Tick Diseases

[wildewillie89]

Rickettsia is the most common tick disease that is warned by Mahidol University scholars to be a danger to humans in Thai (up to 24% of dogs in some villages are infected), but also there are suspected rises of Babesia (many believe that many Malaria diagnoses are actually Babesia). Infectious, cancer and rheumatiod specialists at the bigger hospitals will also tell you Lyme disease is in Thailand (also Australian doctors), but your G.P will not as their is no 'official' cases. Symptoms of tick diseases obviously mimic cancer and auto-immune diseases, hence why these specialists know.

 

I not long ago went through 2 months (continuing with post-infection syndromes) with a hard case of Rickettsia. Seizures, fevers, sweats, body pain, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, difficulty breathing, enlarged liver and spleen etc. Many G.Ps refused to accept tick diseases (even though I had exposure and the persons dog blood tested positive) as  a cause so treatment was initially delayed (with diagnoses such as pneumonia, possible auto-immune diseases, even the rare disease Adult Onset Still). It wasn't until my symptoms got much more severe (seizures, changes in bloods), I went to the infection specialists in Khon Kaen and had to spend a week in hospital doing every test under the sun that they thought it was a tick disease. With the anit-biotic treatment my CRP, white blood cells (monocytes), LDH, liver function tests started to return to normal, although ESR still remained high. 

 

You do not need to travel/live in jungle areas to contract these diseases. I live in Issan in a city. So make sure your animals use Bravecto (the only drug that seems to work in Thai), and you keep an eye out on your families and shut your gates to keep other dogs out.