Spring is a feast of opportunity in the outdoors, a time to hike and camp, garden, fish local streams and farms ponds, and hunt wild turkeys in greening woods and fields.
But it’s also a time when ticks, insidious arachnids, emerge from grass and leaf litter, to feed on warm-blooded creatures.
The modus operandi of ticks is what makes them so creepy, literally, since they hitch a ride on a human, a dog, livestock, or wildlife species, and crawl around until they find a place to begin sucking blood. Usually it’s where a capillary is close to the surface of the skin.
A walk through the woods, tall grass and weeds, or brushing up against low-hanging tree limbs is all it takes to encounter ticks. The first warm days of spring bring them out, but in Kentucky, tick numbers are at their peak by late April or early May.
Ticks are external parasites found most often on mammals, such as mice, rabbits, white-tailed deer and groundhogs, and some species of birds. Ticks thrive in warm, humid climates, and are most abundant where there is a high population density of host species, particularly deer.
Ticks have a two-year life cycle. They require a blood meal to progress to each successive stage in their life cycle — larva, nymph and adult. Ticks hatch from an egg, go through all three stages in their life cycle, reproduce and then die.
Tick-Borne Diseases
Tick bites aren’t just itchy and bothersome. Ticks can transmit a number of debilitating or potentially-deadly diseases, most notable are Lyme, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Ehrlichiosis.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that ticks found in the U.S. can cause 14 different diseases in humans. Here’s a link to the list of the diseases and the ticks most responsible.
Lyme Disease
Lyme disease has been written about and studied more than any other tick-borne disease because of the increasing number of cases and the horrible suffering the disease causes.
Lyme disease is caused by a corkscrew-shaped bacterium, the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, and comes with an array of symptoms that are a lot like the flu, including fatigue, headache, fever, loss of appetite, abdominal distress, stiffness or joint pain, and swollen glands.
Patients are often misdiagnosed since Lyme symptoms can mimic over 350 other diseases, including fibromyalgia, meningitis, encephalitis, lupus, and chronic fatigue syndrome. About half the time the person infected develops a red bullseye-shaped ring or red rash where the tick was attached.
Lyme disease is not fatal but its impact can be long term. As the disease progresses, it becomes more difficult to manage and cure, as the spirochete moves through the bloodstream to the body’s vital organs. Persons who contracted Lyme disease, but were not properly treated, may have lingering symptoms for years. Chronic, long term cases can ultimately cause heart and neurological disorders, or arthritis.
The tick that most often transmits Lyme disease is the Black-legged, or Deer Tick (Ixodes scapularis). There are five subspecies and over 100 strains of this tick in the U.S. This diversity is thought to contribute to its ability to evade being detected and attacked by the patient’s immune system or killed through antibiotic therapy.
The Lone Star Tick and the Dog Tick are the most common ticks in Kentucky, according to information posted on the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Entomology website. Neither tick is believed to transmit Lyme disease.
Top 10 States for Confirmed Cases of Lyme Disease
The number of cases of Lyme disease reported annually has increased nearly 25-fold since national surveillance began in 1982. Kentucky is way down the list, but cases have nearly doubled in the last decade, from 15 cases of Lyme disease in 2004 to 23 probable cases in 2013, according to CDC data.
Some cases in Kentucky can be traced to tick bites that occurred while persons were visiting states where Lyme disease is endemic, while in other reported cases in Kentucky, the victim never left the state. One explanation is that infected ticks may have traveled to Kentucky somehow, perhaps on migrating birds or other wildlife.
About 95 percent of all diagnosed cases of Lyme disease in the US occur in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Upper Midwestern states.
In 2013, the top 10 states for confirmed cases of Lyme disease, according to the CDC were: Pennsylvania, 4,981, Massachusetts, 3,816, New York, 3,512, New Jersey, 2,785, Connecticut, 2,111, Wisconsin, 1,447, Minnesota, 1,431, New Hampshire, 1,324, Maine, 1,127 and Virginia, 925.
Patient Advocacy
The Kentuckiana Lyme Disease Support Group, which meets the third Thursday every month in Louisville at the Hurstbourne Christian Church, urges anyone who has had a tick bite and developed Lyme symptoms to be pro-active. The group has many members who have personally experienced the disease and know how frustrating finding proper treatment can be.
Some of the advice on their website includes: learn the facts about Lyme disease and be your own patient advocate, be suspicious of any rash associated with a tick bite, if it means traveling out of state, see a doctor familiar with treating Lyme disease, and continue antibiotic treatment until all symptoms go away or your case will become chronic. Click here to view the group’s website.
Testing and Diagnosis
There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that there are deficiencies in the current test for Lyme Disease, and false results further complicate diagnosis and treatment.
In August, 2013, the CDC announced that Lyme disease is 10 times more prevalent than previously thought, and there are an estimated 300,000 new cases each year.
“Based on the findings from three ongoing studies, we know that routine surveillance only gives us part of the picture, and that the true number of illnesses is much greater,” said Paul Mead, chief of epidemiology and surveillance for CDC’s Lyme disease program. “This new preliminary estimate confirms that Lyme disease is a tremendous public health problem in the United States, and clearly highlights the urgent need for prevention.”
Only about 30,000 cases of Lyme Disease are reported to the CDC annually.
A clearinghouse for the latest news and information on the disease is the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS), a nonprofit, multi-disciplinary medical group based in Bethesda, MD.
With members in 11 countries, ILADS is dedicated to the diagnosis and appropriate treatment of Lyme and its associated diseases, promoting research and education, and strongly supporting physicians and other health care professionals dedicated to advancing a standard of care. Visit their website here.
Tick Bite Prevention
It is recommended that anyone being outdoors in rural areas protect themselves from tick bites by using insect repellents, such as deet or permethrin. Wear long-sleeved shirts and pants, and check thoroughly for ticks after spending time in the woods and fields.
A tick that is attached and feeding, is often hard to detect without close inspection. When feeding, ticks secrete an enzyme that thins the host’s blood, allowing the spirochete to quickly and easily enter the host’s bloodstream. The enzyme also dulls the pain at the point of the bite.
When on a human, ticks tend to gravitate towards the waist, torso, neck or head, especially along the hairline. Avoid folk remedies for removing ticks. The best way to remove an attached tick is with tweezers.
Grasp the tick just behind the point of attachment and pull slowly and steadily until the tick is dislodged. Do not jerk or twist the tick or you may break off its head, leaving mouth parts still attached. Don’t squeeze the tick’s abdomen because that will cause the tick to regurgitate it’s stomach contents into the wound. Wash the bite area, apply antiseptic and cover with a band-aid.
If you protect your dog from ticks, you’re protecting your family, too. This is because family pets, and hunting dogs with house privileges, can bring ticks indoors, onto carpets and bedding. For information on Frontline Plus for dogs and cats visit their website here.
Tick bites are potentially dangerous. Safeguard your family and pets this spring, as the outdoor season begins.
Art Lander Jr. is outdoors editor for KyForward. He is a native Kentuckian, a graduate of Western Kentucky University and a life-long hunter, angler, gardener and nature enthusiast. He has worked as a newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and author and is a former staff writer for Kentucky Afield Magazine, editor of the annual Kentucky Hunting & Trapping Guide and Kentucky Spring Hunting Guide, and co-writer of the Kentucky Afield Outdoors newspaper column.