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My dad got Lyme on the Appalachian Trail five years ago, and still has symptom flare-ups regularly. Lyme has a habit of converting anybody affected by it into an activist, which probably stems from the controversy over diagnosis and treatment of things like chronic Lyme.

Earlier this year I founded TickChek.com, a startup that offers PCR-based laboratory tick testing that can determine whether or not a tick that bit you carries Borrelia (the Lyme disease bacteria) or other tick borne disease vectors with 99.99% accuracy. We've tested hundreds of ticks so far, and most of our customers use our lab results to help decide whether antibiotics or full blood testing is necessary.

Most people aren't aware of tick testing as an option for determining their risk of contracting Lyme, and we're going to be working hard to spread awareness before next year' tick season.




Cool service! Is it possible to have insurance pay for this? Is it hard to send ticks through the mail?


Most insurance companies don't cover tick testing, unfortunately. We've never had any problems sending ticks through the mail though. People usually send 'em in sandwich bags inside normal envelopes, alive or dead.




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