[JayCT]

What makes you think it is not a problem where you live??? It is not a known problem but it is a problem. As noted in my earlier post, my cousin in Florida has Lyme and she has not been anywhere near CT in 35 years. Where she lives the doctors kept saying it did not exist and she kept saying it did. She has done a lot of research and was finally tested and guess what, she had it. She has since found many others who have it as well in her area. The big difference is that here in CT we have doctors that discovered it and therefore know it exists. We are not in denial. Jay

[JViello]

Originally Posted by J&A'sMOM

That's because ticks like it wet!!! and CT is wetter than NJ -

Maybe they just don't like all the toll roads in Jersey.

[Yankeerose00]

Doctors can be some of the most hard headed people. Last year I woke up in the middle of the night scratching my shoulder. I went into the bathroom and found a deer tick in me. We were still living in Virginia at that time. A couple of days later, I felt very weak and had a low fever. I was kind of paranoid that it was lyme so I went to the doctor.
As I'm telling him I found a deer tick in my shoulder and now I feel like I'm getting sick and I want to be tested for lyme, he starts grinning and shaking his head, like I'm telling him the most outlandish story. He's says "you don't have lyme". I had to insist on the test. It did come back negative so apparently it was just a coincidence that I was sick a couple days later. But why was the doctor so smug and sure that it could not possibly be lyme?

Deer and woods have been around a lot longer than 25 years, so how did this disease come about? It seems unfair to blame deer and say they need to be "culled"

[J&A'sMOM]

You have to be tested 2 weeks after you get the tick bite to test positive and also because of the nature of Lyme only 50% of the tests come back positive. That's why a lot of CT docs give the 21 - one month Rx of antibiotics immediately even if they guess you could have it. My docs says we treat it like you have it unless proven otherwise.

[njguy]

Originally Posted by JViello

Maybe they just don't like all the toll roads in Jersey.

LOL! Maybe so especially if they have to pay the NY tolls before getting there.

[njguy]

Originally Posted by JayCT

What makes you think it is not a problem where you live??? It is not a known problem but it is a problem. As noted in my earlier post, my cousin in Florida has Lyme and she has not been anywhere near CT in 35 years. Where she lives the doctors kept saying it did not exist and she kept saying it did. She has done a lot of research and was finally tested and guess what, she had it. She has since found many others who have it as well in her area. The big difference is that here in CT we have doctors that discovered it and therefore know it exists. We are not in denial. Jay

Jay let me put it to you this way,

I've lived in my area all of my life (40 somewhat years) and with all the people, doctors and the like I have spoken with they have not heard or know any one that has had Lyme ever.

Maybe strange, but I'm in an area where the deer and the antelope don't even come close to playing.

Maybe it does exist, but not from the mouths of any nor any newspaper publication.

[njguy]

Originally Posted by J&A'sMOM

You have to be tested 2 weeks after you get the tick bite to test positive and also because of the nature of Lyme only 50% of the tests come back positive. That's why a lot of CT docs give the 21 - one month Rx of antibiotics immediately even if they guess you could have it. My docs says we treat it like you have it unless proven otherwise.

YIKES!!! I couldn't be that patient as I'd wanna find out immediately.

[HeadedWest]

Originally Posted by Yankeerose00

Deer and woods have been around a lot longer than 25 years, so how did this disease come about? It seems unfair to blame deer and say they need to be "culled"

The deer population in the northeast is skyrocketing. Hunting pressure is declining and deer thrive in suburbs like CT has (with lots of trees).

Even outside the suburbs deer are ravaging the forests. In the Allegheny National Forest in western Pennsylvania, they have gone so far as to fence off tracts of forest (and it is HARD to build a deer-proof fence) because deer are killing off the most valuable trees that forest produces (hard cherry, used in fine furniture). The deer eat the seedlings so trees never get started. Fencing out deer so you can get trees started is at best a desperation move.

People who try to grow anything (including home plantings) where deer live usually end up referring to them as "hooved rats".

Yes, they are graceful and beautiful. But there are way too many of them.

[JViello]

Originally Posted by njguy

YIKES!!! I couldn't be that patient as I'd wanna find out immediately.

It feels like nothing more than a mosquito bite. A little red bump and itchy. IF it's Lyme, that gets worse, the "bite" center then gets a little scab and the area around it get red and very itchy. About a week or two later the joint pain etc sets in. I got Lyme on my honeymoon. Honest. It wasn't until I got home the "flu" set in. I saw the doctor and that was that.

The test came up negative for me as well, he looked at the bite, spun in his chair and said "you got Lyme" as he started reported it to the state CDC online.

For me it really was no big deal. Fire ant bites are IMO 20 times worse and you usually get a few dozen of them before you realize what's going on.

Originally Posted by HeadedWest

The deer population in the northeast is skyrocketing. Hunting pressure is declining and deer thrive in suburbs like CT has (with lots of trees).

Even outside the suburbs deer are ravaging the forests. In the Allegheny National Forest in western Pennsylvania, they have gone so far as to fence off tracts of forest (and it is HARD to build a deer-proof fence) because deer are killing off the most valuable trees that forest produces (hard cherry, used in fine furniture). The deer eat the seedlings so trees never get started. Fencing out deer so you can get trees started is at best a desperation move.

People who try to grow anything (including home plantings) where deer live usually end up referring to them as "hooved rats".

Yes, they are graceful and beautiful. But there are way too many of them.

I live in Manchester. MANCHESTER, not Coventry. Yes I'm in a wooded area of town with a few miles of woods backed up to my property...but we have a serious deer problem here. I go through quarts of "Deer Off" every month or I lose my garden and landscaping.

There is always some form of deer carcass on I384 at one time or another.

They also attract Coyotes, and that leads to other bad issues in the neighborhood.

I called the state DEP and if we so much as even pet the damn thing it's illegal. Coyotes included.

I came up with some creative ways to at least take care of the coyotes as it was getting bad.

Bottom line, I agree that we have a massive deer population problem, and the tick is just a carrier like a mosquito. The deer are the ones with the bacteria.

[Stratford, Ct. Resident]

Originally Posted by JViello

I called the state DEP and if we so much as even pet the damn thing it's illegal. Coyotes included.

You reminded me of something that happened last year. I was on a property in New Canaan close to town(~.33 acre zone) and a deer started walking toward me! I had to back away from the damn thing!!!!!! If i were a hunter, i probably would've been crying my eyes out!!!! They are getting very bold now, and that's not a good thing. If it keeps going the way that it has been heading, it's only a matter of time before we start hearing about unattended toddlers getting trampled in their yards by a friendly deer.