How is Lyme transmitted?

We all know that Lyme is transmitted by ticks and from mother to child during pregnancy.

But I just read an interesting statement that indicates that maybe they aren't the only ways it can be spread:
"Lyme can be transmitted by mosquitoes, fleas, ticks, sex, kissing, and transplacentally." http://www.betterhealthguy.com/conquering-incurable-diseases-conference-2013#sthash.dANelWrx.dpuf

What are your thoughts on this?
I'm new to this whole Lyme thing and it's barely even recognised in Australia, so I don't know much about it.

There is a part of me that wonders if my mum has Lyme and passed it on to my younger brother and I while each of us was in the womb... My mother has had chronic fatigue syndrome, depression (and I think maybe undiagnosed bipolar) for a couple decades now. My younger brother shows symptoms of autism but he doesn't meet the strict diagnostic criteria for it. He also had a lot of behavioural issues, all throughout childhood (understatement!!). I was always a sick kid - even as a baby. Always had pain throughout my body (including really bad "growing pains" that kept me awake at nights), always had headaches, stomach cramps, nausea and sensory processing disorder, always getting pneumonia and bugs and gastro and infections and my body had a hard time fighting these things off, I nearly died a few times. And more... Oh, and my mum developed epilepsy about 10 years ago. Have I mentioned that her short-term memory and mental processing skills are shot to hell, even though she used to be teacher before she got CFS? I remember, even as a kid, being embarrassed so many times by how "dumb" my mother was.

If I turn out to have Lyme (BTW. I'm sick of waiting for my results! Every day I check the mail box and they're not there!!), then I'm going to ask my mother and brother to be tested too.

Actually it makes sense that it could be transmitted via bodily fluids... I mean, it's in our blood, right? I mean, except for when the spirochete are hiding elsewhere in our body...

It makes me glad that I've never been sexually active yet.
I've never donated blood because A) I'm AB+ so my blood isn't particularly in demand, and B) I was always scared that if someone else took my blood, they might become sick like me! Maybe that's true...

Jasmine Grace, it is definitely a good idea for your family to be tested. My husband and brother in law were tested when I found out I had Lyme and both of them ended up having it! I was lucky enough not to pass it on to my children as my doctor monitored me through both pregnancies and breast feeding.

LymePickle, you are absolutely right about people needing to keep an open mind about transmission. It is too wide spread to just be spread by tick bites. Very scary stuff.

To some extent I think most people probably harbor lyme and it just depends on the person on how it manifests itself. Its scary because I think it's going to soon become a much bigger problem then people imagined. I grew up with no idea what lyme even was, played outside all the time and never used bug spray. My husband fainted two years ago at 35 years old for no reason. My son has vague stomach issues. My daughter has red raccoon eyes for no reason. Our friend around the same age has a mystery illness with blurry vision and weight loss and dry heaving. He was told it was stress. I'm going to have my whole family tested..just to be safe

The issue with theorizing that lyme is passed through this many avenues is that it creates hysteria and is not accurate - so it kind of hurts the lyme community in a sense if someone says for certain it was passed this and that way when really there is no evidence.

I don't believe lyme can be passed through tears or saliva. If that were the case, it would be rampant, shared food, every toddler and baby that had it passed down would pass it on to kids in their classes as they have weak immune systems. I'm not saying perhaps a rare occasion could not occur but just highly improbable.

Yes, we all have bacteria/spirochetes in our mouth but blood, sexual fluid transmission is a very different thing and activates very different genetic factors in the bacteria. Most likely, spirochetael ingestion would destroy the bacteria. Also our mucus contains very high rates of phages and other proteins that destroy viruses/bacteria.

We have all have to be cautious about the information we recieve whether it is on HW or somewhere else and use our best judgement. I believe it is equally important not to spread information that is heresay or completely unproven as I believe it can hurt our cause overall.

~beth

Also from tears if you come in contact with one. By the way I think this may have been my only exposure to a tear in my entire life! So you can see it doesn't happen very often.

I like what you mentioned Opugirl about it creating hysteria and making the Lyme community seem infectious. I know in Syphillis days some communities would actually isolate those infected. I don't think it needs to come to that. But I am living proof that it got transmitted by a tear so to me personally that is enough science. I also doubt anyone is going to make plans to do studies on tear transmission. But the studies are now published for sexual transmission.

Any activity with fluid transmission may transmit it is possible. But it is not as infectious as something like the flu or a cold. But it's a good idea to be conscious of it. Even if you have it yourself. So far nobody has caught it from me and I want to keep it that way.