With summer just around the bend, we think it’s appropriate that May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month. It’s the perfect time of year to discuss the increase in disease-carrying ticks! These ticks raise outdoor enthusiasts’ risk of contracting Lyme disease exponentially. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at Lyme disease and how you can protect yourself in the outdoors.
Symptoms
Lyme disease is the result of infection by the bacteria Borrelia, which is transmitted primarily by ticks and lice. Symptoms are generally mild at first, beginning with a rash that can sometimes manifest a bullseye pattern. The rash only affects 25-50 percent of people who have been infected.
Following the rash, the next symptoms increase slightly in intensity. The symptoms include headache, fever, and fatigue being the most commonly reported. Untreated infections can then lead to facial palsy, neck stiffness, joint pain, severe headache, and even heart palpitations. Shooting pains, tingling, memory problems, joint swelling and pain, and recurrent fatigue can all be persistent symptoms of untreated Lyme disease.
The tricky thing with Lyme disease infection is that a specific time frame is required for transmission to take place. In order for the bacteria to take hold in the body, the tick bearing it must be latched to the skin for 36-48 hours. You may be thinking, “That’s quite a long time to not notice a tick on your body,” but if you were camping or backpacking and didn’t do a thorough daily body wash, a tick could easily go unnoticed in a few warm, dark areas.
Symptoms of Lyme Disease can manifest anywhere from three days to three months later. This makes it even more difficult to get the treatment necessary to stop it in its tracks. Rashes can develop in areas far away from the initial bite, further confusing diagnosis. Left entirely untreated, chronic symptoms affecting major organs can appear, including nerves, heart, eyes, and brain.
Treatment
Treatment is administered by way of a two to three week course of antibiotics as soon as the tick is removed, or when a rash appears, if there was no tick discovery. Even with proper treatment, victims can suffer joint pain, memory problems, and fatigue for up to six months.
Causes
The common deer tick, a hard-bodied tick of the Ioxodes genus. Areas with large deer populations, such as the northeastern corner of the US, experience a predictable increase in ticks as well — but not every tick is infected. Interestingly, the ticks don’t even acquire the Borrelia bacteria from the deer, picking up microbes from small mammals and birds instead. However, deer offer a much larger surface area from which to feed and much broader distribution. As deer populations increase, so do the ticks…and so it goes in the opposite direction as well.
Lyme disease is a serious illness, but prevention is possible. Applying a DEET repellent is highly effective at keeping ticks off your body, harmful chemicals aside. Survivalists and avid outdoorsmen swear by wearing pantyhose underneath pants, as ticks need skin to latch on. You can also tuck your pants into your socks when traversing areas that are known to harbor ticks. Make sure your skin is covered wherever possible when you know you’re in their habitat.
Once you get home from your outdoor adventure, use a lint roller over your clothes to catch any critters that may have caught a ride back to your place. Inspect pet’s full bodies before letting the inside to ensure no stowaways are lurking. When it comes to ticks and Lyme disease, a little prevention is worth the hassle!
Related article: How to Safely Remove a Tick
Featured Image from Victor Grabarczyk/Unsplash
