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Comment by rukittenme | Hacker News Reader

I'm reading the comments about people spraying their yards for ticks and I'm astonished. I've been bit by hundreds of ticks throughout my life. My wife has never been bit and has a terrible fear of them. But for me it was just growing up in the woods. You went out and when you got back you pulled a few off your ankles and back. Now that I live in suburbia its much rarer but even when it does happen I just remove the tick and move on. I've never thought to seek medical treatment for it.

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I have hard time guessing if You are serious or just trolling. Lyme disease is no joke. It can destroy Your life. And first real symptoms often comes when damages done to nervous system are irreversible. My father had it and and lost ability to concentrate when reading text longer than one page. Son of my uncle almost died from it when he was 18. Even if You think You are healthy, You should test Yourself.

I know I'm healthy. There have been 420 confirmed cases of Lyme disease in Tennessee over the past 15 years. One person for every 250,000 will get infected in a given year. And even then, those people will only get infected if they leave the tick on themselves for 48 hours. Shower once daily and you're fine.

But let's pretend the tick is infected and the tick feeds for 48 hours. Take some antibiotics and you're fine. Lyme disease is stupidly easy to treat. And no it does not come upon you suddenly. There's a huge rash that covers the infected area.

I'm sorry for what happened to your father and uncle's son. Truly, I am. More awareness should be raised about Lyme disease. You don't need to fear it or spray your yards. If you see the rash go to a doctor.

It seems that Your country's ticks are way better than mine. I would gladly swap. According to my countrys newspapers (Im from Poland) there were at least 10000 confirmed cases of lyme last year. The main reason is that almost 40 percent of ticks here is infected. And the rash is optional. You can contract the disease and have first sympthoms after 10 years. But this is rather rare.

I see. I assumed you were American. I'll keep your words in mind if I visit Europe!

I don't think he's trolling. Lyme disease is no joke, but contracting Lyme from a tick bite is rare:

While many people are concerned after being bitten by a tick, the risk of acquiring a tick-borne infection is quite low, even if the tick has been attached, fed, and is actually carrying an infectious agent. Ticks transmit infection only after they have attached and then taken a blood meal from their new host. A tick that has not attached (and therefore has not yet become engorged from its blood meal) has not passed any infection. Since the deer tick that transmits Lyme disease typically feeds for >36 hours before transmission of the spirochete, the risk of acquiring Lyme disease from an observed tick bite, for example, is only 1.2 to 1.4 percent, even in an area where the disease is common.

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