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LA Edwards

TIC-Kit To Identify Lyme Disease and Co-Infections

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TICKITTIC-Kit Tick Removal and Pre-paid Testing

While at least a few states have now passed bills that allow doctors to treat patients with antibiotics for longer than 30 days if needed.  If you live in a tick endemic areas such as the Northeast including New England states of the US, Southwestern US from Florida to Texas, the Upper Mid-West, the Pacific Northwest, California, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. If you live in Canada, the Providences, which border these regions in the US, especially if you have pets.

The TIC-Kit is a great kit that you can use and should have with you especially when living in a tick area and love the outdoors. This will provide you with everything you need to remove a tick except gloves (always carry an extra pair of Nitril gloves in the car or your pack if you are biking or hiking). This TIC-Kit is a new means for testing the tick inexpensively and will test not only for Lyme disease but the four most common pathogens associated with Lyme Disease. The costs $40, which is a bargain because even I-Genix charges $58 per sample. The TIC-Kit is so reliable, my LLND and her staff use these kits. They are also sold in my LLNDs  clinic sell them and recommends them to their patients. They are easy to use with instructions for removing the tick you found. For those who spend a lot of time outside and are in areas of the US endemic with ticks, tick removal and preservation kits are now available. You can carry these kits with you in your car or backpack. The awesome thing about the TIC-Kit is all you have to is follow the instructions on the box.  I can trust these as my doctor and family use them. The kits test for the following:

  • Borrelia species – Borrelia burgdorferi is the common bacterial species causing Lyme disease. It is mostly found in North America, but also exists in Europe. B. burgdorferi was the first microbe shown to cause Lyme disease, displaying the classical Lyme symptoms as the bull’s eye rash. Since then, other sub-strains of Borrelia (B. afzelii, B.garinii, B. sensu stricto) have been identified in the US to cause Lyme disease symptoms. These are also tested in TIC-KIT.
  • Bartonella species: Bartonella microbes are transmitted by insects such as ticks, fleas, sand flies, and mosquitoes. B. henselae and B. quintana, the most common ones are included in TIC-KIT.
  • Ehrlichia species:  Ehrlichia (sometimes called anaplasma) is a genus of rickettsiales bacteria spread by ticks. Several species can cause an infection in humans known as ehrlichiosis. The disease can be mild or life-threatening in severely ill patients with low white blood cell count, low platelet count, anemia, elevated liver enzymes, kidney failure and respiratory insufficiency. Older people or people with suppressed immune systems are more likely to be hospitalized. Deaths occurring from Ehrlichiosis have been reported by the CDC. The most common strains causing Ehrlichiosis tested in the TIC-KIT; Ehrlichiosis – Ehrlichia chaffeensi, E. ewengii, and Anaplasma phagocytophilum.
  • Babesia species:  Babesia is a parasite of the blood that causes hemolytic (destruction of red blood cell membranes) disease known as babesiosis. The parasite is sometimes associated with Lyme disease. Over 100 species of Babesia have been identified, but only those tested with TIC-KIT (B. microti, B. divergens and the European form Babesia spp. EU) have been documented as harmful in humans.

I have Lyme Disease –Borrelia burgdorferi, but I have also been tested positive for Babesia and Bartonella plus several other infections that commonly present with a compromised immune system. I will be talking more about me, my journey, and the roller coaster ride which many with Lyme disease will experience for the rest of their life, or until a cure is found.