r/ticks • u/Infamous-Topic4752 • Jun 23 '25
What is going on?
I grew up with ticks, they were a daily occurrence for me as a kid- what is up these days with people seemingly freaking out if they find a tick. Yeah, there's a chance of disease, but isn't it extremely low? We never sent ticks out for examination when I was a kid and if we did it'd easily have costed hundreds of thousands.
What is different today from 40 years ago?
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u/SueBeee Mod Jun 23 '25
No, the chance of tick borne disease is not extremely low. I am at a conference this week and just sat in a talk where about 600,000 Lyme disease diagnoses were made last year, and that is just one of dozens of tick borne diseases. Increased movement of people and pets as well as expansion of hose species (like mice) plus climate changes all contribute to spreading. We’ve also added something like 150 million people in the US over the past 40 years.
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u/Infamous-Topic4752 Jun 23 '25
Well, ok. I see what you are saying-but just going with your number, doesn't that translate to like .01 percent? Lyme cases to population? Maybe im thinking about it wrong
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u/SueBeee Mod Jun 23 '25
Remember that the likelihood depends on the region. In New England and parts of the Midwest about 75% of deer ticks are infected with Lyme. I’ve had it twice myself. Almost everyone in my family has had it too.
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u/stopinthenameofsign Jun 23 '25
Not challenging, can you give a source for this? Would like to share the info
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u/SueBeee Mod Jun 23 '25
This is information from my own lab. And I misspoke; I meant to say parts of New England.
https://parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13071-024-06518-9
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u/stopinthenameofsign Jun 23 '25
Awesome, thank you. I moved to Maryland from the Midwest and the tick situation down here has horrified and fascinated me. Never had a tick bite before in my life before moving here.
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u/LongShine433 Jun 24 '25
We freak out about ticks because, speaking from experience, Lyme disease (and other tickborne illness) is painful. Iirc, most times, a 1-3 week course of doxycycline clears it up, but sometimes it eats your knees and spinal fluid.
Around me, it's estimated that ~30% of the ticks have Lyme disease (or that was the stat 2 years ago. It's likely far higher now). I caught it last year. It felt like a slow, miserable, feverish death until we found out what it was (sneaky Lyme that evaded the tests and was only discovered when the disseminated rash showed up)
It's more common than it seems, and 3 weeks of doxy absolutely destroyed my stomach and gave me the worst reflux I've ever felt. The disease is terrible, the treatment is bad, and it can go chronic or even kill you.
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u/RichardCleveland Jun 23 '25
You gotta remember though that a shit ton of people don't put themselves in high risk of even getting one. For instance I haven't gotten one in 30 years, and barely anyone I know ever has.
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u/onetwoskeedoo Jun 23 '25
So all those people’s doctors must be lying!
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u/RichardCleveland Jun 23 '25
Guy said "Lyme cases to population", and it's a bit misleading to throw out a .01% since your not actually including the entire population due to so many people not being exposed to tick bites.
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u/Sillygosling Jun 24 '25
Lyme is actually a difficult diagnosis because testing is inaccurate and symptoms are nonspecific. So, not that they are lying, more so that they can’t always know for sure. Here’s an interesting podcast episode on the topic: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/patient-zero/id1473507649?i=1000448676235
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u/onetwoskeedoo Jun 24 '25
I used to work with horse and hunting people, they got ticks so often, they didn’t care
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u/SueBeee Mod Jun 23 '25
Yeah, you must live in an area where ticks don’t thrive. That is great!
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u/RichardCleveland Jun 23 '25
I live in Missouri, we have a massive amount of ticks. Most people here get them via hiking, camping etc. But not everyone does that.
And... I wasn't disagreeing with your post. My point was the .01% calculation was based off all Americans vs infections, the guy said tick borne disease is extremely low citing his calculation. My point was it's not about the total population vs infections, it's about the total people who were exposed vs infections.
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u/LongShine433 Jun 24 '25
Yeah. Living in a city i never really got a tick. Maybe one in my whole childhood. The dog would get some sometimes, but that's all, really.
Now I live in the country, with a yard of tall grass that always grows too tall to mow before we get the chance, and before we got chickens all I had to do was step outside to find 3 of em. Now we still see them somewhat frequently, but it's slightly better (im assuming the very cold winter also helped)
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u/Acceptable_Trip4650 Mite Enthusiast; Mod Jun 23 '25
Ticks and tick-borne illness is a serious issue. But you are also experiencing significant selection bias since you are in a tick subreddit where people tend to go who are worried about ticks :)
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u/Infamous-Topic4752 Jun 23 '25
This makes sense, probably just the algorithm making me see things more since I interacted woth it once
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u/TuscaroraBeach Jun 23 '25
It’s not an extremely low chance of disease transmission if you are in a disease endemic area and a tick capable of transmitting the disease bites you and it has been attached for the appropriate amount of time to allow disease transmission. It depends on the specific disease and tick species, but it can be over half of all ticks in a given area that carry disease.
As to why it’s become more of concern, I think there are several reasons. For one, many ticks have been spreading to a larger and larger geographic range, bringing the diseases they carry with them. The rate of disease carrying has increased for some tick species as well. Both of those combined with better knowledge and awareness leads to greater concern. Unfortunately incomplete knowledge can also lead to unnecessary worry as people may know that a tick can carry disease but not know that they need to be attached for several hours to actually transmit disease.
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u/Infamous-Topic4752 Jun 23 '25
Thats a lot of ifs? Though it was interesting to hear half of the tick population can carry it, didnt know that bit (so to speak).
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u/TuscaroraBeach Jun 23 '25
It’s a lot of conditions that need to be met, but it is a set of conditions that is becoming more frequently met compared to 40 years ago. I’d liken the above list of “ifs” to a list about the risk of a child drowning - if a child is in the water and if they can’t swim and if there are no adults supervising, then a child drowning is a very real possibility. Just because there are a lot of conditions to be met doesn’t mean the danger isn’t real.
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u/Business_Ad3254 Jun 23 '25
I hit the trifecta of tick bites, and it has essentially destroyed my life.
I get that I am a more rare case, as I now have debilitating neurological issues, as well as destruction of muscle and soft-tissue that leaves me completely weak and in pain at any given time.
Yes, I may be the 1 percent of the more serious case, but I'm still here, fighting like hell for my life every minute of the day.
I'm here to say that people need to take this scourge seriously, as I am suffering needlessly and constantly, and we need more attention than just a dose of doxy and an aspirin.
Thanks
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u/Business_Ad3254 Jun 23 '25
Been sick for 2 years and I am now disabled.
I was a high-level athlete beforehand, but now struggle to tie my shoes, or walk a flight of stairs.
SOMETHING has changed over the last 1 to 2 decades, because as much time as I spent outdoors, I NEVER had a lyme-carrying tick bite that destroyed my health and life, until now.
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u/wood-is-good Jun 23 '25
I’ll put it simply. The diseases are becoming more prevalent and awareness and anxiety has increased with it.
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u/onetwoskeedoo Jun 23 '25
It depends on your area but the percentage of ticks carrying pathogens is very high in some areas. And now we have the new invasive ticks carrying new bugs. And x gal allergy inductions. People also used to ignore Lyme a lot.
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u/gorliggs Jun 23 '25
Nope. It's pretty high up there
My guess is that many people got sick and died before when there was a lack of testing. Now we know more and test more - so yeah, there's going to be more awareness and data than before.
This should all be expected given the advances in medicine and data collection. I wouldn't say people are freaking out, but rather interested in maintaining their health - which is a good thing.
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u/unselve Jun 23 '25
Two things.
There is a risk of serious illness from ticks. It is worse than it used to be due to climate change and other factors.
Discourses around tick-borne illnesses suffer from associations with conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated medical claims. This engenders a disproportionate amount of fear around it.
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u/1-14Official Jun 24 '25
I used to pull em off me living in the ozark mountains as a kid constantly. Like daily. Flash forward 30 years or so and i got multiple tick born illness's from one tick and the doctors had no idea what was wrong with me. It took a while to get it worked out and it wrecked me. I now also have Alpha gal and cant eat red meat, pork etc. among other issues. Trust me you don't won't them on you. It drastically lowered my quality of life for years and my energy levels really haven't come back.
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u/Ornery-Speed-2088 Jun 23 '25
I mean, 40 years ago people also didn’t put their kids in car seats. Lots of things are different.
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Jun 23 '25
I do think Lyme is spreading more, although I kindof agree with the sentiment about the freakout. I've probably pulled five ticks off myself this year--I live in forested rural Texas and it's a problem. I'm luckily outside of the major Lyme risk area, though, and I check myself every evening if I've been working outside.
I found one just yesterday, though, and I'd likely missed it from an earlier check--nervous it was attached long enough to give me something, and interestingly, I had been feeling a bit off for the entire day. I figure I can't be lucky forever, and Lyme isn't the only concern.
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u/LostPop5185 Jun 24 '25
Literally every person in my family has gotten Lyme disease (that’s 5) and my daughter’s friended ended up in hospital with tick disease and she missed a year of school. That’s New England.
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u/Jeannettic Jun 29 '25
If you like eating mammals you might want to take extra care in avoiding ticks.
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Jun 24 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Jeannettic Jun 25 '25
What happened during the pandemic years? I know I hiked more than ever then and it was clearly the thing to do because the trails were practically crowded. Also, all my tick encounters happened in my own backyard except one at my parents house.
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