♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists on the internet ♪
(cheerful tone)
- So you get the bite from the little, nasty creature.
You get the red.
You go into the doctor.
Is there a blood test or something to get a positive?
- And that's what's interesting, yes.
The tests are tricky, because it takes you,
and then you see online,
you can get all these online saying,
"Get tested for Lyme disease now."
These tests are great, but they're not great early on.
It takes about six or so weeks to develop antibodies.
So you have to have the disease for a while.
And that's the problem is sometimes
you just don't remember having a tick on you.
It's one thing when you see it like a wood tick.
We've all seen those.
Those are the big flatter ones
that you recognized right away.
Deer ticks, particularly if it's a nymph, are so dang small.
I don't know how you're gonna see it.
So it'll just sit there,
drop off you when it's had its fill, and move on.
I mean, that's literally what happens.
Little bastards. - (laughs) It's a family show!
- I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Nonetheless, I have an intense dislike for ticks.
I'm sorry.
- Yeah, well, that's understandable,
because you've been diagnosed with the antibody,
so you've had it for a while.
- They didn't do the lab.
I forgoed having the lab test done,
because it was pretty obvious with the rash
and some of the other symptoms,
the cardiac symptoms I was experiencing.
And so the doctor felt like, no,
we're just gonna throw you on an antibiotic for a month.
And that's what happened.
And I'm good to go.
- Yeah, 'cause I remember we were biking.
We were doing some sprints,
and Chris is typically faster than I am.
And I was like keeping up with him almost passing him
like, yeah, I'm getting in better shape.
And then, Chris says says that,
"Something's going on with my heart."
It's like was it a heart attack or what?
We found out it was from the Lyme.
- Yeah, but it still took another, what, five, six weeks
for me to get better from that with antibiotic therapy too.
I mean, I didn't really come around until about last week.
- Yeah.
What about the rash?
Is that clear? - Rash is gone.
Rash went away last week.
So went away last Saturday to be honest.
So I had the rash for five weeks,
and that's about normal.
And it's it's and it spreads too.
So it's not always just located where you get the bite.
It can go all over.
I mean, I ended up, I had it here, here,
wrist, arm legs.
So I had it all over,
and that's more common than what people believe.
- You got bit where?
- Right here kind of in the groin area.
- That's very interesting,
'cause that's exactly where I got bit.
- Yep, and it is.
They're sneaky little buggers.
I mean, they like to go where they're not gonna be seen,
'cause it takes them a while to feed.
And they'll hang out and feed for a long, long time
to engage themselves, like days.
So I mean, it's one of those things.
And so if you do get a tick on you,
the best way to remove it is thin nose tweezers
where basically you want to grab right by the head
at the base where the tick is actually inside you,
and you want to pull straight out.
You don't want to twist, 'cause if you twist,
you can leave the mouthpieces in there.
And the mouthpieces pieces are barbed,
so they can get a good attachment,
so they can just suck away.
So it allows them...
They're, I'll call it, one of nature's impressive beasts,
because they know what they're doing.
I mean, they inject you with an anesthetic,
so you can't feel them.
Like I said, they're sneaky little buggers.
So they feed, they drop off, and they move on.
But what most disease specialists suggest
is that it has to be in place for 24 to 36 hours for you
to actually even pick up Lyme disease.
So it's not common.
Not every tick bite's going to infect you.
And that's why the nymphs are so dangerous,
'cause we can't even see those things.
Whereas, an adult you're like, "Oh, I got a tick on me."
And so we take care of business.
- Right.
The only other thing before we get into some treatment
and how to avoid getting these bites, this started,
this was discovered in the United States 1970s?
- Yeah, 1975, Lyme, Connecticut.
- So that's how it got its name.
- Yep, that's how it's named, Lyme, Connecticut.
And basically a woman had just recognized
that basically was 51 cases that this woman observed,
and 39 of them were kids,
and they all had basically arthritis.
So that's unusual, kids under the age of 14
having a big swollen joints, pain,
and as the progression went on,
I mean, there was more and more studies.
I mean, Yale kind of started to pioneer
most of the studies with it.
And then there was also a very special Willy Burgdorfer.
He was the guy that basically isolated the disease.
And in '82 it was named Lyme disease officially.
And like by 1987, it was a named disease state.
- But then by that time it had been spreading.
And it seems like in the last five or 10 years of spreading-
- Last 20 years it's been pretty dramatic.
And then we'll see if we can attach that
to the end of this too.
You can just kind of see the spread.
It's actually a scatter map where they use little tiny dots
to just show cases.
And you can see out east and through Minnesota
and Wisconsin in particular. - So we're in that area.
- Right, basically if you look in the United States map,
I90, they call it the tick highway.
- That's that interstate section going right by La Crosse.
- So it's kind of interesting.
Like I said, it's the number one
vector-borne illness around.
So, ticks, as I said, there's an egg.
They're disease-free.
They attach to a mouse.
They get bigger.
They go to the nymph, and they find a bigger blood meal,
and then they're adults.
- And evidently, they do go to deer,
and I don't know how that name-
- Deer, people.
It's just mammals, but I mean, I think they find them,
and actually it's a black-legged tick,
but we call them deer ticks specifically.
- How do we prevent it?
That's a big topic.
- Yeah, prevention is kind of interesting.
This is where I kind of look at both natural
and chemical treatments.
There's a lot of repellents out there.
They hate the smell of lemons.
They hate the smell of eucalyptus.
So those are more natural treatments
that do repel, as well as DEET,
and you want something like 20% DEET,
but a lot of people are not crazy about DEET,
because some people can get some nervous system problems
with excessive DEET exposure.
And when you compare it to permethrin,
which is an extract from chrysanthemum, the flower,
mums would be another,
so when you look at that one,
the half percent permethrin is actually a...
I sort of choked on my words,
(Brad chuckles) I apologize, permethrin,
that one seems to be more effective.
In a lot of cases, when you treat your clothing with it
and let it dry,
I mean, a tick will curl up and fall right off.
They cannot deal with permethrin
but DEET is not quite as effective.
- Permethrin, where do you get that?
- You can get it online.
You can go to like a Cabela's.
You can go to just any kind of outdoorsy store.
- And just look at the active ingredient?
- Yeah, and if you just go
and you go to their bug repellent area
like probably the camping section
would be most sporting good stores or online,
you want a good permethrin based, and it's 0.5%.
And you can treat you clothes with it.
It's not generally recommended to put directly on your skin,
but you can put it on your shoes.
I mean, prevention is the key to avoiding tick bites.
So when you're outside,
we want to make sure we're wearing pants.
We want to tuck our socks into our pants.
Don't look too cool,
but it definitely works to keep them-
- Just cover up.
The longer the sock, probably the better
depending on if you're gonna layer like you said.
Keep them, so they have to work to get to your skin.
- Exactly.
And then, it's like when they're out there
when ticks are on the hunt, so to speak,
I mean, they detect our CO2 and our perspiration and smells.
So they're really sensitive, little critters.
- They can sense that? - Like a mosquito does.
They sense your breathing, your CO2.
- How do they?
Do they ask them or what?
- I don't know. (Brad laughs)
Well, I would take a room of 1,000 ticks,
and I would actually start
to individually question each one,
because that's how I roll.
- Sometimes you wonder how they know, but anyways.
- They've figured it out,
some smarter people than you or I, for sure.
(both laugh)
- Bugologists.
- Yeah, there you go, etymologists. (laughs)
But they found that they're pretty...
What they do when they're hunting, they call them a quest.
So I don't know if they're into like "Lords of the Ring"
or something, but they call it questing.
So they kind of hang out on leaves and blades of grass,
and they kind of extend their legs.
And you walk by,
they'll just kind of sneak right on aboard,
and then they're gonna start looking for a place to eat.
- Kind of like Velcro, or it just catches.
- Yeah, kind of.
They're sneaky, and they're opportunistic,
but they sense you coming, and they're ready.
And so they just know that there's gonna be a meal
on their way.
So they just see meal tickets.
So they don't care if you're a person, a deer, a mouse,
a bird, lizards.
They found it on all sorts of different things.
So once they attach, they go to...
And usually know your bites are gonna be the hairline
and the groin area in particular,
because those are not areas that people readily check.
So if you've been hiking...
Oh, the other thing, while we're talking about prevention
before I digress too far, when you're walking on trails,
try and walk more in the middle away from.
And in your yards, keep everything kind of pruned.
So if you're on a wooded lot,
you want to make sure everything's kind of trimmed back.
Mow your lawn regularly.
- Walking through tall grass, brush, or-
- Those are prime targets.
So those are the things that you want to do to avoid.
And then when you get back,
either use a mirror, so you can check your body, backside,
all the weird cracks and crevices
you normally don't look at,
'cause that's where they're gonna be,
or just a trusted loved one
that can kind of look your real quick.
- What time of year is it most prevalent?
Temperature wise I'm assuming.
- Temperature wise is kind of interesting.
They like the hot and humid is what's ideal,
but it can...
Like you said, you were talking about deer hunting.
Deer hunting is a prime opportunity.
Even though it's colder,
the adults are out looking for a meal.
But it's more prevalent in spring and summer.
But you can get bit in the winter, even as low.
You used to think that it had to be
like a 70 or 80 degree day for a tick to be active.
Well, they found ticks are active in the 40s
like in December in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
So you get that nice day, and you're out there,
they'll hide in the underbrush and leaves,
so it's not really snow packed.
So you just have to be mindful
that it's kind of a year round problem.
And because we're such a mobile society,
if you end up with symptoms, just make sure you say,
"Hey, I was in a tick area.
"Can I be checked for Lyme?"
Especially if you're like in a stage two
where it's been like four weeks or a couple of months,
and you got weird symptoms,
you don't know what the heck's going on,
and they can't figure it out,
just, "Oh, I was in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania,
"New York, New Hampshire, wherever."
But those are all high tick bearing areas.
And let's not forget about our friends over across the pond.
There are very similar tick-borne diseases in Europe
and UK and those areas as well.
So it's good to be mindful of these types of infections.
And the treatments are gonna be the same
no matter where you go.
- Okay, so they're gonna work with the antibiotic
for that bacteria.
- Exactly, and so the primary one is doxycycline,
which is a tetracycline antibiotic.
So it's usually 100... (Brad laughs)
I know.
(Brad laughs)
- Lots of words. - Lots of words,
but it's the drug of choice.
You want to be on it from 14 to 28 days depending.
The studies vary.
I would tell you three weeks to four weeks
is probably most ideal,
because it's a tricky thing to test.
I mean, there's some studies that say seven
to 10 days is enough.
I flatly disagree with those.
I think that I've seen enough people in my profession
come back, "Man, I'm back for more."
And it's just it didn't treat it.
So, I mean, if we treat it long enough
and strong enough right out of the gates, that's great.
But what do you do if you're allergic
to tetracycline type drugs like doxycycline?
Well, then you can use amoxicillin,
which is a penicillin based or Ceftriaxone,
which is a cephalosporin based drug.
- And that's all your doctor will refer?
- Your doctor's gonna take care of business.
So you don't necessarily have to...
I mean, your doctor's gonna know,
but those are the big three drugs.
Basically, it's doxycycline to amoxicillin.
If you're allergic to penicillin,
then you go to Ceftriaxone.
So that's kind of the progression.
- All right, well, everything I wanted to know more
and sometimes less, but very interesting, very informative.
I learned a ton that I didn't know about
these little creatures.
- Yeah, I learned more than I wanted to,
but I felt like I was forced to.
- And you're feeling much better.
- I feel much better 100%.
- Absolutely. - So it's treatable, guys,
and the sooner. the better.
So if you do recognize just weird stuff,
think about where you've been,
and let your doctor know that you were in a tick area,
'cause oftentimes Lyme's is missed.
Let's say you live in Florida,
there's cases where people had heart transplants,
because they missed the Lyme's diagnosis.
So that's how bad it can get.
So it's one of those things that it goes long.
You can have basically chronic Lyme's disease,
so it's just we got to pay attention.
Just be knowledgeable about it.
Just remember, could I have been somewhere outside
where I got bit by a tick?
You've got one of the most active audiences I know,
so that means you guys are out there doing,
which is the best thing for you.
We just have to be smart about it.
- Sure.
All right, very good.
Thank you, Chris.
We appreciate the wonderful information.
And be careful and tick-free.
- Thanks, guys. (cheerful tone)