed burning them afterwards, it was so satisfying...
Makes me wonder of what would happen when you'd use the tips of two blank wires connected to a 1.5V battery?
ZAP!
Could be made into a small USB-gadget, to have it always available? Zaptastick!
Another is Alpha Gal. It is a molecule carried in tick saliva that can cause serious allergies to red meat and even dairy. Because the molecule is in the saliva, it can be delivered immediately.
If someone doesn’t notice a tick then they aren’t going to be considering prophylactic treatment anyway. It’s for the cases where ticks are discovered.
Next to that, in The Netherlands we have a site to report tick bites and if they had lyme disease or not. It’s good to know if you should be extra vigilant after a bite from a certain area. I think the self-test could be very useful for such sites.
From what I understand, you're spot on with your last note. Larval stage can be extremely hard to see even when fully engorged. Adult-stage ticks (at least Deer Ticks) are the size of a large grain of cooked brown rice. I've seen fully engorged nymph-stage that rival the size of a grape...
This understanding will age like milk.
Otherwise just enjoy your life.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK545493/table/rc1121.ap...
I don’t think anyone removes a tick and sets it on its merry way.
And some even just pull them off and squish them a bit and then throw them down the toilet, bin, outside. Those very likely survive for a new bite.
I have no idea if that is actually necessary, but it's easy and I think that probably kills it.
But since you're being needlessly snarky about it (it's not productive to suggest killing "the rabbits and chipmunks and mice and squirrels"), here:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25118409/
>After hunts were initiated, number and frequency of deer observations in the community were greatly reduced as were resident-reported cases of Lyme disease. Number of resident-reported cases of Lyme disease per 100 households was strongly correlated to deer density in the community. Reducing deer density to 5.1 deer per square kilometer resulted in a 76% reduction in tick abundance, 70% reduction in the entomological risk index, and 80% reduction in resident-reported cases of Lyme disease in the community from before to after a hunt was initiated.
This is the way that "Loveless" (1991) was recorded, sans anesthesia.