Male: We are in the midst of the spring—summer season is usual and we are going to hear on TV, “Oh you cannot wear short pants going in the woods.” That there is something to worry about tics and the talk about a disease called Lyme disease. First of all, Lyme Disease—it is named after a fruit, where did this name come from?
Female: Lyme disease is a disease that is coming after a tic bite or is coming secondary to a tic bite. What is a tic? A tic is this little black bug that are living in the deer in the fields or—
Male: But you practice in Brooklyn and I looked around, I do not see any deer walking around the park.
Female: So this is what happens. This Lyme disease actually is a small little bacteria that is living inside the tic and the way that the tics get this disease is because they normally are carried by a deer so they get the disease from the deer, they keep it inside them.
Male: Wait, deer have Lyme disease?
Female: The deer, they do not have Lyme disease, they are just having these little infection inside their body so that the tic is feeding—
Male: It is their way of getting even with the hunters probably?
Female: No, that is not really true. The deer is let us say somewhere in upstate New York—
Male: So they are just harboring the infection, but are not affected by it, is that correct?
Female: Exactly.
Male: It is the delivery service.
Female: Exactly. This is the way it works. So unfortunately, upstate New York and the whole area of New York is a healthy place for Lyme disease and the reason for that is because we know that these little bacteria that is living in the deer are present in here and we know that the tics are the delivery system in between the deer and ourselves and normally, what is happening is like, over the summer time, when it is really the time where we are all having skin exposed, we get these bites from the tics and sometimes, we can be sick immediately after the tic is biting us, but sometimes this is going completely, completely undiagnosed.
Male: Well the word Lyme came, not from New York, it came from Connecticut, is this correct?
Female: Yes.
Male: It was first discovered in a town called Lyme, Connecticut.
Female: Exactly and that is the reason why we still call this condition Lyme disease.
Male: I guess many years ago, but not, I have got to get my head correct in this whole thing. So if a tic—first of all what does a tic look like, is it a big tic or a little tic?
Female: It is a very, very mini little black dot. I would say—
Male: A pencil dot?
Female: Yes, something like that, although after a few days, it can grow because it can stick in your skin, but initially, you can completely miss that because it is like a pencil dot kind of mark. It is a black little tiny dot in the skin.
Male: So the first rule is to make sure that the tic does not get you.
Female: Exactly.
Male: So if you are walking in the woods or you are in the woody area, long pants, long sleeves. Is there any chemicals you can put on so the tic cannot bite you?
Female: I am not aware about anything that can prevent for you to get a tic bite. It has been recommended sometimes, but we know definitely that kids can get tic bites anyway.
Male: So you should check the kid if they went in the woods?
Female: I will recommend every night shower time to look carefully through the skin and make sure that there is no tics in the skin.
Male: And the tic has to be in your body, not for a few minutes, it has got to be there for a couple of days, is that true?
Female: Actually, well, sometimes it is not necessarily a few days, but at least long enough to make sure that the infection is going into your blood.
Male: And then every tic has Lyme disease?
Female: No.
Male: I heard that the ratio is 1:200 or something like that.
Female: Average. The problem with Lyme is that sometimes, you do not have any manifestation of anything, nothing is happening to you at the time that the tic is biting you or the time that you have been exposed to the tic bite. So a few months after the exposure, close to fall time, close to winter time, that is the time where no Lyme is coming to play into the rheumatologists office.
Male: So in other words, if you get a tic bite, you should run to a doctor and it is just about the time you are bit by a tic, is that true?
Female: Yes, we can say that.
Male: Because it seems that people, oh I saw the tic. It was on my skin, I brushed it off. I need antibiotics for three weeks.
Female: No that is not true.
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