Updated Doom Tick Turns You Into Vegan, Apple Zealot

Posted on | July 1, 2012 | 24 Comments

by Smitty

HotAir’s bug scare is bad, but we can do worse. Far worse:

And if that doesn’t mess you up, there is work on a still newer bug that can turn you into a vegan Apple zealot who drives a Prius.

Category: humor

Comments

24 Responses to “Updated Doom Tick Turns You Into Vegan, Apple Zealot”

Evi L. Bloggerlady
July 1st, 2012 @ 10:57 pm

I do not see the problem with this. Can I order some of these ticks and spread them around?
Wombat_socho
July 1st, 2012 @ 11:17 pm

Mad Cow disease!
Evi L. Bloggerlady
July 2nd, 2012 @ 12:44 am

I don’t mind giving the milk, but the hamburger? Yeah, that gives me pause.
McGehee
July 2nd, 2012 @ 7:29 am

I’ve found lone star ticks crawling on me, but I’ve never found one feeding on me. Other kinds of ticks yes, but not the doom tick.

I think I eat so much beef they can’t stand the taste of me.
Quartermaster
July 2nd, 2012 @ 7:55 am

This is soooooo insensitive. Knowing Zilla’s ailment and here you joke about the vector.
smitty
July 2nd, 2012 @ 8:01 am

Sweet, sweet Political Correctness.
Zilla of the Resistance
July 2nd, 2012 @ 9:45 am

It’s OK, people have actually been sending me emails about this, but I do not appear to be effected by this particular issue, I can still eat meat except for the fact that I am so sick that it is difficult to eat anything at all right now.
So no meat allergy from ticks for me, just advanced late stage Lyme Disease, Ehrlichiosis/Anaplasmosis, Babaesia, a systemic fungal infection, and now (since a few days ago) a really nasty infection in my sinuses, right ear, bad tooth on that same side, and my lungs that makes it hard to breath and has given me a lovely wracking cough, and there is a gland on the right side of my neck swollen to about the size of a softball which makes it really painful to even swallow water, oh and a raging freaking fever that nothing seems to stop and of course the non-stop horrible pain from inside my bones due to my bone marrow having been infected with those nasty pathogens. But if I was able to eat anything, meat would still be on the menu, so nothing to see here.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
July 2nd, 2012 @ 10:47 am

Zilla what are the early signs of Lyme disease and does early treatment work to prevent what you are going through?
Quartermaster
July 2nd, 2012 @ 12:10 pm

My understanding is that, as with most doseases, early discovery and treatment is important and can lead to complete remission if not cure. Too many are not aware of the early symptoms and, unfortunately, not everyone gets the textbook early signs such as the red spot with target rings around the bite site.
Quartermaster
July 2nd, 2012 @ 12:11 pm

More like Ticktical Correctness.

Yeah, yeah, that’s a pretty bad pun, but it’s the best I can do on short notice like this.
Zilla of the Resistance
July 2nd, 2012 @ 12:37 pm

Appropriate and early diagnosis and treatment (usually six weeks of doxycycline, or amoxicillin if one can’t tolerate doxy) is the very best way to help prevent people from getting sick like me. But it is also important that people be aware of the fact that the ticks which carry Lyme disease also can (and usually do) carry other pathogens (these are known as co-infections) some of which are far more dangerous than even the Lyme itself (the borrelia sphirochete which causes Lyme itself has hundreds of different strains although only one of them is tested for at all and the tests are notorious for false negatives) and when present in combination with Lyme these co-infections can be horribly destructive and even fatal (some co-infections, like Babesia, can actually kill people all on their own – and they have caused fatalities), and people need to be evaluated and treated for those other infections as well or the treatment for early Lyme can fail (and you risk ending up like me or even worse). The most obvious sign is the “bullseye” rash, but the rash doesn’t always show up in people who have been infected and it doesn’t always look like a bullseye either. Other early symptoms include feeling like you have the flu and joint pain, but there more early symptoms as well (and unfortunately they can easily be mistaken for other medical problems and many people who get Lyme don’t remember being bitten since the ticks can be so tiny), you can read about them here:

http://lymedisease.org/lyme101/lyme_disease/lyme_symptoms.html

Previous infection does not build immunity to new infections if you get bitten again; I myself have been bitten and infected where I had immediately gotten sick at least 5 times since 1996 and they diagnosed and treated it as early Lyme 4 of those times (the other time they said I had sepsis and I was treated for that instead), I had other bites as well but did not get sick from those, or at least I had not made the connection that it might have anything to do with anything if I “got the flu” a month or two later. Once you have been infected, even with early treatment, some of the borrelia strains have the ability to go dormant in your body so you think you’re cured but then one day, even years later, you get sick again with no new bite. Lyme and other tick diseases are growing at a rate estimated to be ten times faster than that of AIDS, but very little resources are devoted to understanding it and even the best educated on the subject still have not unraveled the complex mysteries of these diseases, and the longer it is in your body the more dangerous it becomes and the harder it is to treat. Once you get sick like me with the late stage advanced forms, it is in all your tissues, your bones and your brain, and it can take many months or even years to get better, there is a likelihood of permanent damage, and 20% of people with the chronic advanced forms of these diseases never ever get better; they are destroyed and sick for the rest of their lives. But although it can kill people (and has killed people) the single greatest cause of death among the afflicted is suicide because they just can no longer tolerate take the physical pain, the loss of function, or the mocking derision from “experts” who make money and gain prestige by denying that sick people are sick and by setting up barriers to their getting proper medical care. The handful of doctors who DO understand that sick people are sick and who are willing to do what they have to do to help them get better literally risk EVERYTHING to try to save their patients lives and their quality of life. I fear that it will become far worse for these doctors and for people who are sick like me under Obamacare, which I wrote about in a huge blog post a few months ago that hardly anybody read. If you have some time and want to understand what’s really going on that has created the situation that I (and hundreds of thousands of other people) am in now, please read it:
http://marezilla.com/2012/04/medical-freedom-lyme-disease-and-obamacare/
Dianna Deeley
July 2nd, 2012 @ 1:52 pm

There is no way in the world I’m clicking “like” after reading that catalog – it makes me feel like a sadist. Well-written, though.
Zilla Bears No Ill Will Toward Me Over The Absurd Tick Post : The Other McCain
July 2nd, 2012 @ 5:33 pm

[…] | No Commentsby SmittyI just got an email from Zilla, who suffers from Lyme disease, concerning the tick post yesterday. In truth, I was struck by the physical similarity of the tick’s abdomen spot to […]
Zilla of the Resistance
July 2nd, 2012 @ 5:53 pm

Thanks. I think the new stuff, the head, neck & chest thing may not be related to my tick cooties though, perhaps it was caused by my stupid bad tooth that they never finished fixing & that infection spread, or maybe my kids gave me some of their kid cooties (they were both normal people sick recently). But hey, at least I ain’t allergic to meat, so I’ve got THAT going for me! 🙂

Smitty was right to make fun of the “ticks make you allergic to meat” hysteria; people have been REALLY FREAKING OUT over this a lot more than they probably should be. I read somewhere that the “I have to go vegan” reaction only happens to like a fraction of a percent of the people who were bitten by the Texas Lone Star tick, and that it’s possible that the reaction may just be coincidental to the tick bite but actually caused by something else. But, of course, since the TV said then it’s a BFD, and it’s time to PANIC!!!!!!
jsn2
July 2nd, 2012 @ 6:21 pm

After reading the comments I googled lyme disease in Texas because of symptoms my wife has been suffering with recently and found this – http://txlda.org/ . It offers some good info and has a trailer of a documentary about Lyme Disease sufferers . Wow. Really eye opening.
Zilla of the Resistance
July 2nd, 2012 @ 7:41 pm

Is the film titled “Under Our Skin”? If so, you can view a free version of it here (it has commercials, which is how it can be free, but you can also order a DVD of the uninterrupted version which has lots of bonus features, I have a link to the film maker’s website in the post):
http://marezilla.com/2012/03/friday-film-under-our-skin-zillathon/
If your wife suspects that she may be afflicted with Lyme or any of the other myriad of tick borne diseases that usually accompany it, please feel free to email me as I have tons of links to reliable sources where she can find good information that can help her and I am happy to share what I have learned thus far. Early treatment is the best way to help prevent ending up like me or the people in that documentary.
Red
July 3rd, 2012 @ 10:43 am

::phew::
Red
July 3rd, 2012 @ 10:53 am

SPOON!
Zilla of the Resistance
July 3rd, 2012 @ 1:26 pm

Best comic book & cartoon EVAH!
jsn2
July 4th, 2012 @ 8:42 am

Yea, that’s the film. Thanks for the link.
We don’t know what her problem is, could be just low resistance since she is highly stressed at the moment.
I’ll pass on your offer for more info.
Thanks
Zilla of the Resistance
July 4th, 2012 @ 9:11 am

Good luck, whatever it turns out to be, I hope she’ll be well again soon.
Medical Nightmare Updates | Zilla of the Resistance at MareZilla.com
July 5th, 2012 @ 11:56 pm

[…] news is that I do not appear to be effected by that “ticks make you allergic to meat (and make you want to buy Apple computer products)” thing that has generated a lot of hysteria in the media, and the other bit of good news is […]
Zilla of the Resistance
July 6th, 2012 @ 12:23 am

Linked here:
http://marezilla.com/2012/07/medical-nightmare-updates/
Hey Man…Help A Sister Out « That Mr. G Guy's Blog
July 6th, 2012 @ 3:59 pm

[…] good news is that I do not appear to be effected by that “ticks make you allergic to meat (and make you want to buy Apple computer products)” thing that has generated a lot of hysteria in the media, and the other bit of good news is that […]