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Comment by voisin | Hacker News Reader

Having to take a pill every few weeks seems like a major impediment to use. I could see certain hikers or forestry workers taking these pills but for your average few weekends a season camper, this isn’t the right solution given the cadence with which you need to take the pill.

What about the vaccine that was near approval a few decades ago?

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Taking a pill day before you hike does not sound like too bad imo. I would looove to be able to not care about getting red meat allergy while hiking.

Sounds about the same as needing to take Malaria pills when going near the equator.

Right, but the average person would go on a trip requiring these pills very, very sporadically. Imagine going camping or hiking irregularly throughout the year but needing to take these pills 20+ times? Seems crazy to me when there was an effective vaccine at one point.

Ticks carry a lot more than Lyme though, and many of the diseases they carry can have long-term or life-long effects. Even with a Lyme vaccine I think it'd be worth it to take these if you're gonna be in a tick-heavy area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powassan_virus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_spotted_fever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tularemia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babesiosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_syndrome

> Right, but the average person would go on a trip requiring these pills very, very sporadically. Imagine going camping or hiking irregularly throughout the year but needing to take these pills 20+ times?

Couldn't you just take it a few days before you go camping or hiking each time?

I live in an hot spot of tick borne Lyme disease (had Lyme once so far) so I would have to take these constantly as I'm constantly outside and I'm not hiking or in the woods. Ticks are everywhere here and with the lack of snow this winter they were active during the winter too.

Yeah I live on a rural property and I'd be uncomfortable taking something like this constantly through the season.

So far I have success keeping the grass short, discouraging deer on the property (tick magnets), and keeping the (two) dogs on Nexgard.

If they got worse, I'd get myself some guinea fowl to annoy the neighbours with.

I would love to have this pill available and don't see this as an issue. The ticks numbers really spike for about a month in the spring when they come out in force which is when I'd probably try to be on something like this. When spring dries out and turns to summer ticks are far less common here (Wisconsin) so you probably wouldn't be on it. Sometimes you'll get a little uptick in the fall but spring is the only time I'm really concerned about it.

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