@AdamW: That’s great news. Gives me some hope, as when you get sucked into the Lyme rabbit-hole, you mainly come across people who are suffering, so it’s good to hear a positive story.

@yorkshire89
No, I’m afraid that’s not thought to be true now, but the longer it’s attached the more chance it has of passing it on. [Although it was policy in my NHS area to give prophylaxis antibiotic if the tick had been attached >24hrs, but this has been dropped now – it can affect whether you get the rash, affect future test results].

On the bright side, the overwhelming odds are that the tick wasn’t carrying Lyme. Studies I’ve seen found less 5% most areas, and up to ~10% in hotspots.
On the down side, ticks carry other nasties!!

Keep an eye on the bite site for any kind of rash, and any strange symptoms. If you have any – get to your GP and ask for antibiotics. This will buy you time to train to be your own doctor and find out how it really needs to be treated to give yourself the best chance tackling it.

There are currently 3 government reviews into Lyme, and NICE are reviewing their guidelines.
Here’s hoping they won’t be a whitewash.

The US [IDSA] guidelines have been ‘removed’ from the official ‘repository’ of documents, and are under review.
The EU has given 2m euro to a Dutch company to commercialise a, hopefully, more reliable/sensitive test.

I am still suffering 4 months after tick bite, but the NHS say I never had it, and if I did the antibiotics I’ve had will have fully cured it, despite many papers showing persistence and relapse. A diagnosis of CFS and Fibromyalgia awaits, along with accompanying anti-depressants. I just want to be able to get out on my bike again!!!

Sensitivity of current tests

@Jamb:
It’s worse that that. With Lyme they know the current tests are poor, but not only stick their fingers in their ears, they swear black is blue that the tests are definitive and refuse any further treatment, then call it a made up title of ‘Post Treatment Lyme Disease’ or use the fact there is no test for CFS or Fybro to chuck you into that waste basket and “Oh dear, no cure. Don’t come back”

Apologies for for dredging this up again, but on radio this morning:
Broadcasting House – R4 31.7.16
[Starts at 33:12]
Those wise Scottish ladies don’t wear shorts 🙂

So, get out and enjoy the Sun 8) but be careful, and CHECK FOR TICKS!!

Also,Same story on BBC website

Cute French chipmunks are at it now[/url]
Also from above article:
“The number of new cases in humans per year in France has risen three-fold in the past 12 years, from 10,000 in 2013 to 27,000 in 2015.
By contrast, fewer than 400 new cases per year are reported in England and Wales.”
Does this sound plausible?

Nosilife review:
Managed a short easy forest walk today. Found a tick on my sock when taking them off after walk [trousers tucked into socks against ticks – good look] I never checked for ticks before I was bitten [this is only second walk I’ve managed after tick bite and subsequent symptoms], so it makes me think how many ticks/bites I’ve had over many years in the great outdoors.
Anyhow, I was wearing Nosilife trousers, so put the tick on the trouser leg to see how effective the fabric is. The tick did eventually fall off [not dead, but didn’t look very lively], but it had walked about for over a minute, and made it up 3/4 length of my leg. If it had landed on my Nosilife shirt it could easily have made it to the collar and onto my neck, or down the sleeve onto my hand/arm, or between the buttons onto my torso. So Nosilife isn’t foolproof – you still need to….
CHECK FOR TICKS

slowoldgit: Would be interested if you have info on possible private drs, etc. Contact details in profile

Also Permethrin Spray

The despicable Sports Direct have some cheap prices on ladies Nosilife clothing.

We are fully Nosilife and permethrin and smidge kitted out now.
Horse/bolted I know 😳

@poah: OK, I retract my bllx statement. I was wrong.

I don’t want to detract from what I assume was c_g’s intent when starting the thread – to highlight the increase in cases as a PSA to everyone (as was the intent behind my contributions)
KEEP CHECKING FOR TICKS

Thanks for info.
C_G: Will email you later today.

SOG:
In one way I am lucky as I saw the feeding tick and got symptoms a week or so later, so have been able to connect the two and have opportunity to try to do something.
I understand that people can go months/years with no symptoms, or mild symptoms that they overlook until it starts to get serious.

I have been in touch with LDA[/url] who are accredited by the ‘Information Standard’ for giving health information. They operate an email advice service for the public.
They advised that there can be the full range of symptom severity and timescales.
Every symptom I had/have could be explained individually by something else other than the tick bite, but I feel I had a lifetimes worth of aliments/pains in a day. Individual symptoms lasted for hours to days – it was/is weird.
At the moment I’m still on antibiotics [run out next week] and the symptoms are less severe and I only have two or three at a time, but the combination of pains still change on a day to day basis, and I will get shooting pains in one place for an hour, then joint pain somewhere else for 10 minutes.

This is a good reason to CHECK FOR TICKS, as you can monitor how you or your kids feel, and note if there are any patterns of even mild symptoms after a tick bite, and can mention this to your GP. If you don’t know you have been bitten, a tick borne infection will probably not even be considered or tested for.

@simmy
Now that I’m in the “been bitten by a tick and 7 days later start feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck and been mainlining absinthe” world, stories like your neighbours seem to be tragically common, and it’s what I’m trying to avoid.

My GP has been good, but readily admit they know nothing about Lyme or other tick borne infections, so has come to the end of the line of what they are able to do.

I’m looking for private Drs in UK who know about Lyme, but from what I can gather there aren’t any.
[There are stories of a few being warned by GMC, and have stopped deviating from the inadequate NHS guidelines].
There seems to be one big name clinic in the UK who treat Lyme, but I can’t afford their prices.
Anyone know of a private Dr who is sympathetic to tick borne infection patients?

Viable spirochetes found in genital cultures

[/quote]“Conclusions: The culture of viable Borrelia spirochetes in genital secretions suggests that Lyme disease could be transmitted by intimate contact from person to person. Further studies are needed to evaluate this hypothesis.”

“Genital cultures from the four controls were incubated for four weeks. None of the control cultures contained visible spirochetes, and the cultures were sent for PCR testing. Genital cultures from the 11 patients were incubated for four weeks and checked weekly. Motile spirochetes were observed in the culture fluid from all 11 patients after four weeks (Figure 1A).”

“Most genital cultures grew very well and contained abundant spirochetes….”

Either way, my message is still:
BE CAREFUL OUT THERE: CHECK FOR TICKS!!!!!

whimbrel – Member
it is found in semen and vaginal fluid
Thats bollox BTW, not found in breast milk either.

Source:
Lyme in semen and vaginal secretions[/url]

Obviously, I don’t know one way or the other.

OoB: The odds are overwhelming in her favour; ~95% of ticks don’t carry Lyme.

The Public Health England document on Lyme, says about children:
“Facial palsy, headache and fever in tick season (April to October) has been shown to predict Lyme disease in children”

So just keep an eye out for anything like that rather than the vague “flu-like symptoms” guideline.
[…and the bulls-eye rash, which I believe can crop up weeks/months later – and not necessarily at the original bite site].

Evidently it can be passed from mother to baby during pregnancy, it is found in semen and vaginal fluid, it survives the storage temperatures and durations of blood stored for transfusions.

Apologies for being evangelical, but:
CHECK FOR TICKS!!

I’m at the start of issues after a known tick bite. You are on your own.

Most GP’s don’t see a lot of tick bites and therefore don’t know what to do.
The NHS tests give 40% to 50% FALSE negative results, and if you don’t get a positive test result, you don’t get treatment. You will be on your own, and after 3 months it’s classed as chronic and much more difficult to treat.

The symptoms I have are life changing and I dread to think that I will have these the rest of my life.

I was given ‘inadequate’ antibiotics early after the bite, which ‘abrogates’ the antibody reaction, meaning I will probably never test positive and therefore I’m on my own with no help from NHS. I will be thrown into the fybromyalgia wastebasket.
So it’s Dr google for me, and private treatment that I can’t afford.

I can’t blame anyone; I didn’t check for ticks, but I was ignorant of the life changing consequences of a tick bite. Checking for ticks should be drummed into everyone until it is second nature for everyone.
CHECK FOR TICKS ON YOU AND YOUR FAMILY

A couple of weeks ago a MP went public about a tick bite and the treatment and tests she was having, even she was being given the tests incorrectly. What chance have you got?
CHECK FOR TICKS!!

There is a lot of politics with tick borne infections – the NICE guidelines are under review – The NHS doesn’t know how effective the current treatment guidelines are – they have never checked!! They don’t record the number of ‘Lyme’ cases treated without testing either, i.e. those presenting with an obvious rash.

The US recommendations [which most of the rest of the world sort of follow] are also under review due to accusations of vested interests and bias on the panel producing the guidelines.

Some thoughts from the bloke who has just been given the job to sort it all out:
David Davis

This sounds like a great idea. Michael Gove is a genius. Wouldn’t it be a great idea if someone started a group of European countries based on free trade and friendly cooperation. I can’t believe it doesn’t exist already…

You could say they did a while back, it was called the EEC. After a while it went a bit pear shaped, ended up calling itself first the EC, then the EU, got a flag and an anthem, and the people of the UK decided, for better or worse, to get out. 😉

New political class…. Nah.
No respect for the old, unemployed, less well educated workers…… we’ve seen it all before. Thatcher anyone?

Good luck to all immediately affected.
We can only hope things don’t work out as bad as predicted in the short term and the Leave optimism isn’t misplaced.

I do like a balanced view though:
How many individuals lost their jobs or had their conditions worsened by being in the EU?
Jobs shipped to eastern Europe.
Companies setting up in low tax EU country and gaining access to single market driving companies in other countries down.

There has been, and will be, winners and losers either in or out.

Again good luck to everyone. I’m just keeping my head down at the moment.

….. and also in the Tory 2015 manifesto was a commitment to the ‘ambition’ to reduce net migration to the 10’s of thousands.
So once again, any Tory voters shouldn’t be wringing their hands now. 🙂

Should the referendum have been held?

It was in the Tory manifesto at the last election, so yes.

So you can thank our FPTP system, and everyone who voted Tory for this……..
I suspect that there are a few complaining in some of the threads on here who fall into that category 🙂

I still feel that the anger towards the English/Welsh people who voted out is mis-placed.
The Eton/Oxford well educated, not too old, father of children, leader of Remain stated that if he hadn’t got the concessions he negotiated earlier in the year, that he would not have ruled out backing a leave vote.
So if you didn’t think the concessions were up to much, and the well educated not too old leader of Remain thought they were the only difference between in and out, then a less well educated, maybe even old, person could be forgiven for thinking that the decision was marginal and a leave vote was not an unreasonable thing to do, particularly as these balance tipping concessions weren’t guaranteed to be ratified.

A couple of things I can’t get my head around:
1. Immigration seemed to be Leave’s trump card. Why didn’t Remain tackle it head on and explain to people who had genuine [to them], but perhaps misplaced, concerns, that it wasn’t the cause of their issues.
Just seen a couple of people on the news with stories of how they couldn’t get a house, while immigrants got one. Why didn’t the campaigners/local MP’s address these issues in a big and repetitive way. Get the right message across.
All I heard when anyone raised immigration as an issue on Question Time and the like, was the daft line that the NHS can’t manage without immigrants – I didn’t hear anyone saying stop all doctors and nurses coming from overseas.
People, who might have been ‘less educated’ or old, were just called racist, bigoted, ignorant, etc..
We have reaped what we’ve sown.

2. We are all doing the English down on these threads, but I’m reading that the EU leaders are now saying that this is a wake-up call, and they need to change to stop others leaving. Make it more accountable and fair. No more treaties and rules, etc. So it’s not just the English who are thinking this way. Staying in the EU is not seen as a no-brainer in a number of other countries. They want to ‘make an example’ of the UK to dissuade others from trying the same – Doesn’t reek of confidence in your own product.
Let’s go a little easier on the English [and Welsh]?

Anyone tried these insect repellent clothes from Craghoppers. .
Craghopper Nosilife – Insect Repellent Clothes

jakd95 – Member
Anyone got a recommendation of a tick removal tool? Or even better a link? Thanks

Tick Twister[/url]
They might by a £ dearer here, but it helps support a Lyme charity

Can’t stress this enough:

CHECK YOURSELF FOR TICKS ❗

Found a tick embedded in neck day after local walk; through woods, over golf course, and fields grazed by sheep, i.e. not hacking through waist high undergrowth.
A week later had all sorts of strange symptoms – bad guts, zonked out, weird aches and pains. [No rash].
Now halfway through course of antibiotics. Hopefully nothing too sinister, but still getting strange aches and pains.

Inspect yourself after every outing and get yourself a tick removal tool.

This time of year has the highest number of ticks, but they are active and feeding all year round at anything above ~4degC.

I had the RX100mkI, but it got dust on the sensor. Returned to John Lewis for repair, but they lost it. They offered me a refund or replacement, and went for the refund as no matter how good the picture quality was I didn’t want to risk the dust issue again. [Lots of reports on the web]
I eventually bought the Sony A5000 instead, thinking that I could always clean the sensor if dust got in, but even though it has a bigger sensor than the RX100, I was disappointed with the quality compared to the RX100. I assume it is a lens issue – both cameras similar price.
Anyway, that went back, so I’m looking for a camera [up to £300] that has a similar picture quality to RX100 that isn’t prone to dust, or you can clean the sensor.
Any ideas?

How depressing is that – to know that however corrupt and incompetent the EU is, your own government is worse

I don’t fully understand the all the in’s and out of TTIP, and it’s implications, but was reading over weekend that a number of other EU countries have inserted ‘opt outs’ to exempt their health services and other strategic industries from some of the consequences of the TTIP.
Our [UK] wonderful government hasn’t included the NHS in the ‘opt outs’. 😥
The article contrasted this with the Cyprus government exempting their hairdressers from the agreement. 🙂
Cyprus cares more about hairdressers than Tories do about NHS

it almost makes me want to vote leave…

This might clinch it for you….
I do not take my mandate from the European people
It’s making me think about the way I’ll vote…but would we get a different/better deal on our own?

The reason they can’t find out the details legally, is because it’s none of their business.

Have you any proof that that is the reason?

So if the rules were changed here, and tax returns were made public, then the amount of tax everyone pays would suddenly change from being none of anyone else’s business, to being so. Strange logic.

Does that mean that in the Nordic countries, where the information is public, that it is someone’s else’s business?

I think that whether it is anyone else’s business or not is up for debate, but whether it is or isn’t doesn’t rest on whether the information is currently available to the public.

That’s all very nice. But as I said earlier, the contents of my Tax Return are none of your business.

Even to the point that the information is protected by law from you gaining access to it.

How much more proof do you need that it’s none of your business.

No proof has been provided.
The proposition that is someone else’s business and the fact that they cannot legally find out the contents of your tax return are not mutually exclusive.

I think discussing this very point was the intent of the thread.

No. It’s not.

Yes it is.
I get to vote on the people who decide on the rules governing how much tax you pay [assuming you are in the UK]
I could bring to the attention of HMRC any information I had about a person or business avoiding or evading tax. HMRC may decide to do nothing about it, but I’d like to think they wouldn’t say it was none of my business.

They should get whoever built that to rebuild the Edinburgh schools

David Cameron intervened personally to prevent offshore trusts from being dragged into an EU-wide crackdown on tax avoidance, it has emerged.

In a 2013 letter to the then president of the European council, Herman Van Rompuy, the prime minister said that trusts should not automatically be subject to the same transparency requirements as companies.

The EU planned to shine a light on the dealings of offshore bodies by publishing a central register of their ultimate owners but, in a letter unearthed by the Financial Times that remains publicly available on the government’s website, Cameron said: “It is clearly important we recognise the important differences between companies and trusts … This means that the solution for addressing the potential misuse of companies – such as central public registries – may well not be appropriate generally.”

Judith Sargentini, a Dutch MEP who led the European parliament’s work on the draft law, told the Financial Times that the UK’s argument against a crackdown on trusts was that it would be an invasion of privacy – and that trusts have a special role in Britain in helping families manage issues around inheritance.

“I saw it [the British position] as a danger and a possible loophole,” Sargentini

Cameron intervenes to prevent EU making offshore trusts more transparent

There’s more to this than attacking a politician because we don’t like him….

Sums it up for me

In the Guardian today

Sensor cleaning (for the brave / desperate):

😯
I’m not brave enough.

Had a MKI about 6 months. Recently got dust inside that appears on all shots. Dust is towards top of frame………….usually where the expanse of sky appears 🙄
.
Not been anywhere particularly dusty, and keep it in a camera case.
A bit frustrating.
Is this an issue with all compacts?

Just looked at the “Liverpool and Victoria Flexible Transistions Account” and it just appears to be a SIPP.
Can’t you just open your own SIPP at no initial cost and buy some funds?
Interactive Investor and Iweb do fixed annual charge SIPP’s – no percentage charge.

Is the 0.5% management charge on top of the management charges of any funds he puts in your SIPP?

“Aim to keep fees to a minimum” seems to be the mantra of the gurus out there.
Open your own SIPP and buy your own funds/shares/ETF’s/trackers….

IANAFA

Last year a lorry took my wing mirror clean off . Full unit – motor, glass, casing [+ spray painting to match bodywork], plus fitting [main dealer] – came to just over £300. Lorry driver paid up fortunately.

We recently went to the Dee Side Caff – very ‘average’ for a cafe/fast food type place. If it is claiming to be a Bistro, I’d downgrade that to a ‘poor’. Only stayed in Llangollen for 1 night, so didn’t get to try anywhere else.