[knuthom]

"ticks are the most dangerous animals in Missouri"

My husband recently had Ehrlichiosis. I had never even heard of it before. It is caused by a tick-borne bacterium. I haven't seen him that sick in 30 years. His white cell count was so low they were afraid to put him in the hospital (where all the nasty germs are).

[mombyprofession]

We have a good friend who went on vacation in Tennessee, and while she was there got a bug bite on her leg. She didn’t think anything of it and returned to Michigan. 18 months later, after doctors had been baffled, they finally figured out what it was. She had stage 4 Lyme disease and was sleeping 23 hours a day and taking heavy prescription drugs to deal with the pain and everything else. They put her on very strong IV antibiotics. It took over 10 years for her to get the meds right and to make a complete recovery. It’s very, very nasty stuff.

[vetvetdoug]

Veterinarians have been treating dogs with Ehrlichiosis since the late 1960’s. Ironically, a veterinarian helped a physician that was seeing patients with the human form and assisted the physicians diagnose the first cases in Cookeville, Tennessee in 1995. Before then, the disease was undiagnosed and nonexistent in the physicians book...It was called acute pulmonary distress and now they know the distress is from a panleukopenia with a severe thrombocytopenia.

I'd bet there are still several more diseases to be diagnosed that find ticks as the vector. Lyme, Oklahoma Tick fever, RMSP, Ehrlichiosis, and who knows what....